About

“Keep it simple” said many of my English teachers and design professors, so here goes.

I love hearing and sharing stories around ideas. Stories bring humility, life context, emotions, needs, desires, and sometimes great friendships. I find it amazing how people can join two (or more) random pieces of information together and produce grand ideas to share and sometimes to build. This is where my passion lies, listening to stories that produce ideas.

This blog will have password protected posts/areas because I am typing out vulnerable content about myself that I want to share ONLY with those that care for me and possibly want to be vulnerable with me as well. This isn’t OnlyFans content, that’s over at OnlyFans. You don’t have to pay me to read my protected content, you just have to ask permission to view it and promise me that you will be kind and not share it with others. 🙌🏽

  • Little Shai (what my mom used to call me)
  • Still Shai to some. less hair = more aerodynamic!

I am a son, grandson, friend, husband to Laura (an amazing CFP that’s writing a book), father of 2 kids (daughter + son), and an ever practicing design professional. As a practicing design professional I am the founder of Empathy Lab (2018), an empathy driven experience design lab. I run Empathy Decathlon practices for individuals and teams that believe that empathetic communities of people build amazing futures.

Keeping myself young

I dreaded writing this section because the story I tell myself is that I fail when it comes to personal hobbies. This is not true, I do things other than work and am making changes in my life to make sure that hobbies + play are part of how I build my work life.

  1. Currently sleep, eat, and do other regular human things in Serenbe, Georgia with L, J, and G.
  2. I love trail running because it’s the closest thing I’ve been able to find that feels like school recess. After a fall in Costa Rica (what am I, old?!?), I’ve been more of a run, walk, and smell the flowers kind of trail runner. I was able to take this running, walking, smelling the air pace to Morocco with Rogue Expeditions in 2022. Truly grateful for this experience and I will certainly do it again.
  3. I personally try to continue being a repurposer of things so that I can cut down waste. At times my obsession with managing the things I throw away or find becomes obsessive / distracting. Working on this! Previously ran a hobby company dedicated to repurposing called Repurposed Goods. We built Pallet Adirondack Chairs (PACs) in multiple cities across the US and sold PAC Guides to people around the world!
  4. I will always be a recovering decathlete and tend to watch track and field when I can. The recent Olympics in Tokyo were INCREDIBLE. That’s my sport.

Current ‘job’ – Leading with Empathy (and running a company on it.)

I am the lead listener, founder, and CEO of Empathy Lab, a company dedicated to helping product and experience creators humans build their empathy muscles. Check out what we’ve got going on in the Lab, show me those emotionally intelligent muscles!

  • Created the Empathy Decathlon framework to help train individuals and teams to be more empathetic with themselves and each other
  • Practice WITH CEO’s to interns, restaurant general managers to line cooks, and non-profit partners to the volunteers that…volunteer.
  • Building out the Empathy Athlete Community (EAC), a third place where people can come hang out and learn from each other.

Past jobs

Proud Ex UX Designer with some amazing people and teams (check out Linkedin for more details):

  • Director of UX Research and Design at Terminus
  • Lead Product Designer at Operable
  • Senior UX Designer at Chef
  • UX Design Manager at First Data‘s Innovation Lab
  • Sole Proprietor UX Strategy + Design at Design Cannon
  • Lead UX Designer at MaxMedia
  • UX + Industrial Designer at EchoViz
  • Human Factors Industrial Designer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute’s Accessibility and Usability Lab
  • I’ve worked in libraries, run a prototyping shop, tutored students, driven a taxi (way before Uber/Lyft), served in many restaurants (including Magic Johnson’s), poured plenty of drinks, shelved cereal at Trader Joe’s, and was once an unpaid hand model in a music video.

Formal schooling

  • 2009 graduate of Georgia Tech’s school of design – Masters Industrial Design
  • 2003 graduate of the University of Southern California’s school of liberal arts – BA Psychology
  • 2005 summer at Art Center School of Design
  • 2000 graduate from Santa Ana Junior College / Santiago Canyon Junior College – AA Psychology
  • 1998 graduate from Villa Park High School
  • 198? graduate from Trinity Pre School