jamin.org

Happy new year +3!

What follows is my experience in 2007 as a graduate student and the opportunities it afforded me, as well as what I will be doing in 2008. Finally, I mention the blizzard that is about to hit Mammoth Lakes, California, where I currently am.

Design School and 2007

Two thousand and seven was a great year for me. I have no regrets about taking two years out of my work life to indulge in the grad school experience. People say that you don’t need to go to grad school and that you can get the same experience in the working world. While that may depend on the program, in my case, I wholeheartedly disagree.

The interaction design program at the CMU School of Design has changed the way I think about what my purpose is in the world and how I think about life. I’ve had a chance to learn under some great people—Shelley Evenson, Richard Buchanan, Dan Boyarski, John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, Ben Fry, Golan Levin, and Kristin Hughes. And I have had the pleasure of being in the company of my peers, a range of interesting folks from various backgrounds with perspectives I truly appreciate. I learn a tremendous amount from them. My coursework has also provided me with real-world experience working for clients like Motorola and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

This past fall semester I taught Design Computing (digital prototyping with Flash) to a mix of graduate and undergraduate design students. It was my first time teaching, and was both challenging and rewarding.

I also had the opportunity to direct the school’s second annual Emergence conference, which was a great honor and privilege, though a lot of freaking work. But becoming acquainted with folks from Adaptive Path, Apple, Cooper, Core77, Electronic Ink, Engine, GM, Google, IBM, IDEO, live|work, Method, and Swisscom Mobile, eased the pain a bit.

Most of the companies listed above also recruit from the school. This past summer I worked at Adaptive Path in San Francisco, which I would not have had access to without going through the IxD program. There I worked on the Charmr project, a diabetes management device with a focus on the diabetic experience. It was very rewarding and a lot of fun.

Finally, my grad school experience has also truly turned me into a designer. So to answer any question as to whether grad school is worth the $70,000 I will owe upon graduation, for me, the answer is yes.

2008

Enough about last year. The year ahead will bring a slew of new adventures. For one, I will be graduating in May. After that, I will likely move away from Pittsburgh, where I have been living since 2003, to wherever it is that I find work. To prepare for this, during the winter break, I have been building a new portfolio and redesigning this site, which I hope complete before the semester begins on January 14.

This semester I am taking courses with Richard Buchanan, Kristin Hughes, and Shelley Evenson. In addition, I am teaching Basic Interaction Design to design, computer science, and HCI undergraduates. Given my enthusiasm for interaction design and the design process, I am very exciting about this.

In February I am heading to Savannah for Interaction08 to the first ever interaction design conference. I would also like to attend SXSW Interactive, but it may not be in the budget.

Speaking of conferences, I am also currently working on a Work-in-Process submission for CHI 2008 in Florence, Italy, due January 8. My paper is on my thesis project work regarding opportunities for interaction design to support identity change. Submission to CHI is a requirement of my thesis advisor.

Mammoth Blizzard

I am writing this post from Mammoth Lakes, California, where my brother, Matt, and his wife live. I have been here (Flickr photos) since December 20. It has been quite relaxing and a good break from my near constant design thinking. That said, I started off 2008 on somewhat of a design note when I met up with Dan Saffer (Designing for Interaction author, Adaptive Path Experience Design Director, and Interaction08 co-chair, MDes IxD CMU) who just happened to be in Mammoth at the same time as me. Dan will be guest lecturing at CMU on January 16 in Jodi Forlizzi’s Seminar 2 class for the first-year interaction design grads. Good beer and good conversation with Dan in an unlikely meeting place provided a fitting start to the new year.

Dan left Mammoth the next day, due to the upcoming storm. Conversely, I extended my stay.

The National Weather Service has issued a Blizzard Warning for Mammoth Lakes warning of significant snow accumulations and strong winds that have the potential to create dangerous winter driving conditions Friday through Sunday. Four day snowfall totals of 5 - 8 feet are possible through Sunday in the Sierra.

To leave Mammoth, I need to fly out of Reno, Nevada, which is already a harrowing experience given the winds the whip over the surrounding mountains. The impending storm will only increase those winds. So I changed my flight from this Friday to Tuesday, January 8, so I could both avoid potential delays or cancellations and also see such a massive amount of snow. Friday’s prediction is three inches per hour.

The fear of storm produced the longest grocery store lines that I have ever seen, stretching from check-out all the way down the aisles to the back of the store. The shelves were being emptied. Got to love people. (We were only there for a few ingredients needed for last night’s meal.)

So day three of 2008 finds me well, looking forward to the storm, the semester, and whatever lies beyond. I hope it finds you well, too.

Just finished watching Crash, and am now thinking about the ability films and other media have on stirring emotion and changing our perspective. I used to say that I never felt more emotional than during or after watching a film. There was a time when I would go to a film on a weekend night, then head back to my apartment to write while under the influence of my zealous mind, trying to capture the feeling in my own work.

From poetry to fiction to music to screenplays and now to design, I seem compelled to create for the purpose of influencing—stirring emotion and changing perspective—changing the world for the better, I like to believe. That seems like a rather presumptuous and egotistical task. And the passion behind it I find rather mysterious.

Is it passion for beauty? Is beauty the realization of a more humane world? Is that what we strive to do as designers? Reflect the beauty of the world and provide hope for the human condition?

Or are we just trying to make cool stuff? And is making cool stuff still sticking to the path? Do products and services that look and feel better, that treat us well, ultimately affect change and enable a more humane world?

I think they do. And that’s why I’m passionate about what I do.

Alone, I scrambled to the top of Mt. Whitney, by way of the mountaineers route, a gully filled with terrible scree and no discernible path. Winded by the altitude and encumbered by a headache either caused by lack of oxygen or dehydration, I arrived at a notch a few hundred feet from the top. I caught my breath and then began a class-four climb up a steep face of large, broken rock, partially covered in ice.

I arrived at the top of Mt. Whitney, at 14,494 feet—the highest point in the lower 48 states—in just two hours after parting ways with my brother, Matt, and his two clients, who climbed the East Buttress. I spent the next four hours peering over the ledge looking for the sight of them. Finally, they appeared.

The day before, at our base camp five thousand feet below, Matt and I joked that you haven’t lived until you plunged into a 40 degree lake at 10 thousand feet, which we both did. (Imagine being a single beer in a cooler filled to the brim in ice.)

After he and his clients got to the top, I climbed 10 feet over the edge and under some rocks so that I was out of view, and took a dump into a large plastic bag provided by the forest service. The leave-no-trace policy for the park included poop. You haven’t live till you’ve taken a dump at 14 thousand feet, looking out on the mountains and valleys below, packaged it up, and then hauled it back down the mountain with you.

It was also great to get away from the computer for a few days.

Friday was the last day of my 10 weeks at Adaptive Path. We had the normal 4 pm tea time, but with more people and more activities. The Wii, which I had heard we had, finally made an appearance. The screen was projected on the conference room wall to make for some great fun.

Overall, I had a great time this summer in San Francisco with Adaptive Path. I was surprised—but delighted—to find out they are much more research focused than I imagined, and that they’re not as much of a web company as I thought. Though, they still have a strong foothold in all things web, they’re looking beyond.

While I’m no longer at the office, I still need to complete my essay. Because I was stretched between multiple projects, I didn’t have dedicated time till my last two days. I wrote 1,200 words on Friday, but it’s still a draft and may be too academic in its present form. So I will be working to complete that in the next two weeks.

Also, in two weeks is UX Week, which I will be attending. One of the projects I’ve been working on will be presented at the conference. I will be presenting that along with the rest of the team. I will also help facilitate a couple workshops, including one with Liz Sanders.

At Friday’s party I talked to a recent hire, Leah Buley, about being on the inside of Adaptive Path. We mused that the AP environment and company could not be replicated, or that it would be difficult to do so, because so much of what makes AP what it is are the people that work there.

It’s the people that I will miss.

And perhaps they’ll miss me, too.

I flew back from Baltimore today after day long days with a client. On the plane I read half of Everyware by Adam Greenfield, which I’m finding quite intriguing.

I found myself highlighting lots of text and using post-its jot to down ideas and bookmark pages for potential blog topics.

Also, I kept putting ubiquitous computing in context with an essay I’m writing for Adaptive Path (originally I said it would be about emotion, but I changed it). I’m not going to say what my current topic is because I’m not sure. But I do have 600 words!

For the next few days I’m living in the apartment of one of my coworkers. She and her boyfriend are fortunately house sitting. So I’m kind of house sitting their place, since my lease ended on July 31.

I’ve got two more days at Adaptive Path. Then I’m heading by train and bus to Yosemite, where my sister-in-law will pick me up and take me to Mammoth Lakes to stay with her and my brother, Matt, for a week. Matt’s working this weekend (rock climbing guide), which is why he can’t pick me up.

He and I may do an extended outdoors trip. I told him to plan something.

Then, on August 11, I fly back to Pittsburgh from Reno. On August 12, I’m driving to DC for UX Week, where I’ll hook up with the AP folks again.

I should be back in the burgh for good on August 17 (unless I head to Charlottesville, Virginia, where my youngest brother Jeff will have just moved).