You and your job (a year-ish on)

Just over a year ago I published a little blog post called ‘You and your job‘ which was basically a few lines of self-motivation to take my chances outside the ‘security’ of a full time job. I’ve been trying to write a follow up to it for a few months but have been unable to nurture the points I wanted to make into a narrative. So, rather than just let the notes I did make rot in a notebook, I thought I would post the notes warts et al.

If it is of even the slightest interest to you I still suggest you take all points with a generous pinch of salt.

Many thanks for reading.

- Was never meant to be taken literally and was meant to be taken very much in general
- Some people did take it far too literally and even thought I was talking directly about them and a particular company and a particular job
- Was meant to spur on anyone to Do something about the work they are doing if it was making them unhappy (if they wanted it, only if they were looking for some kind of push). No one is much use to either themselves or their employer (if they have one) if they are unhappy. It is easy to rant/rail/moan/gossip about a job but if it ain’t working out and you are doing something that is wasting your – and other’s – time, then you really owe it to yourself to do something else.
- Believing you can change most things is the easy bit. To keep believing is where it gets harder.
- It’s not the fact that it’s work, it’s the fact of what the work is.
- And contrary to popular believe, you probably build better relationships with clients when you are contracting/providing services.
- Recruiters when trying to hire and not explaining what the work involves (and more often than not having no understanding of the work itself) encapsulates everything wrong with UX recruitment.
- If your not passionate go do something else.
- The previous post really seemed to hit a spot with quite a lot of people as though I had single handedly encouraged a dismantling of all responsibility.
- The previous post wasn’t directing people to walk straight out the door. It was a reminder to always think carefully about what you are doing, where you are and how your working life is working out for you. Small adjustments can make the differences.
- No piece of writing let alone some inconsequential blog post is for everyone. If you don’t need encouragement, if you are happy, then it wasn’t for you. But there are some people who have itches and itches that keep itching and these people need to keep moving, doing their own thing. (Maybe the post was for them, maybe it wasn’t.)
- No need to complain about encouraging folk to do their own thing. Some folk are cut for the long haul and some get those itches. Everyone needs to encourage people flows. Itches shouldn’t be allowed to bleed. You don’t need to get up people noses. There maybe unsettling periods as different people find their comfortable positions and their place in the world. Reward the right people with the right things for them. It is no simpler than that. Hostility rarely attracts loyalty. We are all different and we all have different skills. There isn’t just one solution.
- In terms of the UX design community in London, you can’t have everyone in a full time job and in the same way you can’t have everyone contracting, running their own little shows. Balances have to be struck.
- Great people come in many many different shades and don’t always work/operate exactly the way you want them to. Don’t try and box them in.
- You should go it alone/start your own thing up for the right reasons. Don’t just leave a job to coomand higher rates. That’s a shit reason. Don’t do it for money and less responsbility. Do it because you want to make something, create something. Do it because you want to be able to select projects where you can make a difference, take responsbility, work hard. Deliver.
- Don’t expect everything to just be delivered to you on a plate. Nothing comes easy, least of all being worthwhile, doing something worthwhile (either on your own or in collaboration with others).
- The action is to start something, be something, take risks, don’t panic, don’t fear, explore, think beyond your horizon, don’t be dominated by money don’t think in terms of money. Try it.

//@solle
//London

LDNIA. December 2011. A poster

I rather like the latest poster for London IA (14 December at Sense Loft).

Crafted from an old collection of cut out ‘heads’ both famous and non-famous then given a bit of a paper bending treatment.

(View/download full size on Flickr)

Questions for a small audience

“We should be ‘reading for the sake of reading’ rather than ‘reading for the sake of having read’” Alan Jacobs from The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

I’m crap at reading. What do I do?

I’m not one of those people who can fit proper reading into the mechanics of the day to day. I manage bits, fits and starts. Scans. A mountain of read laters. Given the chance to read in a stretch of time I am too easily swayed by getting things done – rarely reading an item on a list.

What is required is a time and space and surrounding – an organised ‘thing’. Then I might get somewhere.

The idea for a ‘something’ – an idea for a small audience – has been swimming in the background for a while, encouraged by a writing weekend last February, the Do Lectures in September and many little reading puzzles from many sources along the way.

Could it be a succession of reading weekends at some kind of remote house – with in winter a real fireplace and in summer splendid beach views – located suitably for bracing any-season walks and inviting pubs. Invite a combination of people happy to mix up introversion, concentration and discussion. The opportunity to have undisturbed free time to focus on something that you may find hard to do for a sustained period within your regular days, weeks, months. Is this the something?

The inspiration really gets its lift from the chapter Serendipity in Steven Johnson’s book Where Good Ideas Come From…

“While the creative walk can produce new serendipitous combinations of existing ideas in our heads, we can also cultivate serendipity in the way that we absorb new ideas from the outside world. Reading remains an unsurpassed vehicle for the transmission of interesting new ideas and perspectives. But those of us who aren’t scholars or involved in the publishing business are only able to block out time to read around the edges of our work schedule… The problem with assimilating new ideas at the fringes of your daily routine is that the potential combinations are limited by the reach of your memory… One way around this limitation is to carve out dedicated periods where you can read a large and varied collection of books and essays in a condensed amount of time. Bill Gates (and his successor at Microsoft, Ray Ozzie) are famous for taking annual reading vacations. During the year they deliberately cultivate a stack of reading material and then take off a week or two and do a deep dive into the words they’ve stockpiled. By compressing their intake into a matter of days, they give new ideas additional opportunities to network among themselves for the simple reason that it’s easier to remember something that you read yesterday than it is to remember something you read six months ago”

A great way to get into a network of new ideas.

Anyone vaguely interested please do ping me

//@solle
//London