What defines a user experience practitioner?

There has been an ongoing LinkedIn thread in the User Experience (UX) group regarding just what defines a user experience practitioner. This is something that I have noodled as well as I have tried to determine what my last decade as a software entrepreneur has turned me into (professionally, at least). Of the many hats I have worn, ideation, prototyping, interaction and interface design and user testing has been the most interesting and personally satisfying, but does that make me a UX expert?  The LinkedIn thread leads me to believe there are two distinct groups, the traditional practitioners who come from industrial design, architecture, etc., and digital practitioners, who are more visually inclined. Certainly I am more of the latter, tho with a strong foundation in marketing fundamentals and keen knowledge of business process methods, both of which I think are additional strengths for effective digital UX design.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my recent contribution to the conversation as it describes a key notion of mine regarding software design and user interaction, which is the ability to achieve greater clarity of purpose by freeing yourself from constraints and rules:

"I have been following this conversation for some time, and I think a key distinction between these two UX camps is that one is governed by immutable rules, and the other is not.  User experience in the real world, as defined by architects, industrial designers, etc., is constrained by reality -- things like gravity, friction, mass, and so on.  The digital user experience is constrained by none of these things. In fact I would make the case that the more the real world intrudes on the digital experience, the more it is potentially diminished. Just because a physical object is known for a specific purpose does not necessarily make it the best metaphor to represent a vaguely similar action.

And as much as I respect the deep training UX demands in the real world, perhaps that same training, when applied to a primarily visual experience, is detrimental when it comes with so much psychological and creative baggage. Artists, on the other hand, excel at imagining possibilities without constraint. The beauty of the web and web toolsets are that they provide an easy way for artists to realize their ideas without making too many compromises. This is not to say anything should go, but it is always easier to scale back big ideas than to take a small idea and make it more than it is.

Certainly a balance of both skill sets would be optimal, but moving quickly and being good enough for the medium is going to win most of the time."

The era of the perpetual job seeker?

Over the last several decades, the level of trust between employee and employer has corroded.  While there are many causes for this decline, the bottom line is most employers no longer hesitate to slash employees, and most employees do not hesitate to jump ship for better opportunities. And each party is fully aware of the other's intent.

So what does this mean for average Joes like you and me?

It means that your employer is going to continually look for new and exciting ways to squeeze productivity out of you (more on this to come soon).

And it means you are going to have to change from the traditional passive model of "job hunting when necessity strikes" to being ever vigilant and alert for new opportunities.

First, the easy part -- get your personal "brand" polished and ready to go at a moment's notice. At the moment, LinkedIn seems the be the primary mechanism to do this, tho other social media matter as well.  Whether you use Facebook or Twitter or some other site, these social media outlets need to collectively communicate your strengths, and hopefully few of your weaknesses.

Second, you need to find ways to always be on the lookout for that next gig. This is the real challenge -- traditional job posting web sites like Monster or Careerbuilder are tiresome to wade thru, as is Craigslist (which seems to be on the wane from its glory days as a job site) and newspaper sites. LinkedIn appears to have the lead here, but other than using your network to suggest connections, technologically it is not particularly interesting.

Jobfox is little more interesting in their approach. Sure, they have job postings as well, but you use your resume to build a profile on which the site performs an automated categorization of your skills.  This enables Jobfox to recommend jobs that you might not find on your own as the title, keywords, or details may be different from the kind of job you would normally search for. Of course, when you automate categorization it is rarely 100% (for example, my profile came back with Linux, which was not on my resume, as a skill -- and while I can fat finger my way around VI, I am by no means proficient).

A way to make the categorization more effective is by applying semantic technology. Being able to eliminate options that are in the wrong context increases the overall quality of the associations.  And the ability to mine for non-obvious associations provides insight into opportunities that would have remained hidden.

Bottom line, whatever the technology, being able to have relevant, quality, networked opportunities delivered to you as they occur will certain help you prosper in the era of the perpetual job seeker.

Twitter, the first ten days.

I tried to stay away. Really, I swear I simply am not that keen on sharing 140 character thoughts, notions and witticisms...but frankly, for better or worse, it appears that one is increasingly considered out of touch technologically if one is not tweeting, blogging and doing whatever the hell it is you do on Facebook. Particularly if you are in marketing, which certainly is part of what I do. So I got a Twitter account recently, and have been gently dipping my toes in the swirling chaos of millions of little thoughts.

A few observations:

At first I was puzzled why so many tweets were in initial caps. What was it about writing a tweet that inspired tweet authors to write like journalists of old with screaming headlines? Um, nothing, it turns out. The truth came to me when I decided to comment on an article from the New York Times -- most sites "prompt" you to tweet by offering the headline as tweet.  How thoughtful -- should I not care to craft a witty insight of my own I can just use what they provide. Easy!

Second, I was fascinated by the number of folks who always appeared to looking off the side (generally the viewer's right, so as to look as tho they are gazing lovingly at their tweet). This particularly seemed to be the case for what appeared to be professional, or business folk. This in fact inspired one of my early tweets, which I will repeat here (which is the point, isn't it?):

"New study shows 3 out of 4 twitter users unable to stare directly at camera."

Still makes me giggle.

Now, here's the thing I still don't really get -- most tweeting is simply retransmitting what smarter, more informed people have already written elsewhere. And generally, as noted above, with little added insight, other than reinforcing whatever beliefs that person already has.  Which is fine, I guess, but certainly makes much noise to filter thru, especially if you follow people with similar interests, as they are all tweeting and retweeting the same damn thing. 

What Twitter has motivated me to do is seek out people who are amply capable of making witty and clever statements worth reading. So far I have found Sarah Silverman to be worth reading, as well as The Onion (whose use of initial caps is perfectly acceptable).  Admittedly, I have not sought out too many others yet, but I am saddened (but respect them even more) by those who have chosen not to tweet, like John Waters (just the film maker from Baltimore, please) -- but I bet if he did they'd be particularly clever.

On a final note, it appears the dead are prolific tweeters.  Kurt Vonnegut has been active lately (and kudos to him, he only chooses to "follow" one single person -- Mark Twain), and you know what, when his writing is broken down into snippets and doled out one at a time -- it really works, but only because he was such a damn good writer in the first place.