Normative’s Matthew Milan joins us in 2014

We’re excited to add more Canadian starpower to our 2014 edition.

Speaker Bio: Matthew Milan

Matthew Milan is a Canadian designer and entrepreneur recognized as a leader in the fields of customer experience and digital strategy. He is a founding partner at Normative, a strategic design firm in Toronto. Over the last 15+ years, Matthew has built and led large design and strategy teams, slept under his desk at successful startups and done most of the things he’s been told he couldn’t do.

His work ranges from developing digital innovation strategies for global financial services firms, building mobile location-based gaming platforms and exploring the overlap between, people, technology and the physical world. A regular speaker at conferences in the fields of interaction design and digital strategy, Matthew is also the founder of the infamous UXirregulars meetup in Toronto.

Previously, Matthew worked as Director of Insight and Planning at Critical Mass and taught Social Software and Web Mapping Technology at York University. His academic background spans environmental planning and information architecture. He spent most of his time in graduate school trying to figure out whether soft systems theory was the coolest thing ever or the craziest thing ever. He arrived at the conclusion that it’s both.

His favorite language is LISP, even though as he puts it, “it kicks my ass”. He thinks we should put computers in everything and then forget about them. Matt thrives on ambiguity, respects chaos, and believes that life has no stopping rule and that everyone should strive to be a wicked problem.

Matthew is also an avid runner covering an average of 60 miles every week (this means he gets to spend a lot of time in deep flow states). As a result, he does most of his serious thinking work on his feet. He is also an unrepentant skier, although, as a resident of Toronto, we all wonder where he gets all that skiing done… (Matthew has since clarified this on Twitter, Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont is his resort of choice).

You can follow Mattew on Twitter @mmilan