About Rockturn

Rockturn is a knowledge engine for digital product designers—not just those in traditional UX/UI roles, but their collaborators in product management and software engineering as well. The goal is to arm these collaborators with practical insights on a broad range of principles, methods, and frameworks for problem-solving that will elevate their influence beyond merely developing and delivering the artifacts of design, to having a seat at the table where the direction is set and decisions are made.

To earn that seat at the table, designers must adopt a different mindset towards problem-solving. The solutions that add the most value aren’t the artifacts of design, but in the product strategies a designer imagines that drive desired outcomes. That may sound simplisitc, but it is a necessary shift in the way designers think that assures their value long into the future. This pivot from outputs to outcomes begins with a journey of discovery, exploring pathways of knowledge that lead to more creative, collaborative, and effective problem-solving. Rockturn is built for this purpose, with a database of more than 1,500 key concepts for digital product design, each one carefully defined, classified, organized, and contextualized to speed discovery, retention, and adoption.

Insights in the Rockturn compendium were curated from a wide range of knowledge domains that orbit design including business, research, technology, and psychology. The more curious and adventurous users may also delve into abstract theoretical frameworks from the arts and sciences including architecture, music, social, and cognitive theory as a means of developing an understanding of diverse modes and methods of problem-solving where technology intersects with human perception and behavior—the fundamental essence of design.

By turning over these metaphorical rocks to discover insights in unfamiliar places, product design professionals visiting rockturn.com will be exploring branches of knowledge that provoke their curiosity, fuel their creativity, and fortify their confidence to make meaningful, profitable, and lasting contributions to the products they help create.

RockTurn will also feature thought-provoking perspectives about the instinct for growth with insights and opinions on how the pursuit of knowledge positively impacts not just our readiness and intellect, but our evolving self-concept as well. RockTurn is about developing a cure for imposter syndrome by leading designers from the shackles of pride and insecurity to the liberation found in curiosity and humility, positioning continuous learning as the key to unlocking enduring confidence and leadership. As more and more of our legacy of creative influence on design becomes automated, commodified, and AI-generated, we need the ability to form connections with knowledge that leverage AI in creative new ways. More knowledge equals more connections and better leverage for better outcomes.

My gut instinct for creating Rockturn boils down to this: AI knows everything we don’t and can do almost anything, intellectually, that we can. With AI-powered insights, we can produce more, move faster, and go further to create a bright and exciting future for ourselves. But if we don’t try to ground ourselves firmly in knowledge that provokes our curiosity and fuels our creativity we’ll wind up sacrificing self-determination in a bargain with AI to overwhelm us with convenience.

Knowledge truly is power, and if all the power rests in databases and algorithms instead of minds and imagination, the future we allow to take shape will become more dark and bewildering than we can imagine. Be the light. Learn and grow as a surfist.