Michael, Michael

An older designer’s uncomfortable, frustrating journey from Milan to Minsk, by way of coffee, Stuart Smalley and too much emo.

Dear Michael.

You’ve been trying to figure out who you are and what you do for years now. Todd asked you 5 years ago. Jared asked you a couple of years ago. Thomas asked you a month ago. Kevin asked you last night. Once a month, you get to tell a handful of your peers what you do.

You don’t have a good answer. Never really have. You fumble through an answer, but let’s be honest — it’s not confident. People see right through that. That speaks volumes.

People have gotten to know you. For the most part, they like you. But their questions are about skills. “What kind of work are you looking for?” “So what do you want to do?”

Work. To do. Doing. Making. Building. Shipping.

Last night, you said “That’s a great question,” while feeling that dread wash over you. “I’m looking for research…if there were an information architecture project I’d probably be interested in that.”

Come on, man. Put some heart into it. I know it’s hard, because your heart really isn’t in it. Well, it is and it isn’t.

It’s time to be honest with yourself. Your doing/making/building days are more behind you than ahead. You know this, but you feel the tensions at play. The people you talk to, and the field we operate in, have been pushing the do/make/build/ship and fail-fast-fail-often mantras for years. But your hands are a little older now. Your right and left brains have gotten stronger and smarter and slower at the same time. You believe less in the “unicorn” direction because you’ve been one and it burned you out.

And, honestly, you’re a little tired. It’s hard to keep up appearances and put the face on which others expect to see.

But you still want to be understood, included, valued. You want to meet the expectations others have of you. You want to acheive what other people have. Things you’ve been chasing your whole life. Things you’ve been close to realizing but are just outside arm’s reach. This only fuels the tensions.

No sense in kidding anyone anymore. People ask you if you read the latest ALA article on responsive something, or mobile this or prototyping that. You heard of it but you probably didn’t read it. When you tell people what you’d rather read, like HBR or MIT Sloan Management Review or Osterwalder’s “Business Model Generation,” people look at you like you have two heads.

If you’re not a real “businessperson,” then you’re an aspiring one. Some may say you’re not a real “designer” because you don’t know front-end code and the idea of cutting a 200-screen prototype turns you off. Not being one or the other rankles the information architect in you, the piece of you which needs to organize and classify things so they make sense across people and systems.

And “strategist”? The word alone makes a lot of people roll their eyes and ask “So you do nothing?”

The closest thing you probably recall came from Trellist’s David Atadan 8, 9 years ago. “Creative businessperson.” He said a creative businessperson is someone who can do things but understands the business side of things. Let’s go with that for the moment.

Your friend Kel also put it really well 2 years ago — “You have this pretty unique ability to be a chameleon. You can reinvent yourself depending on the situation you find yourself in. Not a lot of people can do that. It’s pretty valuable.”

You listen. You analyze on the fly (yay ADHD!). You parse multiple inputs and read the people providing those inputs. You do this face-to-face. You help people understand things. You help set people and things up to succeed from as early in _whatever_ as possible. You help solve problems from the start. And you can speak the language of those you need to communicate with.

There are things which piss you off. Petty politics. People who play by bullshit “sink or swim” attitudes. Frat cultures. People who insist on doing things without thinking or understanding, like “Yep, we’re going to go straight to wireframes.” People who would rather lose their shit and yell and scream than work together on solutions. People who are just flat-out dishonest in their words and actions. And you do get pissed when you can’t focus, or you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or forget when to stop defending your position.

(It’s ok. I know you’re working hard on managing your pissed-off-ed-ness. Some other people know too. You’ll get there.)

So who are you and what are you looking for?

You’re a helper who’s going through a transition from a “hands” person to a “brains” person. Your hands are still good, but it takes longer for them to do things. You’re not the production factory you were years ago. Your brain can help a lot more people these days.

You have crazy ideas. Some are turds, and some might be cool. Your ideas go to helping others as people or professionals. Or both? Why not?

You have a good heart, even if your inner control freak hides it at times.

You’re realistic, and you know that the things which piss you off are always going to be there no matter what or where you are in place or in life.

You’re a strategist. Or a solutions architect. Or a researcher. Or a creative businessperson. Or a designer. Or a planner. Or some flavor of Account guy. Or an information architect. Or some flavor of Product. Or the dreaded Consultant. Or the even more dreaded Generalist.

Or a chameleon.

All you’re really looking for is to help things not be shit.

You’re a helper. So go help.

And learn to write more gooder too.