Oh, hi.

I'm Blair. I lead the Buyer Experience Team at Etsy. We're building a human-powered shopping experience to connect consumers with makers all over the world. Before Etsy I led the experience team at Maven Clinic where we were designing the next generation of care for women and families.

I believe product development is a creative craft that requires collaboration, open critical hearts and minds, and hard skills. I love working with people that approach their work with big intentions. Some things I've learned along the way:

• Proper research requires looking at a balance of trends in the broader world, the problems your customers have, and at the nuances in your execution.
• Strategic planning within constraints is one of the hardest parts of building and shipping great, usable products.
• Design is a tool not just for creating beauty and delight, but for fulfilling people's needs.
• The power of storytelling and narrative in conveying the impact the products we build will have on people's lives.
• Clear goals, an agenda, and ensuring everyone in the room can partipate is the key to not wasting people's time. Time is precious.
• Active listening and trust is required to support people in their everyday work and longer term careers.
• Good design is the act of bringing people with a variety of perspectives together to figure out how to make change.
• Working people and the artifacts we leave behind are what make history.

Reach out if you'd like to chat: blairmellis@gmail.com.