Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast

About Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast

Produced by the MBA in Design Strategy program at California College of the Arts, on Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast we ask questions, examine complexity, and innovate for human-centered solutions. Each episode is devoted to speaking with and listening to what luminaries and design leaders have to say about the world and their own personal journeys designing for ambiguity…and curiosity.

Publisher

DMBA

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

29 Aug 2022

Latest episode

18 Feb 2026

Latest episodes

17 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   18 Feb 2026

   Where are they now? With Anita Chordia and Laura Ogle

   From Fashion Forecasting to Futures Thinking: Laura Ogle on Curiosity, Design Strategy & More Fun at Work.In this special episode, featuring DMBA alums Anita Chordia and Laura Ogle from the live webinar series “Where Are They Now?”, Laura shares her path from studying fashion and designing at Athleta for eight years to becoming lead design strategist at Whipsaw, where she works across industrial design, strategy, UX/UI, and brand to create cohesive physical-digital experiences. The conversation highlights design strategy as an inclusive toolkit, the importance of curiosity, shared language, and communication frameworks, and Laura’s belief that work (and life) needs more fun—using constraints and guardrails to create freedom. Laura discusses myths about design thinking “not working,” her approach to futures thinking (inspired by the Institute for the Future), and her concept of voting on ideas rather than people. She describes People on a Mission and their San Francisco newsstand project “Disposable Culture,” where passersby trade spontaneous art for a newspaper, then see their work turned into posters around the city. In rapid-fire hot takes, Laura emphasizes “you win, or you learn,” strategy as creative work, and the future as something designed rather than predicted. Student Q&A covers how DMBA courses transfer to real work (including communication tools from Live EC), roles DMBA graduates pursue, differences from traditional MBAs, what to highlight on resumes, and examples of integrated work, such as Whipsaw’s ReefTrack underwater navigation product. Laura also reflects on being laid off and unemployed for a year, using daily LinkedIn posts to demonstrate her thinking, and ends with a provocation: decide what you want to make—and do it without waiting for permission.00:00 Welcome to the DMBA Podcast + Today’s Alumni Takeover01:30 Meet Laura Ogle: From Fashion to Design Strategy04:07 Why Design Strategy: Curiosity, Toolkits, and a Shared Vocabulary06:58 We Need More Fun at Work: Curiosity, Reframing, and Guardrails09:52 Design Strategy Myths: “We Tried Design Thinking and It Didn’t Work”11:31 Futures Thinking in Practice: Agency, Big Visions, and Daily Use13:41 People on a Mission: Playful Futures + The Disposable Culture Newsstand17:57 Hot Takes (Rapid Fire): Winning vs Learning, Strategy as Creativity, Designing the Future21:41 DMBA Lessons Learned: Follow Curiosity + Quilters vs Questers24:24 Defining Success + The Layoff Year: Finding Fulfillment and Rebuilding28:08 Reframing the Job Search: LinkedIn as a Daily Thinking Practice29:13 Sharing Your Thinking: From Cringe to Self‑Starter Signal31:39 What’s Lighting You Up Now: Futures Report & Tech in the Home32:50 Designing with Hope & Delight: Inside the Futures Report Process33:57 Audience Prompt + Q&A Kickoff: Curiosity, Frameworks, and Real-World Transfer37:04 When Physical + Digital + Brand Click: ReefTrack Case Study40:47 Future-Thinking Prompts: “What Do You Want to Feel?”41:42 DMBA Career Paths: The Strategist as Translator (and Active Listener)45:19 DMBA vs Traditional MBA: How to Position Yourself Authentically50:06 Impact of the Futures Report: Building an Internal Capability52:31 Leading Creative Teams: Matching Strengths Through Listening54:17 Final Provocation: What Do You Want to Make?55:28 Closing Thanks + What’s Next in the Webinar Series

2. 

   26 Sept 2025

   Rethinking Reuse: How 2080 Reuse Is Reinventing Furniture for a Circular Future with Help from the DMBA

   What if reupholstering a chair could cut your carbon footprint by 80%? In this episode of Everything Is a Prototype, Kriss Kokoefer, founder of 2080 Reuse, shares how she’s building a whole new category at the intersection of circular economy, commercial interiors, and design-led innovation...with help from DMBA students and alumni. Kriss opens up about pivoting careers, launching (and selling) a century-old upholstery business, and her mission to make reuse the easy button for businesses. We talk about building trust, embracing uncertainty, and why good project management might just be the secret weapon for sustainability. This is one for the builders, designers, and anyone curious about how to scale impact through systems, not just products.

3. 

   21 Apr 2025

   Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast Presents THE FUTURE OF THINGS: AI as a new material for Design

   THE FUTURE OF THINGS: AI as a new material for Design. On Saturday, Apr 5, chairs from the Design Division at CCA co-moderated an insightful panel discussion that explored the transformative role of design in shaping the future of products, services, and systems enabled by generative, agentic, and distributed physical AI. Moving beyond the conventional focus on AI as a set of tools for designing, our expert panelists discussed how designers can reimagine and craft the next generation of "things"—from rethinking transportation and healthcare to reinventing how we cook, shop, communicate, entertain, and/or safeguard our communities from natural disasters. This conversation highlighted design’s power to envision future lifestyles, steer technological evolution, and generate lasting value for communities and our planet. Panelists: Lauren Bedal / ArchetypeAI - Design, Product Lead Tim Belonax / Anthropic - Brand TJ McLeish / CCA MDes Faculty + AI Expert Karl Willis / Autodesk - Senior Research Manager Moderators: Justin Lokitz, DMBA and Elena Pacenti, MDes

4. 

   4 Apr 2025

   Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast w/ Rio Cruz Morales, Senior Product Manager of AI Foundations @ Velocity Black

   In this episode, we break down innovation to its very core with Rio Cruz Morales, a DMBA, multi-time startup founder, and Senior Product Manager of AI Foundations @ Velocity Black. Rio is a product and innovation expert, who created the Product Experimentation Method and framework to help others do what they do. And...what's so cool about Rio, is they found the DMBA by happenstance. In a word, Rio is awesome!

5. 

   25 Mar 2025

   Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast w/ Aksharika Raja and JJ Vélez from Lawgical, an Amazing Stealth Startup in the Legal Space

   In this episode, we get deep into the startup space with AK Raja, a DMBA alum and former EY Design Strategist, and JJ Velez, a former software engineer from Apple. This dynamic duo is working on Lawgical, a tech startup focused on helping law firms (and companies) streamline their immigration paperwork. Check them out here: https://demo.lawgical.app/auth

6. 

   7 Oct 2024

   Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast in "Discussion" with Google's NotebookLM

   This entire episode is one big prototype. Rather than talk to real humans, we’ve asked Google’s NotebookLM (https://notebooklm.google.com/) tool to create a discussion around the value of the DMBA. I think the insights are pretty spot on. What do you think?

7. 

   30 May 2024

   Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast w/ Izzy Shu, Dave Korstad, and Tony Jimenez, the DMBA alumni behind the amazing brand JOI

   In this episode, we dive deep into design strategy with Izzy Shu, Dave Korstad, and Tony Jimenez, the DMBA alumni behind the amazing alternative milk brand JOI (https://addjoi.com/). Enjoy!

8. 

   25 Jan 2024

   Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast w/ Jinney Kho, a Former Interior Architect Who’s Now a Design Strategist & Founder

   Hi, welcome to Everything Is a Prototype, The DMBA podcast, where we talk all things design strategy…and prototypes. In this episode, Jinney Kho, a former interior architect and recent DMBA grad, talks about her journey and how she has designed a new path as a design strategist and startup founder. Enjoy!

9. 

   12 Dec 2023

   Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast w/ Jo Marini, Co-Founder and CEO of Mothership Materials

   Hi, welcome to Everything Is a Prototype, The DMBA podcast, where we talk all things design strategy…and prototypes. In this episode, Jo Marini, a DMBA alum, professor, and kickass entrepreneur, discusses her amazing new company Mothership Materials (https://mothershipmaterials.com/), and how she plans on saving the world. Enjoy!

10. 

    12 Oct 2023

    Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast w/ Kirsten, Michelle, Bhumika, and Julia, DMBA students co-founders of The Career Design Club

    In this exciting episode, Kirsten, Michelle, Bhumika, and Julia, current DMBA students (C15s), discuss how the DMBA is helping them to design their next lives and careers and why they decided to co-create the first ever Career Design Club within the DMBA…which helps other DMBA students design their own next thing. Enjoy!

11. 

    27 Apr 2023

    Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast w/ Franzi Sessler and Tony Gui, co-founders of Kreatives

    In many respects, Franzi Sessler and Tony Gui, are typical DMBAs. They traveled from far and wide to get to San Francisco to join a program and community that they hoped would help them redesign their lives. Typical right? But, like ALL DMBAs, Franzi's and Tony's stories are so much more than typical! In this episode -- newly minted as "Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast" (thank you for the suggestion Anita Chordia!) -- Franzi and Tony talk about their lives before the DMBA and just how much their experiences in the program changed them...and, of course, how they built a thriving business, called Kreatives (https://www.kreatives.co/), by prototyping everything along the way. Enjoy!

12. 

    27 Mar 2023

    The DMBA Podcast w/ Andy Greenwood, a Grammy-winning DMBA

    Though Andy Greenwood is 100% an audio engineer, in many respects he's like the Clark Kent/Superman of the audio engineering world. Though he may show up with all of the real-world experience and chops of a world-class engineer, he uses his design strategy superpowers and creative confidence to help break down walls and get others to think about the human experience + business...even if they didn't think that was their job. In this fun conversation, we discuss what it's like being a design strategist with an audio engineer title at Apple and how Andy spends his free time, mixing audio at Jazz fest in New Orleans, where he recently won a Grammy for Best Regional Roots Music Album, for his work with Ranky Tanky.

13. 

    17 Mar 2023

    The DMBA Podcast w/ Elainea de Vera, Adara Rituals COO and DMBA

    Like many DMBAs, Elainea de Vera wasn't looking for a "regular" MBA education when she found the DMBA. Rather, she knew she needed something different. And...what a difference the DMBA has made in her life (and in the lives around her...including all of us DMBAs)! Though Elainea started the DMBA managing large corporate events for giant tech companies, by the time she graduated she had already moved on, co-founding the direct-to-consumer startup, Adara Rituals (https://www.adararituals.com/), while she was still in the program. In this episode, we dig into what it was like to have COVID during her final R5 Venture Showcase pitch as well as dive into the deep end of global logistics without ever pushing pause. Enjoy!

14. 

    13 Dec 2022

    The DMBA Podcast w/ The Amazing DMBAs Behind Native Chats

    To a T, 98% of people enroll in the DMBA in order to design their next lives. For Cami Reyes and Ben Lang, both C12s, it was no different. Not only did they come into the DMBA doing totally different things (professionally), they designed and launched a company, called Native Chats, that has them scaling a startup with global reach. Suffice to say, using tools and connections from their past lives and the DMBA, they're working on nothing less than democratizing communication on a global scale. In this podcast we discuss what it was like creating something from nothing while DMBA students, and now working with a global team to get their technology/value into the hands of billions. If that's not enough, Ben and Cami are democratizing their WeFunder crowdfunding campaign for Native Chats (https://wefunder.com/native-tech/), giving everyone a chance to share in the value being created and exchanged.

15. 

    29 Nov 2022

    The DMBA Podcast w/ Special Guest Maya Joseph-Goteiner

    On this episode of the DMBA Podcast we speak with our super special guest, Maya Joseph-Goteiner, a DMBA alum (C4), super curious UX researcher, and design leader at Google, about her journey from the art world to Google. Maya has lots to say about how the DMBA helped her pivot her career and find the creative confidence and leadership skills to truly hone her passion as a researcher. Enjoy!

16. 

    23 Sept 2022

    The DMBA Podcast w/ Special Guest Ismar Mahmutovic

    If you know Ismar, you know he's a badass problem solver. In fact, as we talk about on this episode of The DMBA Podcast, Ismar only realized that problem-solving was his core strength once he was deep into the DMBA. Today, Ismar uses his problem-solving and strategic badassery as the senior leader of innovation at Ancestry, where he's been instrumental in prototyping his way to the top. Listen here to get to know more about Ismar and what makes him tick!

17. 

    29 Aug 2022

    The DMBA Podcast w/ Special Guest Shira Kates

    Meet Shira Kates, a design leader at Google, ambiguity expert, curiosity pioneer, partner, and mother of two. Shira grew up in New England in a family of academics; most of her family either have PhDs and/or were/are college professors. So, needless to say, the curiosity and life-long learner genes run DEEP. In this episode, we discuss Shira’s move to the Bay Area in 1997, right at the height of the (O.G.) Dot Com boom and how she got swept up in the ensuing hiring spree, doing just about anything she was asked to do. Like many DMBAs, Shira’s a master of ambiguity, and often took on roles that she was probably under-qualified for, but learned quickly and excelled at just about everything thrown her way.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 38 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

52

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

60

Contact Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.