Who calls you out?

For the first time ever, I think, I'm going to quote George Clooney. Here he is in an Esquire interview about a few pick-up games of basketball with Leonardo DiCaprio. Essentially, DiCaprio and a friend of his thought they were incredibly good at the game. Emphasis mine:

"...And so then we’re watching them warm up, and they’re doing this weave around the court, and one of the guys I play with says, ‘You know we’re going to kill these guys, right?’ Because they can’t play at all. We’re all like fifty years old, and we beat them three straight: 11–0, 11–0, 11–0. And the discrepancy between their game and how they talked about their game made me think of how important it is to have someone in your life to tell you what’s what. I’m not sure if Leo has someone like that."

I offer this as a companion to the idea of inspiring yourself. Yes, you must know what's what - as a balance. You have to learn about your capabilities - your true capabilities, not the ones you've been told you have - and balance them with everyone else.

I think back to my declaration that I am a writer. I stand by this. I do claim I'm good at it in general, but, it's also important to have someone who calls you out: a friend, a spouse, a mentor, a colleague, a random dude on Twitter (that last one is not recommended). That person can help be a compass, as long as you're open to it.

There's a fine line between the way that Clooney portrays his skills and the way DiCaprio portrays his. Clooney almost comes off as brash - almost! - but it falls on the side of confidence. DiCaprio's comments - and those of his friend in particular - are brash and smug.

Here's another Clooney quote from that interview:

"I’m not great [at basketball], by any means, but I played high school basketball, and I know I can play. I also know that you don’t talk shit unless you can play."

Honest, humble, direct. Admirable.

So, can you talk shit about something? Now ask yourself: can you play?

Culturally Bankrupt

Preface: I am writing this from a place of white male privilege.

We, as a society, have put a lot of credit in business metrics that are aligned with profitability. We talk about it, we have a stock market, we analyze and try to predict the future based on numbers.

Business Insider, by the numbers, appears to be an endeavor headed towards profitability. And yet the Pax Dickinson debacle demonstrates something greater: the company's priorities do not include fostering a positive, diverse, inclusive culture. They are not built that way, or else this would not have happened.

Similarly, TechCrunch's willingness to allow an astoundingly misogynistic exercise masquerading as a technological advancement into their conference demonstrates what their values are.

It is not enough for TechCrunch to say, well, hey, we'll try better next time. It is not enough for Business Insider to fire Pax. We now must determine if these organizations are actually learning and changing from these grave errors or if they're just placating their critics. They are, essentially, on probation.

It is not an HR nor PR exercise. Things like sexual harassment training and the Mad Libs "This doesn't represent our values!" press release tick the boxes to make things appear better. Maybe a trainer will come in and tell people for an hour on how not to be an asshole at work. Maybe there will be a company-wide email or two. These actions are truly the least these companies can do.

It's about what happens in the hallways, in the emails, in the conversations. It's about the things we can't see.

Until we have a universal and simple way to measure the internal culture and societal impact of an organization - one that coexists and maybe supersedes financial performance - we can only look to their external interactions and publicly call them out.

Now is as good a time as any for these companies to build true strategies and visions on how to become welcoming and inclusive workplaces while stewarding social responsibility. Not everyone is in a position of privilege to vocalize their concerns about these issues. That is precisely why it is on those of us who are to call out terrible behaviors and, more importantly, empower people who are not privileged.

It's sad to read of the ignorance in the tech community and it's frustrating to see big personalities demonstrate their stubbornness, causing suffering. There are people who have been fighting against it far, far longer than you or I. But we must fight against it, we must speak out against it, and we must fight together, because it is right.

Take Me With You

As we share our work – our lives – with others, we have an option. We can take people with us on that journey, or we can go it alone. 

We are always connected to everyone, even the people who are no longer with us on our journey. Some people might choose not to join us. That's fine (it might sting a little bit). They may wander off, find something more or less.

But the people who continue on with us, the people who are there... those are the people who can foster deep and true connections. Those are the people who can push us to become better. Those are the people who we may admire, respect, love, care for.

Who is with you now? Who do you want with you?

Let's go. 

That's Pie Style, Jack

I like Food Network Star . The show has gotten to me good and this season, well, the best person won. I've been a little more interested in the people behind these on-screen personas and was pretty happy to listen to a recent Alton Brown Podcast wherein Alton spoke with all three of the finalists.

But while I'd like to tell you how much I'm looking forward to Damaris's show, that's not my point today. No, I'm here to talk about Rodney Henry. Rodney's thing is pie - he owns pie shops and makes pie out of everything. 

During the Alton Brown interview, Rodney talked about pie of course but then he revealed what he's really  passionate about is rock music. The guy loves music, loves playing it. It's his thing. And he said something really profound towards the end of the episode when Alton was talking with the trio about how the show changed them. Rodney said:

The best thing about [the show experience] is being able to stay true to myself and my vision in the first place, and that is to support music through pie.

On the surface this may sound a little funny because it is. But it also stuck with me. Rodney loves music and he loves pie, and he doesn't see those as mutually exclusive. Rather he sees one love supporting the other, and helping the other become realized. He recognizes, clearly, that there is a ton of work that goes into having multiple (!) restaurants. It is a lot of work. But, notably, it brings in enough money to the point that he can play music and excel at both things.

Coffee with your pie?

I have a hypothesis on how my last job came to have such poor coffee. 

The coffee quality surprised me because it was while it was dispensed from a Flavia machine (expectations were low) the coffee was from Alterra - a great roasting company out of Milwaukee (expectations were high). I got to talking with a coworker about how Alterra could put their name on something so not good, given their in-house coffee is in fact very very good.

I saw this in a new light. Alterra likely knew that the giant conglomerate Mars would offer them a ton of cash and, in turn, distribute middling coffee with their name on it.  And at some point, maybe, Alterra said, "That's fine. We'll take that money and use it to do the thing we're really good at." They knew it'd be a risk but they dealt with it. And their new coffee shops are pretty beautiful, and they still make great coffee. They even opened up a shop in Madison.

I felt validated when Alterra's shops gained new names last month: Colectivo.  They're now separate entities. Alterra is now fully a Mars thing, and that's fine. From the outside it looks very much like Alterra got what it needed: a big bunch of cash to support what it truly loves.

Do the thing, support the thing

I see this as transcending money, although that's what I've focused on here. To me it's more interesting to see people hold multiple interests and activities together, and naturally allow one to fuel the others. There may be a time when Rodney finds that pie is no longer able to support his music. Or, it may flip! He might find the music is the big thing for him. Or maybe he'll branch out into hats. Possible.

If we pigeonhole ourselves into just one thing, just one possibility,  then we're not being true to ourselves - our lovely, diverse selves.

Now I need some pie. 

 

Specialize and generalize

We talk a lot in UX circles about the T-shaped person - not someone who wears T-shirts necessarily, but someone who has skills in a variety of disciplines and is really experienced in one.

I've been in places where one is a specialist and where one is a generalist. And really, there's no magic answer that says, "Aha! UX is going to consist of specialists only!" I do think that's where our industry is collectively headed and the generalists will be for organizations that have not truly invested in UX nor integrated it into their overall business - or, simply, organizations that are not large enough ($$$) to do so.

My first job on the web was as a webmaster. I did everything related to the website for the organization: I was a...

• visual designer
• IA
• UI coder
• database developer
• JSP developer
• writer
• QA person
• stakeholder
• Flash designer (yeah!)

Of course I had signoffs from my boss (in marketing), and sat next to IT so they actually took care of the hosting of the site, but it was largely on me to get stuff going. And I did. But look at the list of skills I mentioned: almost every one of them could be a separate role (and thus, person) today.

Now, the organization I worked for probably wouldn't hire a team of ten to make a website today. Maybe they should. But it would cost a lot more than hiring a unicorn and having that person do everything good enough with expertise in whatever area is deemed most important. (Or, no area if the organization was ignorant about UX - possible.)

I see the generalist as the modern day equivalent of a webmaster. The organization that brings in a generalist can turn to her and get just about everything "related to UX" done. That's efficient. That's cheap, too. 

We're maturing

Specialists, to me, begin to mark the maturity of an industry and an organization. It's not as if specialists didn't exist before last Tuesday; rather we're embracing people who have these deep histories and experiences in fields we must learn from. This is great! And things like usability, human factors, and IA are natural topics for UX - they are the core. As UX continues to mature, we're seeing more specializations get pulled in. Strategy! Product! Creative! Industrial design! Customer service! All of this stuff ends up related because it is , or more precisely, should be .

Why are we continuing to talk about this, collectively? Because it means a lot for where we are going as a discipline and it pulls directly into topics we all care about a lot. The conflation of UI and UX is easier when you have one person "doing the UX" instead of specialists. That may be the cost of being a unicorn, and frankly, I don't see this going away unless UX is a part of an organization's DNA - i.e., do they get it or not.

But the fact that our industry, at least for the time being, can support both specialists and generalists means that we're figuring out what does and does not work. We may never end this debate. It may be that we're always a hodgepodge of diverse backgrounds, brought together for the purpose of caring for users - people. And, to be honest, I'm very comfortable with that. The more the merrier, I say.

Design is the way we articulate helping people

I want to help people. I need to do it. I feel a connection with others, even though it may not be perfect nor ideal nor chosen. It might be in the context of a chosen relationship or a forced one. It doesn't change how I feel: I want to help people. 

I haven't been certain on how to help people. I'm still not certain. I've thrown technology at the problem, a lot. I've thrown parts of myself at the problem. I've seen it as a problem, something I can solve, something I must solve because it will improve everything.

I get frustrated when I can not help. I read about injustices, and get angry, and think about them. It does not feel like enough. I am trying to get more involved. I am trying to be more me, more present, more aware, more willing to be in that unbalanced grey area. I'm trying to be selfless and selfish.

I have skills. I want to use them. When I'm making something - an interface, a sign, a piece of text, a podcast, a video, a song - it's in the service of connection, of inspiration, of community, of help. Helping other people as much as I'm helping myself. 

Right now for who I am and where I am, design is the way I articulate helping people. This is what I can do. This is how I can make things better. 

(Thank you to Amy Silvers and Whitney Hess for inspiring this piece.) 

On Designing Yourself

This past Tuesday, Whitney and I shared episode 3 of Designing Yourself - Getting to Know You.  It's all about self-awareness.

These are challenging conversations, but they are also important ones. We are friends sharing these life experiences with each other and talking about how these things fit together, or don't. Whitney wrote a great post about some of the background of the show and how she came to it. I wanted to share my thoughts too.

At this point in my life, I am going through personal change and growth at a significant level. I've been working with the people closest to me - my family, my friends - to better have my life reflect who I truly am. I didn't quite have a sense of who I truly was. I am still not complete, nor perfect, and I will never be. But, I have gained a fair deal of emotional insight into how I operate as a person and as a human in this world. 

Until relatively recently, I was not compassionate with myself. You hear some of this in our episodes - I am hard on me. We are all our own worst critics.  But, I recognize this; awareness is that first step.

Like many of you, I trust, I began to read Whitney's stuff on the web and watch her presentations, and was just impressed as hell. I mean, really. Then I met her at IA Summit. Beyond the amazing conversation we had, I later thought, "Holy crap, it would be cool if I could work with Whitney Hess on something. She's someone in the UX world I admire and see as a leader, and... wow, that would be great."

The conversation continued after IA Summit, focusing on getting to know each other. The topic of working together came up. Originally, it was in the context of public speaking... but that fell away and podcasts emerged, since we had both wanted to do a podcast for quite some time (as it turned out!) 

And Designing Yourself is the result of that. We work hard on this podcast, through the schedules and responsibilities we have to our families and our lives. We are learning along the way, and we're getting better. To me, it's an opportunity to talk with a new friend, someone I greatly respect, about the things that matter to us as humans. Exciting stuff!

I would love it if you listened to one of the episodes and gave feedback. Follow the show on Twitter. And if you find something valuable, special, or exciting about our show... thank you.

Better living through technology

One of the things I marveled at as a kid was the computer on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Here was a computer so big that it contained every piece of media ever created by human civilization, and it was all instantly accessible. I think of this in terms of music: being able to hear, say, a particular concert or performance or recording is kind of mind-blowing.

And then I look up a random song on rdio on my tiny iPhone and see that we are a lot closer to this reality than we may think. I pay a relatively nominal fee each month and I can access a whole lot of recordings from the past 150 or so years, just about anywhere I am. That is a remarkable achievement.

But now that we are amassing this type of technology we need to ask ourselves, "To what end?" It will be immensely sad if the answer to everything is, "For our entertainment."

What happens if this technology is distributed evenly to everyone? What if it is not? What if we always make it about money? What if we give it away? How does all of it make us better people? Does it?

A few words on privilege

I have the luxury of being in a very privileged place.

I'm a white man living in the richest country in the world. There is an astounding number of things that I have not had to confront or concern myself with simply because of the color of my skin, my gender, my sexuality, my language, my income, my ability level, and my size, amongst other things.

I acknowledge that the privilege I have is bullshit, it is absolutely not fair, and I do not want our society to be this way. I also know that I haven't done enough in my life to really make a difference with regard to these injustices yet.

On being visible

Tuesday night at approximately 8:17pm, I stood in my bedroom. I felt compelled to reread my Father's Day cards. I pulled them out of the thick stack of papers and who-knows-what that has amassed at the right side of my sock drawer. I opened and read the one from my son, and felt amazing warmth as a smile crossed my face and my eyes and my whole self. Then I opened and read the one from my wife, and I felt my eyes water.

It was right about then that all of me, the whole me, realized I was visible. 

It's been a long road and really really hard to get to this point. It is a marked shift for me, the me that once was satisfied with being invisible and just hoping someone - anyone - would notice me. Not just a part of me, but me. It has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, this desire to not be seen and take a backseat to everyone and everything else. 

When asked for my opinions or thoughts I'd often opt out. "I don't care," I'd say, even though I might care a lot . This often manifested when I was asked what I wanted to do on a given evening or weekend, or where I might want to grab a bite to eat. "No preference." "You pick."

Some of my choices gave me this opportunity to be invisible. Photography, as I discussed with my friend Paul this weekend, let me hide behind a camera. Doing work in computers let me hide behind a screen. Hiding. Not showing myself. 

It ultimately felt very empty and very restraining.  There was a part of myself that was immensely dissatisfied with this, but it was simply the way I operated - the way I chose to be - and that part just didn't get any play.

But that part helped me look at things in an entirely different way at 8:22pm. An impromptu examination of my life... always the best kind. And it came down to people. I saw myself opting to be invisible - delaying scheduling time with people, ignoring emails, avoidance - because it was easy. Because it's what I've done. Because it was and is comfortable.

But no more. Or, I will practice not doing that anymore. I am in others' lives, and I will be present  in them as much as I am present in my own.

Here I am.