{"id":1064,"date":"2016-01-03T17:17:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T00:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2016-01-03T17:17:03","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T00:17:03","slug":"reflections-2015-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=1064","title":{"rendered":"Reflections 2015 \/ 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new year already! Wow. How time truly flies when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re busy\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 prototyping your career<\/em>? Hmm. The final months of 2015 found me in the midst of a post-startup sabbatical, re-assessing my career trajectory after some unexpected changes, and taking time to shift things around in terms of personal and professional priorities. Lots and lots of coffees and conversations and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153catch-up\u00e2\u20ac\u009d meetings with many good people in the SF Bay Area, from designers to startup CEOs to engineers and even sales folks. I also began \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prototyping\u00e2\u20ac\u009d my career situation, trying out a variety of possibilities that keep me engaged and (hopefully) financially sound! I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s permanent just yet, but I landed upon a conceptual structure of proportionally striking a balance among three elements: a) UX Consulting b) Speaking\/writing and c) Teaching (or somehow involved in design academia).<\/p>\n

The idea is to continually tweak (iterate) the proportions of time and energy allocated to each element, per circumstances and dependencies, i.e., it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always dynamic and evolving as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153virtuous cycle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d framework. This is not new, of course, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new to me for sure!<\/p>\n

Some big challenges I encountered while embarking upon this virtuous cycle model during the last few months of 2015:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Protecting my own time and energy for what I want to focus on, not just giving in to any \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we need a designer pronto\u00e2\u20ac\u009d request.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Juggling how to keep various doors and windows of opportunity open while closing those that aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t immediately or initially relevant, but preserving connections for later\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 because you never know!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Communicating and justifying my value as a strategic, principal-level design leader while educating folks who may not be knowledgeable about the wide, diverse spectrum of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153design\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Defining my own goals for pursuing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153academy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in small engagements, and how to balance that with paid vs non-paid speaking opportunities (for pragmatic reasons, of course ;-)<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Reconciling the inherent \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hurry up and wait\u00e2\u20ac\u009d model of consulting with an innate passion to tackle problems and prove my talent \/ leadership \/ value to skeptics with immediacy of impact \u00e2\u20ac\u201d definitely not easy!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, the non-stop iteration of this model continues in earnest as I head fast into 2016. But looking ahead I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m mindful of also applying attention to a few key areas of significance for me:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Role modeling good design leadership behavior, with clients and students alike. This includes communicating abstract concepts of design and demonstrating how to apply design thinking effectively\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and strategically.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Avoid preaching or lecturing (ahem ;-) but instead cultivate an attitude of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inviting people along\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, via thoughtful questioning of issues, encouraging responses and debates from skeptics, thus serving as an unbiased open-minded guide, not someone with an agenda to prove.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Allowing situations or personalities to play themselves out and assess the outcomes with curiosity, rather than impatience beset by remorse or regrets. Some things aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t meant to be, or maybe they just connect nicely!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Pursue design challenges (in practice and teaching) that speak to issues around ethics, philosophies, psychologies, and organizational themes, beyond \u00e2\u20ac\u0153yet another screen\/device\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Start developing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153meta-design\u00e2\u20ac\u009d aspects of practice with clients and students, for long-term traction.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amid such reflections of the past and what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible for the future (at least this year), it will be an exciting time with further forethought and adjustments along the way\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new year already! Wow. How time truly flies when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re busy\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 prototyping your career? Hmm. The final months of 2015 found me in the midst of a post-startup sabbatical, re-assessing my career trajectory after some unexpected changes, and taking time to shift things around in terms of personal and professional priorities. Lots and lots … Continue reading “Reflections 2015 \/ 2016”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1065,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/1065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}