The upside of downsizing
In additon to trying to get numerious projects off the ground (Search Integrate, My-My, etc.), until recently I was employed at IGN Entertainment. I say ‘until recently’ because I was part of a layoff that went along with their selling of our e-commerce product to another company. [Keen eyed observers would have noticed I edited my little bio bit in the top right hand corner of the site to reflect this change.]
Since that layoff (which didn’t catch me COMPLETELY off-guard but was still a bit of a surprise), I’ve been a whirlwind of activity. Which feels really good. I’ve renewed old relationships, beat the trees for contract gigs, interviewed numerous places (including briefly Amazon.com, which is one of my top dream companies), and basically just hustled. I’ve never been so just plain busy as right now (and I’m always happier busy).
On this whole, this has been a very good thing, and here’s why:
- I’ve taken stock of where I’m at
In preparation for all those conversations/interviews, I was forced to think critically about what story I wanted to tell about myself. Basically, what is my brand and how my path has lead me to where I am. For example, how do I describe myself: 1) as an entrepreneur that has busted my ass to learn tons of disparate skills? 2) as a designer who understands how both user experience (helping the user accomplish their goals) and strategy (helping the business accomplish its goals) need to work together to creative effective products?, 3) as a marketing focused data-nerd who lets analytics inform questions with user-experience solutions?, or perhaps 4) a product guy who finds the whole process (concepting, defining requirements, designing, marketing, production, testing, iterating, etc.) fascinating and wants to be involved in every step of nurturing my ‘baby’ (even when its someone else’s baby).I’ve described myself in variations of all these, but #4 seemed to resonate the most. I have a really hard time describing myself as a “designer” these days – it seems so five years ago. “Product guy” feels right. - I’ve learned my market value
“You’re worth what someone will pay you” is a absolute truism. You might feel your skills merit a certain amount of compensation, but here’s no way to know what you can get until people start offering you things. Because of some strange career choices I’ve made in the last 5 years (and because the economy is stronger, and because my skills have improved), my market value was significantly higher than I thought. Always exciting to discover. - I’ve had to make some hard choices
As related to the personal brand choice (#1) above, I’ve had to take stock of where I am and where I’m going. And what I want from work. My career hasn’t been a straight path; I’ve bounced between visual design, marketing, experience design, product, sales, and more… but where do I go from here? What is interesting to me? Where can I learn? What will make me happy?As it turns out, this is the hard one. Do I pass on that full-time job that is less satisfying for a short-term contract that’s interesting? Do I pursuing the job that makes me uncomfortable (and would give me lots of opportunity to learn) for one that I can get in and kill (which is to say, perform at a high level)? Do I factor in industry? The size of the team? My chance for promotion? How important to me is getting a stake in the business?
A brief note about hustling
Hustling, as made famous recently by Gary V., is the idea that most problems can be solved through hard work, and that most people are unwilling to do hard work, so you can do great things by applying nose directly to the grindstone. Good old fashion protestant work ethic. I’m pretty good at hard work. [I'm less good at happiness (i.e. the happiness that isn't derived from hard work) but I'm working on it (in addition to hard work I also like irony).] I’m glad to be in a situation where my success or failure is determined almost exclusively by my efforts (and not office politics, luck, ass kissing, nepotism, corporate decision making, etc).
It can be exhausting at times however.
