Kat Vellos shares with us why we need meaningful friendship, what we can do to design better ones, and how to safely navigate uncharted conversational waters. Highlights include: How did a conversation with a stranger change your life? How do you ‘crack open the door’ to a more meaningful friendship? What role does company culture play in enabling meaningful connection? Should we have clear boundaries between our work life and home life? Why are we getting lonelier when we have so many tools to connect? ====== Who is Kat Vellos? Kat is the Principal of Studio KV, the vehicle through which she speaks, coaches and facilitates experiences that help people to create better workplace cultures and to cultivate more meaningful connections with each other. As the author and illustrator of "We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships", a book that builds on Kat’s extensive experience as a community organiser and workshop facilitator - she certainly knows a thing or two about cultivating connection! Before starting Studio KV in early 2020, Kat was a Senior Product Designer at Slack, where she worked in a fast-moving experiment-driven growth team that was making it easier for customers to convert from free to paid plans. Kat has been profiled in Forbes and quoted in Fast Company for her work as the Founder and previous Community Leader of Bay Area Black Designers, a professional development community for Black digital designers and UX researchers. ====== Find Kat here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katvellos/Website: https://www.katvellos.com/ Blog, Community & Resource: https://weshouldgettogether.com/ Kat’s book: We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships -https://geni.us/A8zyt1 ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/