Transcripts are edited for readability and clarity.

Nigel Prentice: I want to open with a couple of ideas as I like to do from our ancestors. This first one is from Toni Morrison, and she says, “You wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down first.”

Nigel Prentice: And secondly, I use this quote quite a bit when I’m speaking with folks, and I love the idea behind it. “No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind [them] distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.“

Nigel Prentice: And it’s with those ideas that I bring us into this conversation with Marcsene. Marcsene is a designer at IBM who is getting started in a new business unit and has a lot of wisdom to share because he’s not necessarily new in his career, but just new in this particular path. And we’re going to unpack that here in just a second.

Nigel Prentice: Marcsene, thanks for joining me, my man.

Marcsene Torchon: Thank you so much for having me, Nigel. I’m so happy to be here.

Nigel Prentice: Cool, cool. So, what business unit are you in at the company, and what role do you play there?

Marcsene Torchon: Right now, I’m currently in Watson Health business unit. My role is entry-level design researcher.

Nigel Prentice: Okay, cool. So, design researcher, getting at the needs behind the needs and helping the rest of your teammates build empathy from a human-centric perspective. Sounds good, and how long have you been in — I guess the role of design researcher?

Marcsene Torchon: I’ve been in this role for about four months now.

Nigel Prentice: Okay, and you also worked at a startup, I believe before IBM, correct?

Marcsene Torchon: Yes.

Nigel Prentice: in the role there was also design research?

Marcsene Torchon: It was a UX researcher, a contract role. I worked with a startup help them do a UX research.

Nigel Prentice: So, you’re squarely in this space of user experience and, more specifically, user research. And you’ve got a really, really cool story coming up, and so I want to visit that a bit. Where’d you grow up? Where are you from? Let’s start there.

Marcsene Torchon: Of course. Yes, so I’m from Boston, Massachusetts. That’s where I was born and raised. My parents were immigrants who migrated here from Haiti. I’m Haitian American, and I pretty much grew up in the Dorchester section of Boston, which is about 20 minutes away from the city, downtown. I pretty much grew up there most of my life.

Nigel Prentice: Actually, man, I didn’t know about your family background was from Haiti. There’s been an ongoing and recurring struggle at times with regards to Haiti and it goes back centuries, actually. As one of the — I believe one of the original names of Haiti was Santo Domingo. Is that right?

Marcsene Torchon: Yes, yes!

Nigel Prentice: Yeah, one of the first, if not the first successful slave revolt happened in Santo Domingo and suffered as a result of that from quite a bit of racism and hegemony, dictatorial style from every sort of Western country.

Nigel Prentice: So, it’s no surprise that Haiti has a sort of modern difficulty in the modern world, given that it received absolutely no support after the slaves revolted. Quite an interesting history there. If any of your family is affected by what’s going on here recently from immigration or storms, you know, one love out to them.

Marcsene Torchon: Thank you so much for that, Nigel. I’m definitely proud that I came from a very rich history full of resiliency. I have a very positive outlook that things are going to get better for everyone affected.

Nigel Prentice: I appreciate that, man. I’m glad to hear that energy, that positivity. Okay, and so your career, like many of us, has taken some twists and turns. I think you’re in a season right now here in 2021 of moving things in a very positive direction for the IBM company, for your unit, and for yourself.

Nigel Prentice: But this isn’t where your career started, it and it wasn’t even in UX or in design. So, tell us a little bit about your previous career. What were you doing before you got into UX?

Marcsene Torchon: I started my professional career in social work, primarily with at-risk youth. I started volunteering, in various roles, through mentoring, afterschool coach. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to teach a fourth-grade class at an elementary school in the Dorchester section of Boston, not far from where I grew up. And it was just a great experience and a great opportunity to be in a place of service to others who grew up in the same community that I did.

Marcsene Torchon: And the volunteering turned into a career, full-time roles, and that’s when the journey began. I worked with several community leaders in various roles, from nonprofit centers to detention centers, courthouses. One of the best parts about my background in social work is that I worked with so many different populations, in so many different capacities, and so many different backgrounds in different contexts. And that I think is contributing to my position today.

Nigel Prentice: So, the idea of social work was strong for several stops in your career. What did that teach you preparing yourself academically and professionally to be a social worker? What did that teach you about this idea of empathy and human centricity?

Marcsene Torchon: I’ve had situations where — I can give an example, in middle school, I was considered the class clown and I was always striving to make all my friends laugh in the classroom.

Marcsene Torchon: But my teacher, who was my math teacher at the time. He showed a lot of empathy towards me because he did things that he didn’t have to do. He came to my house, spoke to my parents. He always tried to find ways to talk to me after class and to really — and while this was happening, I was being difficult. Yet, he was very adamant about me changing my behavior and really taking school serious. He played a significant role in my life because, afterwards, my grades started to improve, and he also became one of my mentors when I left middle school. So, him showing empathy towards me, especially when I wasn’t trying to receive it. It affected me in a positive way. And I can see how that can happen with others, and I want it to pay forward.

Nigel Prentice: So, with him, it certainly sounds like empathy plus activism came together in his world as it applied to you. And he ended making an impact from a mentorship standpoint, maybe even one might call it an intervention. It sounds like you followed in that mold a little bit, right?

Nigel Prentice: I mean, as a social worker and as somebody dedicated to the community, you can’t be selfish, right? You’re not climbing the corporate ladder, so to speak. You’re in either non-profits or city county, municipal programs. You’re a program runner to try to make a difference at the community level. So, you had that mold to follow, I guess. Now I think about it empathy plus, I guess, social impact for yourself, is that right?

Marcsene Torchon: Yes, and that was one out of many countless examples. And I like to put it as plenty of seeds were dropped throughout my life. And I think all these things are basically coming to fruition, and I just have this tendency to pay forward. And I think that is coming from the empathy that I’ve cultivated from my experience in social work.

Nigel Prentice: In your preparation to be a social worker, is there a sort of a curriculum that’s understood among social workers that removes your own bias, whether intentional or not, usually unintentional, getting involved in the delivery of service?

Marcsene Torchon: Oh, yes, of course. Most of the companies that I’ve joined during the orientation, the new hire orientation, facilitate many different workshops that provide new hires information about the populations they’re working with. A lot of the information is around awareness, you know, awareness of different things from, you know, racial inequities, poverty.

Marcsene Torchon: Even as a college graduate, after you’ve gone through the work in the textbooks, you’re going into the real world, and you’re dealing with people. There always has to be some guideline that can kind of help you along the way as you’re figuring it out because no one can ever predict human behavior, especially unfortunate circumstances. But that guideline has always been provided to me, and that helped me in all the different roles that I’ve worked in.

Nigel Prentice: Listen, we all go through various stages over our lives, some before our careers even get started, and I understand you’ve had some up and down moments as well. What are some of those, you know, intense moments that formed the individual you are today that grown from?

Marcsene Torchon: There’s a pretty extensive list of things I could start from, but I would say there was a period of enlightenment. And that enlightenment started a completely different chapter in my life. And coming from the previous chapter, prior to that enlightenment, growing up in the city of Boston in the Dorchester neighborhood, I think that seeing and understanding things up to this point has given me a very unique worldview and perspective on things.

Marcsene Torchon: As I grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood, sometimes you are exposed to a lot of things that could be to your detriment. From crime, poverty, violence, and the neighborhoods that I grew up in was plagued with a lot of those things. To kind of fast forward, I was drawn into that. While there were seeds being planted where people were trying to help me go into the right direction, I guess I succumbed to the pressure of wanting to fit in. Wanting to impress my friends, and that led to a lifestyle that led to many bad decisions. That bad decision led me to one of the lowest points of my life, where I was going through the criminal justice system at a very young age.

Nigel Prentice: How old were you when that turnaround started to happen?

Marcsene Torchon: 20-years-old.

Nigel Prentice: Was there anything in particular that sparked that one in your late teens, early twenties of moving into this enlightenment part of your story?

Marcsene Torchon: A very interesting event happened. April 7th, 2006, was my 18th birthday. And you know, at 18-year-old, you would expect, the average 18-year-old is looking forward to college, SATs, maybe, senior prom. But at 18-year-old, I was in front of a judge, and I was sentenced to jail time on my 18th birthday. And that led me to being incarcerated. At some point, an experience happened that led to the enlightenment. And I can just quickly touch on that.

Marcsene Torchon: In spite of the negativity that occurred throughout my life, one thing that — one habit that I always had was I was always an avid reader. I used to read a lot of books, a lot with novels, and continued even throughout my incarceration. And there was a gentleman that I became friends with.

Marcsene Torchon: He also had a lot of books. He actually had a bookstore where he would rent the books out to a lot of other inmates, and I would read novels from him. And then one particular day, I returned the novel that I finished reading to him, and I wanted to read another one, a new one, and instead, he gave me two books.

Marcsene Torchon: He gave me a book called “As a Man Thinketh“ by James Allen, and the second book was the “Willie Lynch Syndrome.“ And at first, I didn’t want to read these books. I told him I just wanted to read a novel and an urban novel, and I was fine with that. But he said that he was not going to give me any novels until I read those books.

Marcsene Torchon: So, I started the “As a Man Thinketh“ by James Allen. And I would say after the first few pages of that book, and it’s, it’s interesting to say just all of this started with a book, but it really did. But what I was reading was so powerful.

Marcsene Torchon: There was a quote in the book that I never forgot. It said, “As a man thinkth, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.” So, I read that, reflected on that, and through introspection the book, basically explains how our thoughts shape our reality, our circumstances. How we feel, how we experience the world, the decisions that we make are all linked to the thoughts that holds space in our minds.

Marcsene Torchon: And through more introspection, I started to see how my current circumstances at that time reflected the thoughts that I was entertaining at that time. Everything just started to make sense. I would say that was just start of the enlightenment, and then reading “Willie Lynch Syndrome“ sparked more interest in learning who I was, my history, and my position in the world as a Black man.

Nigel Prentice: Man, that’s powerful. I’ll be honest with you, and that that’s deep. Thank you for sharing, such an interesting part of your journey there. It’s striking to me that in that moment, you took ownership. As a man thinketh, right? Because that’s a classic idea. You see it in just about all schools of thought, which is everyone creates the reality around themselves in some way, shape, or form. Whether you call it the universe, whether you call it the law of attraction, some people call it other things, you know, you reap what sow, obviously in the Bible. It’s such a powerful moment when a person decides to take ownership for what’s going on in their life.

Nigel Prentice: Man, props to you for deciding not to be a victim and not to blame circumstance or parents or skin color or social status on what you got going on. I’ve seen people born with silver spoons in their mouths who blame the world around. I’ve seen born in tragic circumstances, you know, blame the world around them.

Nigel Prentice: What’d you get out of the Willie Lynch Syndrome? There’s a lot going on was Willie Lynch, and then you’ve got the Willie Lynch Letter, and a lot of intellectuals commented in on this whole concept. I’m curious what your thoughts are or what the takeaway was there.

Marcsene Torchon: Yeah, prior to reading that book, I didn’t know much history other than civil rights and that slavery existed. That’s all I knew about Black history. And so, Willie Lynch gave a different perspective to that history. It was explaining how there were slave masters who were having trouble disciplining and maintaining their rebellious slaves.

Marcsene Torchon: Therefore, they brought in a “consultant“ to show them how to not only keep the slave in check but to also keep that check in line for generations. And one example is to turn the light skin against the dark skin. And each point that was made in that book, I reflected and everything that was said; I can recall something that I’ve heard or saw in my personal past that is a reference point to those things. I’ve seen some of the challenges between people who are fair skin or dark skin and the challenges between older generations and the younger generations.

Marcsene Torchon: And also, the challenges between those of us who are doing well for ourselves in the white social order. And those of us who are, as they say in the field, “the hood.“

Nigel Prentice: Yeah.

Marcsene Torchon: Or the more impoverished communities. So, with all of these, you can see the divide and the challenges on both sides. And I find that to be very interesting. And that led me to asking, why does this occur? Where does this come from? And that led to more history to get more context around that.

Nigel Prentice: So, this was this concept of how to control slaves, right. It was state-of-the-art ideas on essentially mind control at a societal level for all the so-called Negroes in the slave-owning south. Is that right?

Marcsene Torchon: Not only that’s right, but for generations. This man was so confident in his method that he guaranteed that this would work for generations to come. So, any curious person would want to know what are these methods and what did he know about the slave that made it so effective?

Nigel Prentice: Right, and this is a theme that I’ve talked about a few times. I’d love for you to chime in on it. What do you think about this idea of us as modern-day Americans? We have inherited certain things from previous generations. One of the things could be this idea of addressed racism, unaddressed biases. How could we not address or at least inherit these institutions around homeownership, education, access to finances and capital, access to mentors, sponsors, access to politics? When just a generation ago, my parents and yours weren’t allowed to participate right, much less, go back a couple of hundred years. Four hundred years to stories like this, three hundred specifically for Willie Lynch, but even be before that. Right. I mean, what do you think about that? How do these things get transmitted down? And is it true that the transmitted down?

Marcsene Torchon: Yes, it is true that the past plays a major role in the present. And to move forward into the future, you cannot do that without acknowledging the past. I think we’re in the — we haven’t left yet, but we’re in.

Nigel Prentice: Hm.

Marcsene Torchon: I’m happy that there are conversations being had. Very tough conversations being had, whether there are any positive outcomes or not, but these conversations reveal that there has been a significant impact from the past.

Nigel Prentice: Yeah.

Marcsene Torchon: And in order for there to be a better tomorrow, there must be something in place to address that impact.

Nigel Prentice: Wow. Wow. That’s right. Acknowledgement stage. What comes after the acknowledgement stage?

Marcsene Torchon: I don’t have anything specific in mind, but I just know, looking back at my experience when I came to that point of acknowledgment in my life of what I did to lead me to where I was at that time, the next step for me was to have a vision. To look into the future and decide. Knowing that my thoughts create the future, who do I want to become? Where do I want to be? What do I want to do? Then that is going to require some form of plan of action. And I think that would be the next step after the acknowledgment.

Nigel Prentice: Man, that’s your tagline right there, brother. My thoughts create my future. That is so timely — timeless to be honest.

Nigel Prentice: I love it. I love it. So, applying that to you, let’s fast forward a bit. You must have had some inspiration to get into UX because it’s not a standard plan to go from this enlightenment that you had around knowledge of self, knowledge of the world around you, understanding that the systems around you are not random. That a lot of whether it was segregation, or failed desegregation. Boston has a rich history of both sides of that problem and debate, obviously. And I’m sure you saw a lot of it there in Dorchester, but what I’m curious about is what was the spark that took you on your path to social work? Right?

Nigel Prentice: So, your path was the kind of the troubles of your youth, then enlightenment, social work, and then you got into UX. So how did that happen? The UX part?

Marcsene Torchon: I would say the biggest thing was timing. Also, think that we’re always in different stages of our life and what we do now will determine the next five years and so on I worked in social work for about eight years. I was coming to a very difficult point during that experience where I don’t have a college degree.

Marcsene Torchon: And one of the things about social work is a college degree was very important in that field. Because I started off and was fortunate enough to have full-time roles without one, as you get better in your fields. You climb the ladder, you at eventually you’re going to get to that point a door’s going to come where no degree allowed.

Marcsene Torchon: And it was very difficult for me to move forward without pursuing a master’s degree or a Master of Social Work, so I can do work on a clinical level. At that time, I was exploring other things, and I also knew a very close friend of mine who was a graphic designer who worked in nonprofit.

Marcsene Torchon: And he decided to transition into the tech industry by going through a boot camp called General Assembly, where he pursued UX. And I’ve never heard of UX until he mentioned it to me. And at that time that he mentioned it to me, I was pursuing coding. I was taking coding courses, exploring that, and long story short, after taking a very intensive coding course, I realized that I don’t think this was something I wanted to do.

Marcsene Torchon: And General Assembly at the time was offering a free introduction to UX workshop. And I decided to take the course. And when I took this course, it lasted for about three and a half hours, and we did a hands-on project where we created a high-fidelity prototype. And from there, I was very, very much intrigued and very interested because one of the things I love about UX is that it incorporates many different disciplines in one. I’m a student of psychology. I love technology and design, and those three incorporated into one really piqued my interest. And therefore, I enrolled into the boot camp, the UX design immersive boot camp which was 400 hours of education. Were we completed five projects. One was with a real stakeholder, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I think that’s what pretty much started that transition.

Nigel Prentice: And user experience, it’s a big field. I like to view the field of UX as really an umbrella term if you will. The way I like to look at it, you can apply it in a lot of ways. You can apply it to visual design or graphic design, digital design, content. What drew you to the research side of things to help teams get at insights, talking with folks. Yeah, what drew you do to user research?

Marcsene Torchon: Good question. I thought that visual design was going to be my niche; that was my assumption at first. While all of us were being placed to our final assignment with a real stakeholder, my instructor placed me with the city of Boston team, which was a research project.

Marcsene Torchon: At first, I didn’t want to do the research project. But after completing that project, I think that was what made me want to focus on the research because I had a great time. All the activities that we had to complete were things that I felt like I already had experience with. For example, we needed to recruit participants for a usability test that we wanted to do on the city of Boston website; the school was not going to provide that to us, so we had to go and find it for ourselves. We were in the downtown area of the city. We went into a very busy cafe. Myself and one of my teammates had to approach and ask random strangers if they wanted to participate in our usability test right there on the spot.

Marcsene Torchon: And we were successfully able to have a few people say yes to us, which was great. But I’ve had experience doing that already, doing other things in sales and other entrepreneurial pursuits. I’ve done that before, and because I’ve already had that experience, I had a great time doing it. It wasn’t as intimidating to me as it would be to maybe someone else.

Marcsene Torchon: So, I feel like my background experience has prepared me for research and pretty much confirmed that. Nigel Prentice: So almost like coming home a little bit. There’s a little bit of a comfort zone for you. You’re not scared of people. You’re not scared of the conversation. In fact, it feels like you enjoy that interaction. Connecting with the fellow human being. Is that right?

Marcsene Torchon: Yes, sir.

Nigel Prentice: That’s one of the primary ingredients of a solid career, no matter where a person takes their skills, so I can’t wait to see more there. And you recently become involved in the initiative that I’m lucky enough lead, Racial Equity in at IBM. What drew you to our work? I’m to hear that story.

Marcsene Torchon: One of the things that I love about this transition into IBM is the business unit that I’m working out of is focused on making a difference in the healthcare space. I’m glad that I was able to take the passion that never left that I had working as a social worker and bring it into this role, which is to help people to make a difference.

Marcsene Torchon: Knowing that I’m doing something that’s either helping someone or saving someone’s life. And I’m very fortunate for that. Although I’m in a different industry, a different, very new role, I wanted to continue that desire of making a difference, creating impact, and inspiring people in my community. And I thought that this would be a great vehicle to fulfill that passion.

Nigel Prentice: I like how you’ve connected the idea of the Watson Health mission. Which is a corporate mission, right? It’s a business; we’re a corporation. We’re in the marketplace to create a financial impact. You found a way to connect that back to your community-driven mission from your early career. Is that right?

Marcsene Torchon: Yes, absolutely.

Nigel Prentice: You represent a really important symbol for the program and our industry overall, even beyond the four walls of IBM. A young man who had a career going in one direction and found their way into design by taking a particular set of left and right turns into a new direction. What advice might you have for the next person, that next young man or woman, or practitioner in another field who’s contemplating applying their skills into design?

Marcsene Torchon: I would tell them that you already have some design experience under your belt, whether that is your current role or your previous roles. Design thinking is all about problem-solving, and we all are problem solvers.

Marcsene Torchon: The approach to solving problems with empathy is something that we all have done to some capacity. And this is why I always encourage others to explore, try different things, and learn different things, because at some point, all of those experiences and all that information can be used for something bigger and greater in the future.

Marcsene Torchon: So, my advice would be to continue to explore, continue to learn. I remember reading an article about Steve Jobs taking a calligraphy class. I’m sure that he probably walked away with something valuable that will help become a better designer. I encourage exploring and asking the right questions.

Marcsene Torchon: I think questions are the keys to unlocking innovation, ideas, solutions that can move things forward. So, explore and know that all preconceived notions about the tech industry is probably not even true. Do your due diligence by learning as much as you can because there is a lot of impact that can be done here. It could absolutely change your life regardless of what industry that you’re transitioning from.

Nigel Prentice: Man, I love that optimism. You are underscoring the fact that we’re all problem solvers. Once you couple that with empathy for our fellow human being in service of solving a problem and creating experience, now we’ve got some of the raw ingredients of being a designer. You’re sitting here dropping jewels Marcsene, man.

Nigel Prentice: Well, listen, this has been a fantastic conversation. I thought I knew you beforehand and through your storytelling today. My respect for you has grown immensely. Knowing how your story is a story of discovery. A journey of always becoming a better version of yourself.

Nigel Prentice: I think anybody would look at your story and be proud of it. And I certainly am that for sure. And, and I can see that this wasn’t easy for you. You showed a ton of courage throughout your life so far. And to the last point you made, it showed how you’ve always been a designer, right? You’ve always been designing your life as soon as you had that moment of clarity from those books you read, and you realize that your thoughts create your reality, man.

Nigel Prentice: It’s probably at that point when you became a designer, and then you got the credentials along the way, and now you’ve got a profession around it— so much props to you. Shout out to all the mentors and other influencers who helped you at your inflection points to move you in the right direction.

Nigel Prentice: Shout out to you for stepping into these opportunities in your life and making IBM a better place, making the design profession a better profession and, ultimately, society. I have no doubt that you’ll continue to drive positive change in these areas.

Nigel Prentice: So that’ll do it for us for today. Thanks for being with us today, Marcsene. I can’t wait to watch and be involved in your career going forward. Appreciate you, my brother.

Marcsene Torchon: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.