Comments on: its tough work, but DON’T blame the recession

By: David Locke

David Locke — Mon, 18 May 2009 02:18:41 +0000

There is a hard reality facing U.S. workers. Globalism will eliminate work from our lives, period! An economic system based on efficent work doesn’t work when work can be shipped everywhere. Working harder is not the solution.

Instead, we need to find a completely different basis for economics.

Globalism has been said to be good for us in the long run as long as it isn’t played as a zero-sum game. Well, who is “us”? How long? And, why are we playing like a zero-sum game.

The dot bust created the “missing millions.” Subsequent employment for those that are still in tech has been a matter of being a Tech Okie like Steinbeck’s Okies who worked hard in the fields of California not making enough to feed their children and keep working. The religion of hard work will show itself as an empty shellgame.

Somebody should have figured out the next economy before eliminating the knowledge economy, the industrial economy, and the ag economy, and leaving us with resource extraction as the last vestage of an economy.

Since it seem like it will be a long time before a new economics emerges, everyone should start their own, find revenue diversification, gain boss diversification, and live to live with less, a lot less.

The prediction, a long time ago, was for the recession to end in 2019. These days the date has slipped to 2023. Don’t buy the rosie. Go long. If long is wrong you won’t mind having gone long. But, if you go short and it is long, you’ll get hurt. Make a new personal economy. Do it now!

By: admin

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:32:37 +0000

Gibbs -
As a UX designer, I’m often falling privy to having my fingers in one-too-many pies. Learning and working with copy-writers, engineers, visual designers and marketers, I’m worried about being a jack-of-all-trades (and master of none). You are right about focusing down on specific specializations and sticking with where UX principles can add the most value.

thanks for the insightful comment, as always.

By: Gibbs Barrow

Gibbs Barrow — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:05:45 +0000

Interesting post on how to survive during a recession. I use the term “you” to refer to no one in particular.

On the subject of working hard, there will always be folks who will have more energy than you. There are people who can “sweatshop” a project and work for days without sleep. I don’t know how they do it. I am not one of those folks.

While I think hard work is important, I think it is more important to work smart and this can mean several things. It can mean sticking to what you do best. For example, the value that I can provide to the design process lessens the more downstream I get. I am not saying that I am incompetent at UI and interaction design, I just do other stuff better. So find out what you do best and focus on that.

I think it is also important to add value. If you can improve a design and clearly demonstrate how this design supports the user model and, better yet, the business case for the product, then you have really added value. I emphasize demonstrate here because the business units must be convinced of this fact. On the other hand, if you spend too much time working on the visual design of a Web page that is not important to the user model, then you probably will not add value to the user or to the business. So,I try to work smart and if I have to work really hard now and then, it will be worth it because I know that I am adding value that will be recognized.