{"id":993,"date":"2014-06-29T17:48:06","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T00:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=993"},"modified":"2014-06-29T17:48:06","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T00:48:06","slug":"oh-sillycon-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=993","title":{"rendered":"Oh, SillyCon Valley…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been a designer in this area dubbed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silicon Valley” for over 12 years now, having worked at a variety of firms including corporate, agency, and now at a startup. I had arrived fresh out of grad school with the simple intent to gather just enough experience and then move on to other places of innovation and design goodness, to advance and round out my professional foundation. Indeed, even my graduate advisor Dick Buchanan gently admonished me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stay there too long. I wonder if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enough soul<\/em>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rather ominous, right? Hmm, looking back on those words and reflecting upon my own long career here, I admit starting to feel that general sentiment: a melange of disconnection, desolation, and despair even. Ugh. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened? Is it simply boredom and burnout? Perhaps it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something deeper…<\/p>\n

Now of course, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no question SV is a fantastic place for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Design”: the incredible mix of companies, people, colleges, networking events, cosmopolitan vibe, diverse food and drinks galore, variety of non-work cultural activities and outdoor options, etc. Tons of places for creativity and productivity. Career & education options abound for any designer with aspirations. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no place like it anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something else afoot, an insidious aspect that undermines all that I (and we as designers, I might add) enjoy and partake. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to put any one word to it, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s multiple aspects to it, which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try to itemize here:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Echo-chamber of living in the self-created tech bubble: Yes we get these cool services piloted or launched here \u00e2\u20ac\u201dand nowhere else\u00e2\u20ac\u201d but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an over-emphasis on their importance and utility, in (dis) proportion to other regions, since nobody else has them. We doth rejoice in our own bounty a bit too much.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Male-dominant tech geek culture: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen some pretty tasteless male-driven prezos at start-up events. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve all seen the overtly sexist apps and features. We need more women tech leaders (and inspire young women\/girls to get involved in tech & science), and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening for sure! Got to do better.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Premium value placed on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153silly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d toy apps for extremely limited market samples (i.e., the white hipster crowd with no real problems): Yo? Yo. Yo! Oy.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Greedy get rick quick culture of rapid serial returns, no matter how silly the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153app\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153service”. Not being naive, I realize this is inherent to VC calculus and approach. Can we simply not be so hubristic and obvious about it? Stay classy.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Billions upon billions upon billions: For what, a texting app? For a pair of headphones? For a thermostat? Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s get real folks. Feels like a Banana Republic of Monopoly money, of which denizens like me see nothing despite working long hours on, ahem, solving real complex problems around virtual infrastructure, for instance ;-)<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Problems of extreme housing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153value”, socio-economic distortions and displacements, busing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153techies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, etc.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I could go on, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly something less-than-positive here. These next few articles hit upon related issues more capably than I can, and are worth several minutes of deep reading and thoughtful reflection.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\/\/ More info here:<\/p>\n

** Time for Silicon Valley to disrupt itself (i.e., culture):\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/qz.com\/225782\/the-next-thing-silicon-valley-needs-to-disrupt-big-time-its-own-culture\/<\/a><\/p>\n

** Doing better than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d:\u00c2\u00a0 http:\/\/unreasonable.is\/opinion\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
** Going beyond Silicon Valley, brief video feat Steve Case, AOL\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legendary founder:\u00c2\u00a0 http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/video\/start-ups-are-just-not-for-silicon-valley-anymore-YuZK_CX5S6yHGX7UScHYnA.html<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been a designer in this area dubbed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silicon Valley” for over 12 years now, having worked at a variety of firms including corporate, agency, and now at a startup. I had arrived fresh out of grad school with the simple intent to gather just enough experience and then move on to other places of … Continue reading “Oh, SillyCon Valley…”<\/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-993","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\/993","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=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":994,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions\/994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}