Austin Govella
I help teams work better. Strategy, information architecture, service design, and workshop facilitation:
agux.co
- Reposted by Austin GovellaContent is a strategic investment, but most organizations can't see what's working. Learn more about this IAC26 workshop here: www.theiaconference.com/sessions/con...
- Reposted by Austin Govella
- My February 2026 playlist is out! It's 64 songs long with half of them being new from 2025/2026. Have a listen. I've been working on it all month 🤘🎧 #NewMusic #NowPlaying #NowListening #Playlist shiveryourtimbers.ca/blog/schmutz...
- Reposted by Austin GovellaMy February 2026 playlist is out! It's 64 songs long with half of them being new from 2025/2026. Have a listen. I've been working on it all month 🤘🎧 #NewMusic #NowPlaying #NowListening #Playlist shiveryourtimbers.ca/blog/schmutz...
- @cut.buzz dropped my musical letter on the spot: www.mixcloud.com/austingovell...
- A GoFundMe for an “end of life journey” feels just so now…
- In or near Philly, catch this workshop from Scott Kubie on facilitation skills.
- Reposted by Austin GovellaFacilitation is how you move a group from "we should" to "we will." And you don't need to be the most senior person in the room to do it. If you've ever wanted a practical approach to facilitation that strengthens strategic decision-making, then this is the workshop for you!
- Going through boxes after the move and I came across a box filled with love notes from the woman. Pretty fucking cool. Like, really fucking cool.
- Reposted by Austin Govella4 days left for Early Birds to get $100 off their IAC26 base ticket! Registration for the Early Bird rate ends on January 31st so if you're into really good deals, you probably want to get yourself registered. April 14-16 in Philadelphia. See you there. More information in comments.
- Accidentally ate a moldy tortilla. I gave it the cursory inspection before eating it, but it tasted funny, and a more careful look at the other tortillas revealed some mold. It's ok. A Dr. Pepper washed it all away. It's medicinal.
- Lookit what I found while moving. A Gillian Anderson poster in almost mint condition. 90s me was quite excited.
- Crazy... labeled as "adult content". I didn't think it was that risqué, but I guess there's nothing wrong with being safe
- New Savages single! Alas not signifying mew work from them but a couple of unreleased tracks form the Adore Life sessions. Still so good: matadorrecords.com/blogs/news/s...
- Reposted by Austin GovellaInformation Architecture didn't stop mattering when products took over. It just got harder to see. Dan Brown's Product IA workshop at IAC26 shows you how to apply IA skills to product design through 4 key perspectives: Abstraction Lifecycle Distinction and Collaboration
- Ooh... there's a conference for qualitative research professionals in San Antonio in a couple of weeks in February: www.qrca.org/site/2026-co...
- Need to watch another 30-minutes of a training video but I. Am. So. Bored.
- Finally have a use case for a HomePod. Think Ima get one.
- Reposted by Austin GovellaEarly Birds get $100 off their IAC26 base ticket. Pretty sweet deal. IAC26 Early Bird rate ends January 31st. If you've been waiting, now's the time. Secure your spot and start planning your conference experience. April 14-16 in Philadelphia. See you there!
- Snow’s “Informer” has been in and out of my head for days now
- Also fighting with 14yo about going to school today and not getting very far, so she had repercussions. In response, she ate a bowl of ice cream for breakfast. You're not supposed to compare kids to their parents, but... she is insanely stubborn in the exact same way her mom was. Yay, me...
- I was wrestling with and losing to a chatbot, not getting anywhere, and then I asked to speak to a person, and it said ok. That was the first nice interaction I've had with a chatbot in ages.
- There's this former DJ in LA on Facebook who's been posting videos of him going through his boxes of records and showing them on the videos. Apparently, he's putting everything on sale this week, and I've never wanted to fly to L.A. so badly. So many awesome records in his collection.
- Watched One Battle After Another and it was gripping all the way through. Really great movie. More like two movies in one.
- Introduce yourself with five (best) concerts you've seen #musicsky (in roughly chronological order) 1. AC/DC 2. Guns n Roses 3. L7 4. Swans 5. Peter Hook & The Light Great recent shows I've seen: - Lebanon Hanover - Wet Leg - Jungle
- Introduce yourself with five concerts you’ve seen #musicsky 🎶 1. Sonic Youth 2. Kraftwerk 3. Neutral Milk Hotel 4. They Might Be Giants 5. Aphex Twin
- Wondering if my interaction design education had everything to do with living through everything being invented, meaning newer interaction designers are educated in a world of decent patterns and never learned when things break or why.
- The entire house woke up late today. It’s definitely a two shot morning. Grabbing a venti too.
- 80% of the time, a "card" is the wrong format to support a user looking at a list of things and finding the thing they want or need. 80% of the time teams use cards to allow users to look at a list of things and find the thing they want or need. This is the worst timeline.
- Watching movers haul my stuff into the new house
- Movers scheduled for Monday morning. Now I have to finish packing. or do I...
- Not counting the kids’ rooms, I’ve packed all the “stuff” and am now down to the miscellaneous things in each room. Briskly approaching the IDGAF stage of packing.
- So tired of packing. Wanting to procrastinate, but the internet has nothing for me. Entertain me
- I’m currently moving and going through my wife’s things wondering what things should be preserved and what things are just someone else’s stuff that I don’t need to keep. The VHS tape of an old dance recital? Vital to her but meaningless to me.
- She was in her 30s when we met and had already accumulated a lifetime of momentos and photos and souvenirs to document her life. And just have boxes of this stuff. Priceless to someone. No value to me. So weird.
- Another great piece, this time by @udanium.bsky.social (Uday Gajendar) on how design is a leadership practice, not a craft discipline: open.substack.com/pub/udanium/... (CW: Substack)
- The 7yo is running in the grass at the park in bare feet. Reminds me of Tom Sawyer. If the grass weren’t so good, I’d insist on shoes. Tom Sawyer was influential when I was but a cub. It illustrated how kids were supposed to be. Probably explains some things about my parenting style.
- Fantastic piece by Roger Martin on cultivating a connoisseur’s nuanced understanding of your field. Writtten about strategy, but as I’ve said maybe a hundred times, swap out “strategy” for “design” and the piece becomes all about us: rogermartin.medium.com/strategy-con...
- The 7yo is perusing random books from the bookshelf. That's why I have random books on the bookshelf. I did that when I was a kid and it was a formative experience, just coming across things that were interesting.
- Reposted by Austin Govella🎧🤘❤️🔥 The January 2026 Playlist is here! And it's on Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, Amazon Music, YouTube Music & LastFM. Tune your ears: shiveryourtimbers.ca/blog/schmutz.... #NewMusic #NowPlaying #Playlist #NowListening
- Good cooking year so far. I cooked the most tender corned beef, and the pot of black-eyed peas was super good. I tried an actual recipe this year instead of winging it, and the flavor came out really nuanced and well-balanced. (I think it was the cumin and bay leaves.)
