Speaking
Sharing what you know helps you to learn. I’ve had the good fortune of sharing curiosity at conferences (IA Conference, World IA Day, TEDx) and universities (University of North Texas, UT Dallas, and Southern Methodist University) as well as in podcasts.
Favorite Talks
Stand-out talks that best explain curiosity.
Designing Curiosity: Ways of Unknowing · World IA Day
Open on YouTube →
The Exformation Architect: Design for Curious Minds · the ia conference
Open on Vimeo →
Curiosity is an Invitation · TEDxUNT
Open on YouTube →
What attendees say
Raw, unsolicited feedback culled from the Twitter-verse.
“The keynote @cassininazir just dropped at #IAC20 is so thoughtful and brain melting in all the right ways. Thank you Cassini, I gave you a standing ovation from my living room this morning.”
— Abby Covert · April 24, 2020
“If you’ve not heard @cassininazir’s keynote video for World Information Architecture Day I am so excited for you!! It’s gonna make your head spin in all the right ways #WIAD21”
— Dan Klyn · Feb. 27, 2021
“@cassininazir is a local treasure in Dallas. He’s a true educator and illuminator. It’s a treat to know him as well. This keynote exemplifies that.”
— Adam Polansky · April 25, 2020
“”design curiosity”
“exformation”
“bisociation”
“double-loop learning”
“33 (or 34?) senses”
interactive exercises
a quote from Winnie the Pooh
references to Wile E. Coyote
…not to mention incredible production value!”
— Stephen P. Anderson · April 24
“What an enlightening morning! New tools of creative understanding, I can implement in my process. Thank you @cassininazir”
— Kelly Park · Sept. 22, 2018
“If you’ve never seen a presentation by @cassininazir check out his 2020 @theiaconf keynote, Architecting Exformation. It’s fascinating, beautiful, curious; not a talk you’d want to miss!”
— Peter Morville · Feb. 16, 2021
“#IAC20 @cassininazir is one of those speakers whose deep thinking and thoughtful words will take root in your thoughts and deepen your roots. Can’t wait for @theiaconf!!!”
— Alesha Arp · Dec. 12, 2019
“And yet again, there is no way to live-tweet the brilliance of @cassininazir’s presentations. When he posts his slides, go get them.”
— Karen Bachmann · April 24, 2020
“I just caught the second @theiaconf keynote from @cassininazir I know it’s a talk that I’ll revisit multiple times. So much fresh inspiration for sense makers to see things anew. I’m so glad we get to share it online. #iac20”
— Dan Ramsden · April 24, 2020
“Big thank you to @cassininazir for teaching my team the power of reflection to help us make better choices as designers @intuit”
— James Helms · Dec. 8, 2017
Behind-the-Scenes
A peek at how talks, workshops and other materials come to be.
Paper assembly of eight-sided dice used in workshops for Question Tennis. The act of making is an important part of understanding the intricate and sometimes complex processes that form a seemingly simple object. As Richard Sennett once noted, you can’t understand how wine is made simply by drinking lots of it.
Rough storyboard (March 2020) for my Information Architecture keynote. Ironically, this storyboard contains a great deal of exformation, information that was explicitly discarded from the talk. For example, a short contrast between feedback and feedforward systems (top right) was discarded from the final talk.
I use the animating shape (in the header of this website) of a triangle turning into a circle turning into a square as a metaphor for curiosity. Each appears to be three separate shapes. Curiosity allows us to put seemingly disparate things together.
I created an early prototype of that animating shape using simple construction paper. Turning the shape reveals a circle, a square and an implied triangle. This shape plays an important part in workshops to explain the nature of curiosity.
First draft of workshop materials for my curiosity, everywhere workshop.