Looking back, for me 2018 — which felt like it lasted a decade! — was a year of transitions and connections, of not knowing and adapting to the unexpected, while seeking out those elusive moments of \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 discovery? achievement? fulfillment? Perhaps it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply the search for the most mundane thing of all…quite simply progress.<\/p>\n
As Mad Men’s Don Draper said often, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153move forward\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. So I did.<\/p>\n
I leaped from the relative safety of a full-time stable corporate job into the volatile, risky frontiers of UX consulting \u00e2\u20ac\u201d again! As a much wiser friend said, as designers we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re never fully satisfied in our work, instead constantly shifting among various states of want and give, whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s projects or clients or companies or tools & skills. And so it was for me, this time trying to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153do it all\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in this crazy blend of engagements: advising & helping startups, contracting for a newly-found UX agency, my own indie consulting, continuing with UX conferences, and even flirting with a potential full-time teaching role. Throughout I was constantly proving myself, building credibility, developing trust, retelling \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my narrative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a never-ending enterprise, this thing we do as designers. Rather painful, no? I concluded the year by re-affirming my design leadership position joining a startup as their head of UX whereby I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m shaping a new business strategy via design.<\/p>\n
But what did I get out of all that activity in 2018? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to share a\u00c2\u00a0few insights:<\/p>\n
1 – You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always have to know what you want; sometimes you need to wander through the muck a bit to realize what you need and value. Relatedly, maybe (particularly if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stuck in a rut) the better way to know yourself IS actually to dive into something unknown \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with eyes wide open, of course!<\/p>\n
2 – Engaging with ambiguity while knowing that it might fail, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really hard and has a cost \/ risk factor that only you can reckon with. Everyone will try to pull & push you in different ways but only you should decide what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right for you. And maybe, you need to be pressure tested a bit, to sense the edges of your comfort zones. Then, when it gets too much, simply walk away, knowing that you tried and hopefully learned, albeit the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153learned lesson\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may not present itself until much much later…<\/p>\n
3 – You own your time. You always have the right to say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and walk away (professionally and gracefully). You are in charge of your narrative \u00e2\u20ac\u201d both as a self-referential thing to affirm your value to yourself (indeed, in this business we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re often our own toughest critics!) and as a way to build relations with others who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know you, but willing to interact and understand what you stand for.<\/p>\n
4 – That narrative is iterative and situational, necessarily so, given the context and personality and type of role or position held by that other person. (Note: your “narrative” is not some cynical “spin”, but more of a shaping of messages and how you project your self)<\/p>\n
5 – Trust and credibility are multi-faceted concepts that evolve over time with different people, per contexts. Everyone has their own \u00e2\u20ac\u0153way\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of building that up with you (and vice versa). Getting a coffee or beer usually helps; truly get out of the office to help foster those ties into valuable relationships. And guess what — sometimes it just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work out; you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both not seeing eye to eye no matter what. Keep moving forward!<\/p>\n
6 – Explaining design and how \/ why you do what you do as a designer (and as a design leader) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that never stops. You will always be doing that! Keep iterating that narrative.<\/p>\n
For me, looking ahead to 2019 (and perhaps beyond), I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m realizing that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m moving even more away from traditional \u00e2\u20ac\u0153UX\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and much more into matters of leadership, strategy, even philosophy. So for my annual intentions (as opposed to resolutions, which sound so hard cut), I intend to do the following over time:<\/p>\n
1 – Keep pushing on the notion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153meta-design\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in my work: literally designing the conditions to enable good design to happen. This also extends the effects of design beyond \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the screen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d towards the organization and more.<\/p>\n
2 – Keep evolving & refining my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153playbook\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a design leader per insights from non-UX leaders, from Sales, Engineering, Product, Marketing, etc. What are their perspectives and how can they inform my approaches? There is a vital interdependency to our work that I deeply aim to foster more of.<\/p>\n
3 – Keep advocating for a systemic, framework-level point of view to wicked problems, and really dig into that ambiguity in a cross-functional manner. So, this naturally requires helping others get comfortable with being uncomfortable ;-)<\/p>\n
And ultimately I intend to keep testing and evolving my own \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dynamic balance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (per the classic Eames diagram) of competing yet cooperative aims and situations and opportunities. It will be another interesting and fun year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Looking back, for me 2018 — which felt like it lasted a decade! — was a year of transitions and connections, of not knowing and adapting to the unexpected, while seeking out those elusive moments of \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 discovery? achievement? fulfillment? Perhaps it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply the search for the most mundane thing of all…quite simply progress. As … Continue reading “Reflections & Intentions: 2018 > 2019”<\/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":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126","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=1126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1127,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions\/1127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}