S3•E6 Arianne Miller + Sean Baker

About this episode

Doug Powell speaks with Arianne Miller and Sean Baker about their work in civic design and improving government services.

Throughout season 3 of this series, I’ve been speaking with leaders in the practice of civic design; designers who have dedicated their careers to improving the everyday experience we, as citizens, have when we interact with our government. My guests for this episode are two of the most respected leaders in the global civic design community: Arianne Miller and Sean Baker. For more than a decade, Arianne and Sean worked side by side as leaders of The Lab at OPM, a pioneering human-centered design team embedded within the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Arianne served as Managing Director, and Sean as Director of Design Strategy and Operations. The Lab at OPM was dissolved in early 2025 as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to U.S. federal government staffing. Since then, Arianne and Sean founded Civic Design Collaborative, with a mission to help government and civic-minded organizations create services that are easier to use, more equitable, and more effective. In our conversation, I was struck by how their approach to driving sustainable change in government is actually transferable to other complex, scaled organizations, especially in the private sector. We…

People in this episode

Host: Doug Powell

Guests: Arianne Miller, Sean Baker

Topics covered

• civic design
• human-centered design
• government services
• sustainable change
• stakeholder relationships

Keywords

• civic design
• human-centered design
• government
• equity
• stakeholders

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Lab at OPM, Civic Design Collaborative

Places: U.S., Trump administration

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