Paul McAleer helps product and design organizations find their resonance.
In Paul's experience, and there's a lot of it, that resonance is usually not where organizations think it is. It's typically not about talent or tools. It's almost always a strategy, structure, or credibility problem that nobody has named clearly enough to fix.That diagnostic instinct is what Paul brings to every engagement. Paul has over 25 years of experience working across agencies, in-house teams, and leadership roles. Paul built the Content Strategy practice at digital agency Bounteous, built the UX practice at in-flight internet provider Gogo, and helped multiple organizations operationalize and standardize their product and content work in ways that drove real business results. Paul has led teams from one person to twenty-five, including leaders of leaders – which means Paul has a deep understanding of both what good product and design leadership looks like and how rarely the conditions for it are created intentionally.Paul's work sits at the intersection of product strategy, design, CX, and content, with deep experience in SaaS and healthcare. Clients have included national and international brands whose products reach millions of people. No matter how big or small, the idea is the same: cut through the mess, find what's getting everyone stuck, and build the clarity to move past it.Whether working with scrappy startups or gnarly, matrixed-to-the-hilt enterprise teams, Paul brings a distinctive voice that balances rigor with lightness, and strategy with the occasional well-timed joke.As a workshop facilitator Paul has a particular talent for helping teams get unstuck, taking complex strategic challenges and making them workable without making them small. Paul has led workshops for product and design leadership teams across industries, and has spoken at SXSW, WebVisions, CreativeMornings, and Design & Content. A former instructor at Columbia College Chicago and General Assembly, Paul also served as overall director for Denver's World IA Day for two years.Paul is currently writing a first book – drawing on 25 years of hard-won experience to explore what product and design organizations actually need to do great work, and why so few of them are set up to do it.
Senior Product Strategist - Livefront
SVP, Experience - TMG
SVP, CX & Content Strategy - small agency startup
Group Content Strategy Director - Bounteous
Associate UX Director - Rightpoint
UX Strategist - Centralis
You may know me from such projects, appearances, and publications as...
GEnie Commodore FlagShip RoundTable, Family RT, Education RT (1990s)
Loadstar & Loadstar 128 (author, contributor; 1989-1993)
RAMGauge (1993-1996)
Micro-Bytes (1990-1992)
The Commodore MailLink / Meeting 64/128 Users Through the Mail (1991-1992)
phonezilla.net (1999-present)
The Daily Ping (with Ryan MacMichael; 2000-2013)
The Yearly Ping (with Ryan MacMichael; 2014-present)
Columbia College Chicago (graduated 2000; taught 2001)
Big Fat Blog (2000s)
Gapers’ Block (contributor; 2000s)
Communicating with Patterns: Stripes (contributing photographer; 2006)
UX Matters (with Lis Hubert; 2010s)
Designing Yourself (with Whitney Hess; 2013-2015)
General Assembly (taught 2015-2017; Chicago and Denver)
Girl Develop It Denver: Intro to User Research (2017)
Intersection: Denver Meetups (2015-2016)
O’Reilly Media, Designing for Mobile (2015)
Denver UX Meetup: PM ❤️ KJ (2016)
CreativeMornings Denver (2016)
SXSW (2010s)
Design & Content (2018)
WebVisions (2016-2018)
World IA Day Denver (2019-2020)
NN/G Ten Best Intranets (work for 3M while at Rightpoint; 2019)
The IA Summit (participant and volunteer): 2010s