Moving UX into a position of corporate influence: Whose advice really works?

I'll be leading an "interactive session" at CHI 2007 entitled, "Moving UX into a Position of Corporate Influence: Whose Advice Really Works?" Here is the abstract:

"Professionals working to move user experience (UX) into a position of corporate influence are impeded by conflicting recommendations, including those regarding the roles of documenting and evangelizing UX work, ownership of UX, organizational positioning, calculating return on investment, and conducting "ethnographic" research. In this interactive session, a group of senior UX management personnel who have moved UX into positions of rapidly increasing influence in their varied places of work debate their different perspectives and approaches to help resolve the conflicting recommendations and generate some new and improved guidance."

A four-page description of this session will be published and will become available in ACM's digital library. However, I've prepared a longer version of the description for you to download.

During recent weeks, I've posted blog entries that provide even more information about the focus of the session:

15 Feb 07: Documenting and evangelizing user experience work

24 Jan 07: Ownership of the user-customer experience

01 Feb 07: Does it matter where User Experience is positioned in your corporate structure?

13 Mar 07 Calculating return on investment

5 Apr 07 Conducting "ethnographic" research

And I recently activated the ability to comment on those postings to invite you to share your stories about your experiences. For example, the first comment to the last posting referenced above is from me and says:

"What has been your experience where you work? Has conducting 'ethnographic' research played a role in moving user experience into a position of corporate influence, or has it not played such a role? If it hasn't, could it? If it has, what role has it played?"

If you'd prefer, feel free to share information about your experiences just with me via email.

The experiences that will receive the greatest attention during the CHI conference session will be those of the following people:

• Jeremy Ashley, Vice President of Applications User Experience, Oracle
• Tobias Herrmann, Head of Team User Experience, mobilkom austria (represented by Manfred Tscheligi, Managing Director of USECON, Wien Austria)
• Justin Miller, Senior Director of Product for Europe, eBay
• Jim Nieters, Senior Manager User Experience Design, Cisco
• Shauna Sampson Eves, Director of User Experience, Blue Shield of California
• Secil Tabli Watson, Senior Vice President Internet Channel Strategy, Wells Fargo

(And I'll contribute a couple of my own stories as well.)

Watch this blog for additional information on the (topic of the) session, but if you are attending CHI 2007, I hope you'll join us Tuesday, 1 May, 14:30-16:00 in the San Jose Convention Center's Civic Auditorium.