We have a flat hierarchy

True flat hierarchies do not exist. Think about your small group of close friends, don’t nights hanging out go smoother when there’s a leader? Someone who breaks the ice, who nudges the group.

In the more serious case of work, there always has to be someone responsible, someone making trade-offs, someone at the helm. Things fall apart when everyone or no one is responsible. Also, the same person doesn’t have to be the leader over and over again. 

Structure isn’t a bad thing just know flat doesn’t actually mean flat. Flat ideally means fair, flat ideally ends up being a very well executed democratic system. Discern for mutual respect from strong leadership.

Open seating makes a maker more productive

In short, no, no it doesn’t always. What about constant interruption via extreme accessibility makes things more productive?

Most spaces have embraced open seating, so look for a place that has carved out ample areas for those times you need to do heads down work, including flexible work from home arrangements.

That being said, open seating is phenonmenal for making communication more productive. Discern for a balance of the two.

“We are a start-up”

Most, if not all, organization are using start-up as a buzzword to try to attract you. There is nothing wrong with medium-sized or large-sized organizations. There is a bowl of porridge right for everyone, but for some reason, the valley currently believes otherwise. Know that when you are told with a straight-face that the 1,000 person company is a “start-up,” it’s likely a means to win the favours of your heart.

When another popular term gets coined, let’s say ‘beehives,’ both the 100 person and 1,000 person company will tell you they have a ‘beehive environment.’ You’d know it! Discern for buzzwords and do the due diligence of evaluating numbers.

For the record

I don’t forsake any of these things. I’m spelling out dreamlike expectations which my past self found to differ vastly from the reality.

I’ve been thinking about daily regime and how that enhances mindfulness.

Most days, I aim to leave and come home in sync. Exceptions remain flexible, but feel special. Special in the sense of an appreciation which comes from “I am breaking routine to go to this event. This event is a good use of my time. I am making an exception to my routine to go.”

Because I make it the norm to do this, it also makes me conscious of time spent together. By having a regime and boxing time, minutes become more precious. Overall, less time is wasted. Days feel more productive. Time is spent more aptly with more gratitude.

Right now I’m hot for books which show me I’ve been doing things all wrong. It’s really the writing with a clear opinion, so even if I sometimes disagree, I know where the author is coming from.

Previously, I used to hate these books and gravitate towards the ones where it would rub me on the back: good creative, good job!

Though, to clarify, neither is better than the other, building confidence is a necessary first step to becoming proficient. Then it’s time to read about how you’re doing it all wrong. Finally, you then make a point to fix it.

~

This is a train post. Forgive me if I accidentally a word.

I was scared as hell. It was a trip to my first conference ever across the cost during a rainy week. Technically, I was accompanied by the people who were my classmates, but I barely knew anyone then. Essentially, I felt like I went alone, and as luck would have it, the hostel busted its water heater and wasn’t fixed until 3 nights later. Cold days, cold showers, tons of regret.

Still, I opted to go on my own free will.
That gut feeling changed the course of my immediate postgrad life dramatically.

But it’s not just these lofty trips that would scare me.

Sending a link I find interesting to a dlist or chat room scares me.
Asking people out for lunch scares me.
Linking a design for inspection scares me.
Posting this scares me.

These little and big things which are probably good for us, especially in hindsight, are actually things which scare the shits out of us in the present.

Maybe others are braver than I. But you know what’s interesting? Some have in return told me that they wish they were as brave as I. (My reaction? lolwat)

So here I am telling you that I’m fucking scared on the inside when I go about doing some minuscule things and definitely all the big things. Know that perhaps both the people you admire and are admiring you are quaking in their boots, thinking about something, a something which will likely be great for them.

In order to seriously grow, we need to do more things which scare us, but are good for us.

I guess you could say that’s my 2013 resolution.
Being less sedentary is a great runner-up though. 

I’ve been thinking about how we can leverage the principle of if & else in design.
101 programming classes always teach you about if else statements fairly early on.

In design, we ramble about responsiveness with regards to the browser size. But what about responsiveness due to content? And, no, I don’t mean hiding useful content.

I mean, IF information is missing, just don’t show it. IF that information needed additional chrome, don’t show the chrome either. Or how about when input is necessary, we kindly ask them for input and clearly demonstrate the benefits? IF input ELSE input prompt. How do our interfaces change depending on what cards we have to show? IF rich input then rich output, ELSE input prompt.

When we design in photoshop, these details are lost.
In photoshop, we always assume we have all the pieces.

We need to think about all the edge cases.
But it’s hard just to think about them.
We actually need to live and breathe them.

Force yourself to use what’s on production servers.
Use the product you are designing for and dig for the ugly stuff.
Be motivated by the fact that this ugliness is something you yourself can truly make better.

It occurred to me on the drive home today that experience is everything.
No really, let me try to explain.

While I enjoy the spaciousness of our sedan, I always fear scraping the passenger’s side when I drive the vehicle. In fact, this has happened and I still drive the thing with fear.

The obvious adjustment would be to ditch the machine and go for a skinnier model. However, there’s a huge cost of switching. It isn’t as easy to switch out a car as it is a computer, for example.

Yet, there were no way you could have known those few inches would be so impractical, from parking on the streets, down to your own garage. It wasn’t until you lived with it you’d figure all these things out. No amount of internet research, word of mouth, or obsessing could have brought these issues to light. It’s all the in the experience.

I’ve been thinking about growing up. How despite the fact I’m now 23, I still struggle with fundamental human things like mingling or, even, expressing gratitude.

But maybe that’s okay. Especially if, with every single interaction, you get a little better.

For my next year and more of existence, I plan to go out for many drives instead of leaving the car parked in the garage, to gain that experience. There will definitely be scratches, scrapes, and bumps, but if everything is in the experience, I can’t wait to see where I end up by the time I’m 30, 25, or even 24.

One DIY lifehack I’ve found immensely useful has been the ability to cut hair. [1] I cut my own bangs between hair stylist trips. I also cut hair for a select few individuals. [2]

The key to do this well is not being afraid to remove.

In order to cut hair, you need to remove hair. If you were afraid to remove hair, then nothing will be done.

Likewise, in order to design, you need to reach the simplest set of features with the right touches to delight. As you iterate through designs, it’s almost always evident some things need to be removed. I’m sure everyone agrees feature creep is a bad thing and simplicity is ideal. The question is, are you afraid to remove?

As I continually cut more hair and design more things, I realize these processes are more alike than first impression.

~

1. If you are interested: Buy yourself a pair of thinning shears. Safety scissors only work pretty well until you have to layer anything, which is most of the time. Feel free to ask me about cutting bangs (and design!) too.

2. Namely folks who won’t sue me if the crazy happened. Like a supercuts ear.

No more #MadeWithPaper for awhile. Our iPad was stolen from our apartment among other things.

I debated writing this, but it’s perhaps our lack of awareness that does us humans in. This is an attempt to emolliate that.

• It happens. Maybe it’s the Chinese in me, and perhaps it’s still shameful, but it sure felt good to talk to good company about it.
• It’s normal to feel violated. What’s really devastating is the fact that it was so incredibly simple for somebody to pry your space open. It helps to know everyone who had experienced theft felt that way in some capacity.
• It’s okay to be angry. Pre-school lessons in courtesy are being violated. Someone took your shit.
• Deadbolt. Everything.
• Invest in security. This is a really cool piece of technology I’m now very excited about.
• iCloud is useless. It seems like even the pettiest thieves know how to disable it. Install prey.
• But also be a bonafide nerd. Back everything up. In case not a nerd, ask your nerd friend about it.
• Material goods are replaceable.
• Life still goes on.

The paradox part.

We are fortunate to be in a position where we could buy all the items back if we wanted. Additionally, no one was hurt. Everything which was taken was easily replaceable. Given more time, things like passports could have been dug up and sentimental goods could have been destroyed. Rationalizing it all out, everything’s all right.

I also find humor in the fact my essentially worthless headphones ~$10 were taken while my ~$400 Copic collection was untouched. Had these thieves been slightly more educated, they could have better optimized their grab. Then again, had these thieves been that smart, they probably wouldn’t have to resort to a life of petty crime.

It’s a strange paradox — We assume it’s easy enough to start getting a life back up, yet, for these people, it seems impossible to do so. In the end, I do feel a little sorry for them. But, then again I wanted to wash the cushions last Sunday. We had no quarters. Jerks.

That being said, nothing good came out of brooding over it. Back to work!

The 6th was my anniversary for moving up to the great Silicon Valley. The 28th will be my anniversary of one full year of fulltime employment. These are thoughts about the last year.

• It’s about 1 year since I started working fulltime at a job. Insert feelings of excitement, mixed with the reality of naiveté. I had no idea what I was doing. I fell for the fraternal start-up trap of a dream. Free lunch, pay for the phone bill, have an iPad too, oh, and travel all the time. I, embarrassingly, thought these were the things which mattered.
  
  
• It’s about ½ a year since I was laid off from my first fulltime job. It was a tough time, but not in the practical sense. There was enough money and generous feel-good support, but I didn’t know what to do myself. The sensation was very similar to a first romance break-up. Everyone tells you to acquire the prize you oh-so-desperately believe you deserved. No one tells you how to get over it when it departs.
  
  
• It’s about ¼ a year since I started my second fulltime job.
  
  Some days I still really feel ill about myself.
  
  Do I really deserve my current role? Designing not one, but several new products, cornerstone to the company’s future success?
  And, on that note, how the hell did I even manage to get two degrees? Not just that, but get them in 4 years and a summer.
  Wait, this whole getting into one of the most amazing schools for tech thing, That must have been a lucky accident.
  
  I’ve always struggled to believe in my own competence. In jest, my LinkedIn summary does say “My aim is to be useful,” implying I’m not as useful as I could be today. But my goal really is to be useful. This goal never ends. When the industry moves forward, one needs to move forward with it. At least, that’s what the culmination of all of my one year experience points to.
  
  Yes, I could blame the first 18 years of my life for Impostor Syndrome. Everyday, I was told I was a worthless sack of shit, because my grades would never get me anywhere in life. I could also blame this extroverted oriented society too. Embarrassingly, once again, I actually wholeheartedly believed this.
  
  Now I know, I need to be able to tell myself, when no one else is there to keep telling me, I am competent. And for the first time in my life, I’m spending my time doing what I’d like and being valued for it. Sometimes I catch myself thinking it’s still unbelievable.
  
  Needless to say, I really like my current job, after hour routine, friends, peers, aspirations, trajectory, and occasional spurts of extroversion despite having to pay for my own lunch. It wouldn’t have been possible without that first break-up.
  
  So, two takeaways from this past year:

1. Switch out of your first job sooner. You never know what’s good for you until you experience more.
2. You are not an impostor. You deserve what you have. And, hey, even if it were a grand fluke, you should live up to it and make the most out of it.

One of the things I have had trouble handling is a suboptimal client[1] experience. I try to remind myself these things before signing-up for a new project.

short:

Just one rule, if you hire me as your creative, trust me. [2]

long:

These are the questions I try to get answered with the right reasons before proceeding.

What do you want me to do for you? Figure out if there is some actual thinking involved in the project, not just pixel monkeying. Sure, I know how to use Photoshop, good question, but so does the 13 year old manipulating her mirror self-shots. Clients: Keep in mind the person you are hiring is likely competent. Trying to micromanage every creative decision defeats the purpose. You might as well do it yourself. NO ONE is working for you as a “pixel monkey.”

How long do we have to do it? For some reason, the true time is the estimate x2. That’s just the nature of iterations and that’s cool. But on a bad project… It drags on and on and on. Beware of anyone who thinks “more is more.” Set a deadline and discuss what happens if it takes longer than planned. Clients: You want this result fast? A competent freelancer will make it happen. That’s why we ask about timelines. If you’re equating fast to sloppy, don’t bother dragging the experienced creative in. Hire the 13 year old.

But most importantly: Do you like my style? A surprising amount of individuals supposedly hire based on portfolio and yet, with one critique from a third party, suddenly decide it should “look like Apple.” Not even the most patient take this well. This one is hardest to safeguard. Bring it up, but put in the eject button in case the project target suddenly shifts. Get paid for what you did do and move on. Clients: Why did you hire this person? And is your conviction in your own product so weak that someone else’s one opinion shines over your entire vision?

finally:

I apologize to everyone who’s given me a fantastic freelancing experience. This is post is advice I wish I could give my past self, advice I try to give new(er) freelancers, and solidified resolution to stand my ground in the future.

~

1. Client used liberally. This easily applies to school organizations, favors for “friends”, or cheap labor styled internships. An unfortunate slew of things young designers and artists put up with.

2. The legendary story about Pablo Picasso’s one stroke portrait sums up why you should trust your hired creative gun. It’s in the experience.