Go teach or die (as professional)
At some point, after ten thousand hours of practice or something, one becomes a professional. And it is a trap.
I observed it a lot in Designers. You figured out the tools, developed a style, you do outstanding work. And when someone is asking you why a logo, an app or a shoe designed by you the way it is you have close to nothing to say.
It is all intuition, a deeply embedded sense… you developed a nose for these kind of things. You can tell it is good when you see it, but you can not really explain why or how to achieve this result. You are in the trap.
If you are unlucky you are enjoying it. You get paid. People are praising your work.
The thing is if you can not explain your process nobody can challenge you, including yourself. And when you have no challenge, you can not improve. You are staring to die as a professional. You will grow bitter with annoying people who just do not get it if you insist on staying this way.
It is a choice though. The way out is to question everything you know. How do you know a design is good? How can you prove it? How can you measure it? How can you reproduce the outcome? Can you do it ten times better?
Your customers, who are not professionals in your field, will ask you these questions… but really it should be you asking these first.
When you are able to answer these questions you can collaborate efficiently, help others grow, get challenging feedback and improve — you out of the trap.
Now when you spent maybe another ten thousand hours doing this you can do the best thing for yourself and your professional community: go and teach.
Are you busy at work? Is your career going up? It is a good sign. It means it is time to teach. No, not when you have done with your career. Teach right now while you are growing the most.
Do not complain that it is hard to hire competent professionals. Of course, it is. The education system designed as a byproduct of Industrial Revolution will never be able to provide you with professionals you need in the knowledge economy.
Ok, how to teach when you so busy? We figured it out at Posit. Join us, and we will support you all the way. The short answer: it is a mix of intensive offline workshops, availability of a full program online, collaborative tools, and focus on solving real problems with the students.
With our UXD Course, we are teaching User Experience Design in 24 hours
but across many weeks. The students work on their own projects and demonstrate the results at the demo day.
And the demo day is not the end of the program. It is the beginning. The outcome of the course are professionals who get promoted or switch careers in UX Design within a year.
What next?
— Clap to this article anywhere between 0 to 51 times.
— Join us at the upcoming UXD Meetup. Meet members of the network.
— Reach out at Posit.place.
— Read another article in this series: Problem-solving with benefits.
— Follow me on Twitter and say hi.
Thank you!
