Filed under Me, me, me!
June 13, 2011 at 10:43 am
It is with certainty, excitement and the butterflies in my stomach that only this particular transition could afford that I am happy to announce I am moving to Washington, DC to be with my wife permanently!
This is one of the most significant steps in what has been a decade-long quest. My wife and I met in 2001 while we were living in different countries, at different stages in our careers and pursuing other goals. We made a commitment back then to figure out how to be together and we’ve been working towards that ever since.
The hurdles were many and significant, but we successfully managed to move to the same country, then the same state and eventually the same city, up until last year when she took an International Emergency Medicine Fellowship position in DC (she is an EM physician). We’ve been commuting on weekends to be together ever since. It’s not very fun.
In the intervening years, we accumulated a number of degrees, diplomas, jobs, careers, greencards, relatives, wedding vows, real estate, pets and an innumerable amount of possessions and memories which now fill our home and our hearts. That’s a lot of baggage to commute between Philly and DC every weekend so we discussed this long and hard and decided it was just not worthwhile. We are done waiting. This move means we can finally be together for good.
I am leaving my position as Principal, User Experience Design at Comcast, which seems unreal even as I write this considering how meaningful and important this phase of my life was. I could not possibly express what it has meant to me to have done this for the past 6 (six!!!) years in a few short lines but I will talk about it more in the future. Suffice to say I am thankful for the experience, memories and friendships.
I will surely miss all the people I’ve met in Philly though I am glad to know I won’t need to live here to keep those friendships. I am very excited about living in DC too. I love the city and I am fortunate to already have many friends and family there. Not to mention how great the UX community is locally (I often attend the local events even though that means a hike from Philly every time), which means I can continue my UX community shenanigans just as much (if not more than now).
This is not an easy transition and there is so much to do that I can barely look at my to-do list without cringing, but I could not be happier and more delighted to finally come to the end of this long and hard journey feeling a complete sense of joy and accomplishment.
Thank you all who have been there for me and for us along the day. This is possible, in no small part, because of your love, friendship and support.
Filed under Good Experiences
April 26, 2011 at 1:10 pm
I fucked up. Web App Masters Tour was in Philadelphia last month and I failed to go. It was a dumb move. Here’s why:
Update: Reason 0: It was the only opportunity to see Kevin Hoffman speak on this tour. Boooo!
Reason 1. Luke Wroblewski: I want to quit my job and be Luke’s apprentice for a year. That’s how much I value this guy’s expertise. A few years ago when he came out with a book on form design I was all “WHA??? FORM design? B-O-R-I-N-G!”. But think about it: If he can get a whole community of practitioners to see past the inane nature of form UI and into how impactful small design decisions like that have in the bigger scheme of things, he’s a person to pay attention to. And so I have. I have paid lots of attention since. And he’s delivered gold over and over and over and over again. And I missed him at WAMT in my city. Ugh!
Reason 2. Josh Clark: When his book Tapworthy came out early in 2010 I had never heard of Josh, but due to serendipity (I cannot recall how), I ended up with a copy of it, sent by him, with probably the nicest note I’ve ever received, which ended with “if you were an app, you’d totally be on my home screen”. I had not designed a mobile application before reading the book, and I finished it feeling confident about doing so (and so I did). Josh & mobile design were meant for each other: he is really good at providing concrete guidance on how to design for its unique contexts of use, while being careful about categoric approaches given how nascent this whole thing is and how quickly it is evolving. Fortunately, I was able to take a whole-day workshop with him at the IA Summit last month, which cemented my impression and expectations. Now you can get some Josh action yourself.
Reason 3. Stephen Anderson: I’ve known Stephen for a long time now and was able to see him present numerous times (if you haven’t, this is your chance, don’t blow it). At first it was his brilliant visual design skills that caught my eye (you will not find more beautiful presentations anywhere. I dare you), but also, he brings a really interesting perspective to UX; a blend of education theory and psychology that I have not seen anyone else pursue and offer to our community. Every single time I hear Stephen speak, I come out having learned something I did not know before and, more importantly, a dozen questions on things I had not thought of before and an enthusiasm to pursue them. To me, that’s one of the most valuable things you can take away from a professional event.
Reason 4. Steve Portigal: I can count in one hand the number of people in the world I really look up to in the area of design research. One of them is Steve Portigal. I’ve been reading his blog since before smartphones existed. Yes, we are old. I’m not formally trained in research methods and mostly picked up skills as I progressed in my career. Everything Steve has shared with our community I have voraciously consumed. He talks about the stuff that makes a difference when you are actually doing research. Stuff that other people who don’t do research think is boring, like how to ask good/right questions in an interview and how to do analysis once you are done with the fun data gathering part. In short, he leaves the general hand waving about design research to others and gives you all the juicy bits. On a platter. So don’t screw up and miss the opportunity to ask him questions in person, like I did. #facepalm
In conclusion
I could really keep going and tell you in excruciating detail all the reasons why it was stupid of me to miss the Web App Masters Tour (there are 7 more: Bill Scott, Kate Brigham, Mike Lee, Aviva Rosenstein, Noah Iliinsky, Julie Zhuo and some guy named Jared Spool), but you get the picture. Even if you can only see a few of them speak and have to run back to work (maybe share with a colleague?), it is definitely worth going. I’ll go beat myself up about it offline now. Luckily, you don’t have to make the same mistake: They will be in Seattle (May 23-24) and Minneapolis (June 27-28), so go get some. Tell them I sent you. My name + $5 gets you a free coffee.
UPDATE:
I just found these:
Filed under Good Experiences
March 6, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Poem by Taylor Mali. Typography & animation by Ronnie Bruce
