Lately i’ve been thinking a lot about what it is I do. I have a role that takes me from 9-5 that I quite enjoy, and have been rather successful in. I work for good people, doing good work which is challenging and diverse. This is a good thing. After two years wearing many hats each day from 9-5, i’ve grown into a desire to narrow my focus.
I think this is called career development, and i’m OK with that.
Something is growing called UX. At first, I reject it - it seems one of those ‘web 2.0′ type of identifiers which are meaningful and unnecessary, yet very necessary and even useful. Regardless of how often i’ve read with an ear to UX, desperate to find out what this UX is, I never feel i’ve found a very satisfying answer.
Or, perhaps its rather that all of them are satisfying, without one being definitive. I’m starting to be OK with that, and I think the discipline itself is too. The professionals sorting themselves out and being loud and useful and now important is one part of it I think. The other part of my new acceptance of UX has largely been fueled by my friend Roz. For a reason i’m not quite sure of, she embraced UX in 2009, and she made it social and fun for me.
An atmosphere of knowledge-sharing, reading, showing-and-telling and having beers has grown to be a prominent part of my professional personal life. And the people in these groups are smart. I’ve been hip to the professional smarties at PhillyCHI for almost two years and love their events. Its very exciting to see them gaining steam (or perhaps its simply that they are more firmly entrenched on my radar). I’m also elated by the teaching-sharing that is happening in the UX book clubs, often times spewing directly from the authors and editors themselves. There was one UX show-and-tell too, I hope for more. I think these professional knowledge sharing events are important and should happen often.
So the big thing, of UX becoming social for me, is all these smart people I keep meeting. They are sharing their processes and ideas. They are telling their stories, and are telling of their challenges and achievements. It is inspiring.
I am used to inspiration, in fact I am addicted to it. This is nothing new for me being social with smarties like developers, and independents, and business owners, and speakers, and authors, etc. Its one of the reasons that Philly has been so fucking amazing. The one thing is, though, that now these smart UX people are talking about all these types of things I have been doing for awhile, and quite enjoy. The conversation has focused, and now I see it is time for me to as well. Because I like this conversation a LOT.
It’s a bit like the thought I fell in love with in college, first Analytic Philosophy then Aesthetics and the History of Art. I believe that UX is a bit like both of those, and it challenges me in a way that allows me to continue to develop, as opposed to stagnating in defined business roles.
Yet, unlike Philosophy or Art, this UX has a real viable place in our modern economic ecosystem. The internet is essential - a web of content mature enough to now be yearning for meaning. Through semantics, standards, developments in design and technology, and emerging professional processes the web has created a demand for smart thinkers to do what they do naturally:
- Experience
- Question
- Analyze
- Research
- Synthesize
- Theorize
- Design
- Curate
- Build
- Create
And more, i’m sure. (the list is weird. I think bullets don’t work, I need columns for this list)
Next: There is the new next way we get smart about publishing on the web, I met her at AEA – Content Strategy. I think it makes sense, and it is already helping me in some of the hats i’m finding more and more productive from 9-5. I would like to thank Kristina Halvorson for creating a more comprehensive way to look at web content challenges, and a set of tools to develop useful, usable content. But she told me never to meet my heros, so it goes.
So this Content Strategy is hip to UX’s groove. A smart lady I was having lunch with told me one way to think about the development of Content Strategy might be to look at the way Usability emerged into a well-respected role - now firmly established in every project as a practice that is essential to success.
I like this thought, also I feel like content is really important. The discipline is rapidly defining itself (yeap) and is easy to make a business case for. A whole lot of Content Strategy is a system of rigorous consideration of everything surrounding content. That is, the knowledge doesn’t strike me as new, just thorough and smart. The application however is game-changing, and is quick-like becoming a whole new set of skills that falls very near the UX tree.
[insert a picture of the UX tree] - i don’t have a picture of a UX tree.
This is the new direction I plan to take in my work. I’d like to explore the role of curator of experience – focusing on Content Strategy, while continuing to grow into what UX is. It seems likely that i’ll be getting some new hats.
The End.
I have some lists, that i’d like to post for review*
- A list of my values inspiried by a coffee with @zakiwarfel and @stellargirl
- A list of the the things i’ve done in my work, many of them self taught and some of them proven to be bonafide.
*By me, at a later time
