Design Groups Sydney

SydDT #132: State of the Design Nation with Ben Crothers & Min Kong

We’re lucky to have Ben Crothers and Min Kong sharing their reflections as a couple of the judges for the 2026 Good Design Awards. This has been a SydDT tradition since 2018 and a time to reflect on the state of the design nation… full of interesting observations, insights, and trends. [Good Design Australia](https://good-design.org/) has a proud history that dates back to 1958 and they’re passionately committed to recognising, rewarding, and promoting the importance of design to business, industry, government and the general public… and the critical role it plays in creating a better, safer, and a more sustainable and prosperous future. Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design thinking community. New members are welcome! **SPEAKERS** **[Ben Crothers](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencrothers/)** **Principal Facilitator, [Bright Pilots](https://brightpilots.com/). Good Design Ambassador** Ben has been a designer since before Netscape ruled the www, and is currently a facilitator and design strategist at Bright Pilots (his online training and facilitation business), where he teaches teams of all sorts about design and facilitation methods, running strategic workshops, and generally helping teams get un-stuck. Previous to Bright Pilots, Ben was Principal Designer at Atlassian, a Design Director at Second Road (a strategic innovation consultancy), plus some assorted startups, agencies, and government departments. Above all, Ben wants everyone to be just as good at the whiteboard as they are at the keyboard, to be better at thinking, communicating, and solving problems together visually. He’s the author of a few books, including Presto Sketching: Simple Drawing for Brilliant Product Thinking and Design. **[Min Kong](https://www.linkedin.com/in/minkong/)** **Associate Design Director, [Caon Design Office](https://caondesignoffice.com/). Good Design Ambassador** Min is a strategic designer with nearly two decades of experience shaping physical products, services, and environments across aviation, transport infrastructure, healthcare and consumer sectors. Her approach brings together strategic thinking, experience design, and industrial design expertise to uncover opportunities for innovation and improvement and translate complex business and customer needs into high-quality, tangible experiences with real-world impact. At Caon Design Office, Min currently leads customer experience design across major Qantas Airways aircraft programs, including the flagship Project Sunrise A350 fleet. Min’s work has been recognised through multiple design awards, including the Australian Good Design Awards and Red Dot Design Award. An active member of the design community, Min taught industrial design at UNSW for over a decade and has served on multiple design award juries. **EVENT SPONSORS** This event is brought to you by [Thoughtworks](https://www.thoughtworks.com/), [Shapeshifters](https://www.shapeshifterscreative.com.au/), [Bright Pilots](https://brightpilots.com/), and [Dynamic4](https://dynamic4.com/). We take photos and record our events for documentation and promo purposes. Just let us know if you prefer not to be featured.

Data Driven or Data Distracted!

Our CCX Sydney October event features a very lively and topical panel discussion entitled Data Driven or Data Distracted We will be applying a $10.00 cover charge to cover Food and drinks and on this occasion will be kindly hosted by the ONSET https://theonset.com.au The Onset is a specialist recruitment business deeply connected to Australia’s design and technology ecosystem. They work with ambitious companies, brilliant industry experts and a wider group of specialists across data, AI, design and transformation through The Omnia Collective. About the session **How Product, Design & Engineering actually use evidence to make decisions** How much data do we really need to make better product decisions? And when does being “data-driven” start getting in the way of good product thinking? For this CCX Sydney session, we’re bringing together four practitioners from different corners of the product ecosystem — analytics, strategy and service design, UX/CX, and engineering — to explore the role data and evidence actually play in product development and delivery. Each speaker will have **15 minutes to make their own case** for — or against — being **DATA-DRIVEN OR DATA-DISTRACTED**. Rather than presenting a single view, they’ll challenge us to look at how research, analytics, customer insight, AI, product requirements engineering and data can influence the decisions we make — from defining the problem and creating the PRD through to designing, building and releasing the product. Our speakers bring four very different perspectives: **Olga Pasikova\, Senior Analytics Director; Rob Tot\, Strategy & Service Design Lead; Thomas Shillingford\, UX \| CX \| Strategy \| AI and Author; and David Berigny\, Forward Deployed Engineer\.** Each panel member will bring their own experience, provocations and examples to the question: **when does data help us make better decisions — and when does it simply give us more information to react to?** Then we turn up the heat. Following the four presentations, **Sophie Greenfield, Senior Product & AI Designer at CBA**, will lead a lively panel discussion, bringing the speakers together to challenge each other's perspectives and explore the tensions between data, evidence, intuition, customer understanding and design judgement. Because being data-driven sounds simple. **Knowing what data to trust, what it actually means, and when to ignore it is where things get interesting.** **About our Panel:** ### Olga Pasikova **Senior Analytics Director** Olga Pasikova is a Senior Analytics Director and experienced digital analytics specialist with more than a decade working across data, analytics and digital measurement. She brings a strong ability to translate complex analytics challenges into clear strategic direction, helping teams use data to understand behaviour, measure outcomes and make better-informed decisions. Olga is also an active member of Sydney’s data and analytics community. ### Rob Tot **Strategy & Service Design Lead** Rob Tot is a Strategy and Service Design Lead who works at the intersection of customer needs, business strategy and service innovation. His work brings together strategic thinking and human-centred design to help organisations navigate complex problems, uncover opportunities and turn insight into meaningful product and service outcomes. ### Thomas Shillingford **UX \| CX \| Strategy \| AI \| Author** Thomas Shillingford is a UX and CX strategist, designer, author and speaker with extensive experience across digital products and customer experiences. His career has included work spanning research, customer journeys, interaction design, usability, design strategy and large-scale digital transformation. More recently, Thomas has been exploring the impact of AI on design practice, including how AI is changing design systems, strategy and the role of human judgement. ### David Berigny **Forward Deployed Engineer** David Berigny is a Forward Deployed Engineer working at the intersection of technology, product development and real-world customer problems. His role brings engineering directly into the product development process — translating customer and business needs into practical technical solutions, testing ideas in the field and using evidence from real-world implementation to inform what gets built and how it evolves. ### Sophie Greenfield FACILITATOR **Senior Product Designer & Facilitator** Sophie Greenfield is a Senior Product Designer at Commonwealth Bank with more than 20 years’ experience across UX, product design, research and digital strategy. Her career has spanned product strategy, customer research and experience design across organisations including CommBank, Westpac and ING Direct. Sophie has a particular interest in the intersection of **data, customer insight, product strategy and AI-enabled design**. She has been exploring and teaching AI-enabled design practices, from research synthesis and hypothesis validation to rapid prototyping and new ways of working for designers. For **DATA-DRIVEN OR DATA-DISTRACTED?**, Sophie will facilitate the conversation between our four speakers, challenging their perspectives and helping unpack the bigger question: **when does evidence genuinely improve product decisions — and when can data become a distraction from understanding the customer?** We are so excited to be wrapping up the year with this awesome panel discussion hosted by new friends of CCX Sydney, the ONSET. [https://theonset.com.au/](https://theonset.com.au/) Lastly make sure you Join us for sponsored drinks post the event at a nearby bar more details to follow. Regards Kevin, Lydia, Sylvia, James and Carolina.

Networking Drinks #33

Christmas is just around the corner! Come join us once again at **The Art Syndicate**, a unique wine bar and gallery nestled in Surry Hills for a relaxed evening blending local drinks and meaningful conversations. **Event info:** ✅ Discover amazing NSW wine, beer and spirits. ✅ Expand your network of designers & make connections that last. ✅ No formal talks or speeches *Check out my reviews on this page to see what others are saying!* **Venue information:**
 You'll find us at this art gallery & wine bar in Surry Hills. They exclusively offer a curated selection of NSW-based wine, beer and spirits! There is even art for sale! **Check them out on socials:** https://www.instagram.com/theartsyndicate.com.au/ **How to find us:**
 We are on Bourke Street, a short walk from Oxford Street or Central Station. **Join our What'sApp group:**
 You'll find this link in the "Event Chat" section of this page :D Cheers, Josh

baat cheet aur ek pyaali chai - Sat 24th

baat cheet aur ek pyaali chai :)

Vibrant Colours and Man Made Structures

BFF - Tender Loving Care (2026) + Dinner/Drink afterwards

SSP WED - Northside Photography Chat; Getting to a Monochromatic Film Look

Meet for chat over a drink and snack or dinner. Tonight, we will discuss getting a film look to your street photography images whilst still using a digital camera. If you wish to discuss any aspects of your camera or photography technique, please bring the manual and your camera. Bring your laptop with your editing software installed & I will bring a laptop with Lightroom Classic installed. We can discuss any aspect of editing your images. Most image editors are similar, so even if using a different editor, the techniques are similar, mainly due to the menu system. Feel free to bring image(s) on a usb stick, SD, microSD memory card or an iPhone that supports Airdrop. Using Lightroom we can work on extracting the story of the image. If you want photo critique, pls bring print, or full size images, preferably not resized, on a usb stick, SD, microSD memory card or an iPhone that supports Airdrop. Please do not ask for a critique on images displayed on a mobile phone, too small a display to be critical. More info on the venue here chatswoodrsl.com.au Plenty of free parking available nearby as well as the bus stop at the door or metro & rail just 50m away.

Welcome to the next 2026 AWS Sydney Well-Architected Meetup!

Hi Architects, Welcome to the next 2026 AWS Sydney Well-Architected User Group Meetup! Each month we cover off AWS best-practices across all pillars and give away drones - lots of drones 🥳 **Please also note that AWS Security now requests a company name and company email where it is available. If you are a student, please list your institution and your student email address at that institution 👍** We'll be announcing more speakers on [https://well-architected.me](https://well-architected.me/) and previewing presentations during the coming weeks - our speakers and details this month include: * **Mystery Speaker** **Generative AI Cost Optimisation (Part 2)** Cost Optimisation is essential but with all the anecdotal stories of massive token budget blowouts, staying on top of Generative AI best-practices is essential to avoiding these scenarios. This month's menu will include: * Pizzas * Beer: Nastro Azzurro * Wine: Big and red 🤤 So come join us at 5:30 for a 6pm **SHARP** start, followed by beer, wine, pizza and friendly networking after our talks :-) Tired of Linkedin’s "thought leadership”, spam and advertising? Join https://well-architected.me/ , the AWS community built for architects, developers and cloud professionals. * Connect with experienced AWS practitioners * Preview upcoming AWS Meetups and relive past content * Create and review beautiful AWS case studies in minutes * Prepare for AWS certifications with curated quizzes * Show your manager and reports you’re well-architected (Please note that by registering to attend you agree to your details being shared as and where required with Amazon Web Services and AWS Well-Architected User Group partners)

SSP TUE - CITY LIGHT & SHADOWS IN MONOCHROME : Sydney’s Little Laneways

For this photography walk, we’ll explore a very different side of Sydney CBD — its narrow laneways, hidden passages, old sandstone walls and urban spaces — with a particular focus on **light, shadow and monochrome photography**. We will follow the City of Sydney Culture Walks route **“Hidden – Sydney’s Little Laneways”**, which winds through some of the lesser-known lanes and back streets of central Sydney. Rather than concentrating on Sydney’s familiar landmarks, the aim of this walk is to look more closely at the city itself: shafts of sunlight falling between tall buildings, deep shadows in narrow lanes, repeating architectural lines, reflections, textures, silhouettes and people moving through patches of light. During the walk, we’ll look for opportunities to photograph: * strong contrasts between sunlight and shadow * people and silhouettes entering pools of light * geometric shapes, lines and repeating patterns * sandstone, brick, concrete and other urban textures * narrow laneways framed by taller buildings * reflections and layered compositions * small details that become more striking when colour is removed ### **Meeting point:** Chambers Coffee, Gateway Sydney, 1 Macquarie Pl, Sydney NSW 2000 **Start:** 10:30 am **Approximate finish:** Around 12:30 pm **Lunch:** Venue to be confirmed After the walk, anyone who would like to stay is very welcome to join us for a relaxed lunch nearby. ### Come along, slow down, watch the light, and discover some of Sydney’s hidden corners in monochrome.

Online Photography - The letter C

SydJS: Stay tuned

What’s even better than uncovering insights into a rising technology? Getting to stand on the shoulders of giants to look ahead. The team are working to prepare another great evening. Keep an eye on your inbox and we’ll let you know when RSVPs open!

BUNDANON – SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS