Hustle: What's Your Mission? (with Dan Mall)

The Funsize Show

Dan Mall lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the CEO of Superfriendly, a design collaborative that seeks to connect talented and passionate people with design and development projects all around the globe. Since 2012, he and his company have worked with companies like: Google, Apple New York Times, Carnegie Mellon, About.com, Oreilly, TechCrunch, Entertainment Weekly and many more to produce delightful products and user experiences.

Before Superfriendly, Dan was at Big Spaceship, Happy Cog and a Technical Editor at A List Apart. Dan is dedicated to elevating our industry and training designers.

Right now, Dan is pushing the needle in the way large organizations connect with their users and their devices. From Insurance transparency to understandable and usable weather data to diminishing the barrier to a new career, Superfriendly and Dan Mall are working to widen the perspective of what design means to real people and how real people can impact the future of design.

"I think that my mission,
at least when it comes to work, is connecting people to opportunities,
they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I feel like that’s the thing I’m
good at and that’s the thing I can do for people and so that’s kind of
what’s been on my mind lately."

Dan has a unique perspective on the design community and the industry as a whole and has made it his personal mission to make a difference to improve: diversity in technology, mentorship career transitions and the overall training and building of design team to name a few. As a personal belief, Dan created the Superfriendly Academy to create an apprenticeship program that helps people in the process of making a career transition. He works to not only provide the opportunity for someone to gain a new career skill but the professionalism that goes along with that skill for that person to greatly succeed.

On this episode we discuss:

• The concept and success of a non-traditional design collaborative, Superfriendly.
• Superbooked and how this product could help him and users like you maintain your professional network.
• The idea of the human connection and that working together is a good way to get to know each other better.
• How finding the right project for the right person can produce great results.
• The lack of diversity in the tech industry.
• The Superfriendly Academy and their apprenticeship program.
• The differences between and apprenticeship and an internship.
• Career transitions and the value of mentorship.
• The success story of Greg the apprentice.

Follow Dan here:
@danmall
www.superfriend.ly

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