My explanation of what I do for a living, for people not in the tech industry or new to it. This was originally published on my wife’s blog, The Togetherish.
What Do You Do For A Living?
There are lots of reasons why I avoid and detest the cliche question, “what do you do for a living?” when I meet new people.
One of those is because it always feels like a quick way for the asker to decide whether the other person is worth their time, and I don’t for a second feel as though anybody can or should be judged for their vocation alone.
The other reason, probably the main one, is because if the person asking it isn’t within the technology & design industry, I never feel like I have a clear and simple…
I had one of those moments tonight, which I’m sure we all have now and then, where suddenly your mind makes one small connection and you instantly understand a whole other layer of value that might exist with an emerging technology.
It’s like a tiny piece of the future unfolds in front of you for a moment, and you get a sneak peek at what might be, before the moment is gone and you’re left wondering how you can help make it so.
Tonight I saw some really smart people talking about machine learning at the Mawson Ventures demo night…
Jared M. Spool is one of my favourite people to follow on Twitter.
If you don’t know of Jared, he founded UIE, which is a great resource for designers, co-founded the CenterCentre user experience design school, and he’s a real-deal design ‘thought leader’.
Yeah I hate that term too, but I don’t have a better alternative to offer when someone actually seems to often shape (and even lead) a lot of the thinking and discussion of an industry.
He‘s also apparently pretty good at sparking controversy in the design community.
(I’m not even going to start on the time he…
“We become more successful when we are happier and more positive.”
Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage
As I write this, we are five days into the longest holiday we’ve ever taken as a family unit.
Our little foursome, in our tiny Honda Jazz, have driven about a thousand kilometres, stayed in five different houses, and listened to the Frozen soundtrack at least a dozen times over.
When the little ones are asleep though, we’ve been listening to something a little lighter — “The Happiness Advantage”, by Shawn Achor.
We’re not finished the book yet (we only get about a chapter…
This is just a note to say I’m going to start posting occasional thoughts, observations and ideas here semi-regularly. Kind of like a blog.
I’ve been writing little notes all year because I find that I gain a better understanding of my own thoughts when I write them down. Also I hope that by writing more my writing will improve.
But, I’ve never published any of them. In fact, I’ve never really published much writing online at all beyond the occasional off-the-cuff comment response/rant.
In the face of that, suddenly starting to post structured ‘articles’ to Medium, on the kinds…
Jai Mitchell
Product designer & organiser of Product of BNE community.
