Please join us for a fun-filled evening with Patricia Colley, UX extraordinaire, and improv/gaming doyenne. Here's what she's got in store for us...

Fun and games with a purpose

The damp chill of winter may be upon us, but why hibernate in a cave when you can come out for a night of impromptu creativity games? Brought to you by Patricia Colley, problem-solver, disruptive collaborator, game-master and improviser extraordinaire!

UX types are very clever, and we're great at thinking problems through, but sometimes our intellect hits a wall, and we need a creative jolt. To make imaginative leaps, we have to calm the inner critic, focus on the moment, and step intuitively into the unknown. Getting your whole brain and body engaged in the here & now of creative flow - that's where the magic happens.

How do we do that? Let's find out together!

We'll do some group exercises to shake out the cobwebs and get your juices going. We'll be up on our feet and doing stuff about half the time, talking and moving and maybe a little drawing, too. We'll tell stories and reflect in between. We'll share ideas on how to keep creativity going in practice, when time is short, inspiration is low, and pressure is high. We may even learn a little something about collaboration along the way.

You'll come out of it re-energized, or your money back!

IxDA Portland is proud to host Mike Monteiro, in town to fundraise & rouse the weary with his latest call to arms: How To Fight Fascism. Doors open at 6pm for drinks, snacks, catching-up with friends, and checking-out Wacom's swanky new "Experience Center" in the Pearl District. Mike's talk will begin at 7pm and span ~45min, with time after for inspired rabble-rousing.

——— All design is political, because all politics are designed. The world is a mess because a certain set of people designed it to be a mess. Now we need a different set of people to design our way out of it. This is not a choice. Regardless of whether this is what we wanted or not fascism is knocking on our front door. This is how we knock back. This event is doubling as a fundraiser for The Trevor Project, Planned Parenthood, and ACLU of Oregon, with IxDA getting the refreshments, so... LET'S DO THIS PORTLAND!!!

Mike Monteiro is the co-founder and design director of Mule Design in San Francisco. He prefers elegant, simple sites with clear language that serve a real need. He prefers that designers have strong spines. Mike writes and speaks frequently about the craft and business of design. He loves client services so much he wrote two books on the topic, Design is a Job and You’re My Favorite Client, both from A Book Apart. Mike received the 2014 Net Award for Conference Talk of the Year for his inspirational polemic on responsibility, How Designers Destroyed the World.