IQ vs EQ

IQ vs EQ

In the workplace, it’s hard to know which is your most useful asset: your intellectual intelligence, or your emotional intelligence. In my experience, the proper ratio of your I/E quotient depends highly on what kind of company culture is tolerated or fostered. Now I’m seeing SQ – your Social quotient, and AQ, your Adversity quotient […]

Bullsh*t Jobs

Bullsh*t Jobs

Ten years ago if you’d told me I had a bullshit job, I might have been offended. I certainly would have tried to defend my role, my contribution, listing out examples of what my work has led to…. But today, I recognize to some degree, that my job and my function, and, honestly even my […]

Resource Constraints

Resource Constraints

It’s the name of the game in design. The container you’re tryna fit in dictates a lot of what you can and can’t do. A great designer can work wonders with serious resource constraints. But the same is not true in teaching. As an educator, you hope for all that you need to educate your […]

Sustained Powerlessness

Sustained Powerlessness

I’m starting to think that being a ux design researcher is sometimes like being a tattle tale. You’re reporting up the chain that something is broken, or doesn’t work the way users would expect it to, or how they’d like it to and guess what? Mommy and Daddy don’t care. There’s a certain comfort level […]

All Hail The Little Guy

All Hail The Little Guy

Talked to a buddy of mine the other day who owns and runs a digital media agency, and they just hit their eight year anniversary in May of 2020, coming up on nine years this May. I asked him how the pandemic was affecting business. He admitted that they were struggling, but keeping their heads […]

Accountability

Accountability

I subscribed to a magazine at the beginning of the pandemic that has now gone out of business. I never received one issue. Of course, I am empathic for the staff that lost their jobs, but mostly I just wish they’d done what they said they’d do: provide me digital access to all the back […]

Takes One To Know One

Takes One To Know One

You know the phrase, “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter?” I’ve always understood this, being a self-proclaimed bullshitter. The only person who can really tell if I am lying is my mother, and even though she thinks she knows, she doesn’t always.  In the world of business, I contend that in leadership and bosshood, there is […]

Security, My Ass.

Security, My Ass.

Simply retrieve your username now, then start the process again. Simply? My latest pet peeve is password resets. Every single time you need to sign into an account, there’s been a password breach, and we’re sorry, you’re required to reset. Or, you got it wrong, or your browser tells you your passwords are compromised. Is […]

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

As a career researcher, I’m often asked why I don’t move into Strategy. The implication being that Strategy is … way more, well, strategic. And, presumably – a natural next step after 20 years of researching. For me, Strategy with a capital S – is what you set out to do. Rarely is it what […]

Underqualified and Overpaid

Underqualified and Overpaid

Is there a worse combination? Do you know what a county administrator makes? In CoCo County, $345k. STG. I think I am daring myself to apply, just because I have large cajones. Does anyone even know what a county administrator does? The job description sounds pretty vague, like, hell, I could do that. Is that […]