An Interview with Justin Lischak Earley, Graduate of UCI’s Master of Human-Computer Interaction and Design Program
Justin Lischak Earley is a real estate lawyer who works at the intersection of property law and emerging technologies. He graduated from the MHCID program in September 2020. The views Justin expresses here are exclusively his own, and not those of his employer. You can find Justin at https://jdlesq.com
Before MHCID, had you ever worked remotely for a substantial period of time?
No, I had not. And in my business working remotely has historically been frowned on. Working remotely was something that you could only do every now and again, as a special privilege.
How did the MHCID program or studying remotely prepare you for a COVID-19 work situation?
From the obvious perspective, I would say it made me invest in hardware. I had nice monitors, nice computer, nice keyboard, peripherals, all of the sorts of things that were important to have and became very difficult to get your hands on when the pandemic hit.
In the program, I also developed familiarity with software tools, which turned out to be enormously helpful to me when the pandemic hit. As many of my colleagues were struggling to figure out, “What even is Microsoft Teams, or what is Zoom? How do I use it?” I had already built those skills during the course of the program.
The third thing I would say I got from MHCID that helped me prepare to work remotely was an understanding of some cultural norms around remote work. It is just different in some ways that are a little hard to define, but are nevertheless very real.
I learned little things that enable work projects and relationships to move in a way that doesn’t require face-to-face presence. And they proved to be really valuable when suddenly no one can see one another in person.
What’s something you thought might be a problem studying remotely that wasn’t really an issue after all?
When I came into the program, I was quite concerned about group work. I figured I’ve been through professional school — I know how to self-organize and make sure that my things are turned in on time. But I wondered: How will I be able to work in a group with other people that I don’t really know on projects that affect all of us? And I was really surprised to find that that wasn’t a problem.
I think that having the shared goal of “we’re going to finish this project together,” really helped with group work. That seems to me to supplement or replace a lot of the relationship building that occurs in person where you develop a relationship so that you can then work on a project together. And what I found really interesting was in MHCID, we worked on a project and thereby developed relationships. It was backwards. And yet I don’t think it was less effective.
Do you have a tip for working from home?
I do. Take a walk. Take a walk multiple times a day. Do it not just to clear your mind, but for your health as well. It’s important for your eyesight and your overall health to not just stare at a screen all day long.
And do you have a tip about working virtually with a team?
I started thinking about how my team is structured at work because when Covid-19 hit we all instantly became remote. I’ve read about the “two pizza rule” that Jeff Bezos supposedly has at Amazon. His theory is that it’s hard to have a team of more people than two pizzas can feed. I think there’s a different rule for working remotely and I’ve come to call it the three-two-one rule. On a screen, if you’re going to have video calls, it’s best to have no more than three people per row, two rows, one screen.
I find it difficult to concentrate if I have more than six people on a screen that I’m trying to keep up with. You have to work harder in a remote environment to process nonverbal cues. So I actually think if you’re going to have a meeting, try to limit it to seven people because that’s yourself and then six people on the computer screen. I found that to be about the limit of what I can pay significant attention to.
What do you think work will look like five years from now?
One of the things that I’m very interested in right now is how people at the mid-stage of their career, like me, will perceive their chances of moving up the promotion ladder at their organizations when — let’s be honest — in many ways, the relationship-building that it takes to do that involves water cooler talk. And what I think may happen over the next five years is that people who are in a remote environment are going to be able to leverage those preexisting relationships to move up, even though they are remote.
But I think those who don’t have the preexisting informal relationships with senior executives that you need to try to grease those skids will want to get back to being onsite. So the upshot to all of that may well be that the new corner office is the home office. That if you feel comfortable working from home five years from now, you do so because you’ve already established yourself and have built a reputation. So I fear a stratification may develop between the work-from-home folk and the work onsite folk. I think that’s a negative, but frankly that’s my prognostication.
