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:

1. 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.

 

2. 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.

 

3. 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.

ILUVUXDESIGN from lyle on Vimeo.

Who doesn’t love a good UX design, and who doesn’t get totally frustrated with bad experience design.
Hail to all the great UX designers of the world. Spread the love for UX design !!!

Funny and inspirational, not to be missed:

Perhaps Einstein was right… “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

1. Using the star tool, create a new star with a large difference between radius 1 and radius 2. I’ve used a 100:1 ratio. Points will set the number of streams of your burst, divided by 2 (if you want 5 streams, use 10 points. Even numbers work best.

Your star will look something like this:

2. Zoom into the center of your star (cmd+spacebar) to see the points of your inner radius. It should look like this:

Using the pen tool (delete anchor point tool), delete every other point on this inner radius. In progress, it will look like this:

And here it is completed (zoomed out):

You can vary the look of the sunburst by changing the number of points:

Add a radial gradient, and it’s a pretty useful little trick!

Want more features?
It will cost you time, increase cost, and/or require more resources.

Want to reduce cost?
Cut features, extend time, and/or reduce resources.

Bring the project to market quicker?
Add people, spend more, or cut features.

—

Or, to put it another way:
Speed, quality, or cheap… choose two.

What is bad design? Why is there so much bad design?

Design is bad when it doesn’t solve the problem. Bad design is wasteful. It’s usually the result of bad decisions. Bad design can exacerbate the problem, or creates new problems.

There are a number of factors that contribute to bad design:

1. The designer is engaged to solve a poorly defined (or undefined) problem. Without correctly knowing the problem, time spent on solutions is usually wasted.
2. The problem is misrepresented, so the designer is tasked with creating a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
3. The designer is unwilling or unable to create effective solutions to the state problem.
4. Insufficient time for the project means the designer can’t

Design should be considered “good” when it effectively solves a problem. Design can be “great” with that solution is elegant, when it appears so simple that, in retrospect, the solution is seen as a foregone conclusion. It’s right. It fits. Really good design is invisible, unless the solution required the design itself to be visible [In my experience, this is rare indeed].

What are the attributes of a good (or great) designer?

A good designer creates effective solutions to an established problem. A great designer phrases the problem in a way so it can be solved. This requires understanding of the pertinent details of the project: the objectives, the limitations, and resources that can brought to bear. A great designer often creates solutions that are unexpected; taking the broad view of a problem can mean tackling it from different directions.

Quick takeaway: all relationships can be expressed as dominance, communality, or reciprocity. Communication problems happen when the parties don’t agree what type of relationship is being expressed.

1. Is this project helping me accomplish my greater goals?
2. What are the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits?
3. What are my chances of success, and what does ‘failure’ mean?
4. Do I LOVE it?

I’ve reached the point in my life where my most scarce, and therefore valuable, asset is time. Time both in the immediate sense (hours per day I can dedicate to ventures) as well as a longer-term perspective (how much longer will I be vital/relevant/able to pursue the things that interest me?) Everything I do is viewed through this lens. And I’m done with the whole ‘trading my time for someone’s money thing’. Kaput.

I pass on about ten opportunities/ideas/offers/etc. for each one I pursue. This pains me to no end (I want to do everything), but it should probably be 20:1 or more. I don’t have a choice. The more things I try to tackle simultaneously, the more each one sucks. And doesn’t get done. And clutters my mental space. And blocks other opportunities. And is embarrassing to talk about.

So, I’m done. This year, my goal is to see how few projects I can be involved with, not how many. To bring a couple swing-for-the-fences ventures to completion. To only work on things that pass muster when challenged by those 4 questions above. To work on things that matter.

On the topic of doing what you love, check out this interview with Moby:

The interviewer asked: “How do you recommend balancing yourself?”

His Answer: “My advice first and foremost would be to do what you love. Um… because that way, if you do what you love, it increases the chance that you’re gonna have success with it. And even if you don’t have success, at least you spent your time doing something you love.”

Parting shot: 2 quotes from Andrew Carnegie:

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.
Andrew Carnegie

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
Andrew Carnegie