jamin.org

I am happy to announce that I will be joining Nokia at their new design office in San Francisco this August. The group is headed by Raphael Grignani, who inspired me with this response when I asked him what he would expect from me.

“I expect you to devise and execute with the project team digital design solutions that are compelling and relevant to people. You should be able to adapt and improve the various design methods and techniques you are familiar with to cope with challenges in designing solutions with people’s behavioral changes and their impact on society in mind. I require that you are equally comfortable in contributing or leading a project since project-lead roles rotate. I expect you to share your experiences, opinions, and passions with the others and to learn from them as well. Finally I count on you to be a thought leader that actively contributes to the design community at large - blogging, conference talks, teaching and mentoring students, etc. To sum this up, I want you to talk a lot, to ask a lot of questions, to be eager to learn, to share your opinion and to value creativity above else.”

If you read my blog and know me, you’re probably thinking, “That sounds like Jamin.” I thought it sounded like me, too. And after considering some compelling alternatives, it felt like the right decision. I’m really excited about joining the team. And really excited not to be looking for a job. ;)

The impending end to my days at Carnegie Mellon and the need to find myself a job have left me with little time to develop my recent thoughts into writing. This past week has been particularly exhausting, as I found myself first traveling to New York and then just three days later heading to Palo Alto.

Both trips were good. Though the two organizations and types of work are very different. One largely works on web and mobile applications, while the other plays a more strategic design role, acting as a design SWAT team and design advocates within a largely engineering company. That such different organizations are interesting in me and that I am interested in them perhaps speaks to what I consider to be one of my strengths as a designer: having a design approach to discovering and solving problems that transcends subject matter, allowing me to move fluidly between very different types of projects.

Needless to say, the job search is very time consuming and exhausting, exciting and scary. It is an endeavor full of much ambiguity, but also much promise. Like any good story, there have been successes and failures, and an unpredictable twist. When it is all through, I will share it. For now, I will remain somewhat ambiguous, as my thoughts on the job hunt are fleeting and the field changes by the day.

I was tagged by Dan Saffer to continue a meme (noun: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture) of four lists of four things about me, which provides a break from writing yet another post about design! I’ve never been tagged to continue a meme before. It’s very exciting. Like receiving an Oscar, I imagine.

Okay, here goes…

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:

• McDonald’s in Lancaster, England, where my American accent was a novelty at the “till”
• Reporter for United Press International in Washingon D.C., where I spent a lot of time hanging about the U.S. Courthouse stalking Monica Lewinsky
• Soccer trainer for Curt Onalfo Soccer, working with boys and girls ages 4 to 14
• Editor for Computer Sciences Corporation, where I edited huge outsourcing contracts being submitted to the likes of Raytheon and NASA

Dan had “Four TV Shows I DVR” next, but as I do not DVR, or watch four shows, I’ll defer to the original post and substitute the following…

Four favorite foods:

• Cake
• Cookies
• Beer (liquid bread)
• Tortilla chips

Four places I’ve been:

• Zakynthos, Greece
• Dublin, Ireland
• Barcelona, Spain
• St. Lucia

Four music artists I’m listening to right now:

• Architecture in Helsinki: Heart it Races (Trizzy’s Rusty Tin Can Mix)
• Battles: Atlas
• Aesop Rock: None Shall Pass
• The Diggs: It’s Just Like You Say

Alrightythen. I suppose the thing to do is pass it on to four people and hope they read my blog: Eric Niu, Dennis Eusebio, Jeff Howard, Brandon Schauer.

My Adaptive Path colleague, Alexa, has a great post on our vision for the Charmr project.

Our primary hope is that device companies will see the enthusiasm that a vision created from this perspective can generate and might embrace a more human-centered approach in their work. And we hope to inspire others to answer Amy’s call to take action now.

Charmr: Bringing a new perspective to an old problem by Alexa on the AP blog.

Alexa will be attending Emergence.

Yesterday at UX Week the R&D project I’ve been working on all summer for Adaptive Path was unveiled during a panel discussion called Wear It During Sex. The project was inspired by an open letter to Steve Jobs by Amy Tenderich, a diabetic. Adaptive Path answered the call and developed a diabetes management system, called the Charmr.

Jesse James Garrett, Dan Saffer, Rachel Hinman, Alexa Andrzejewski, Jamin Hegeman

As you can see, I was on the panel that revealed the work and talked about the process. There’s been a lot of buzz since.

• NEWS FLASH: SF Design Firm Unveils the Diabetes “Charmr”
• TechCrunch
• CNet
• Engadget
• National Public Radio (NPR)
• MedGadget

There’s also a detailed account of the process and project on Adaptive Path’s site.

As I’m at UX Week currently, I’m too occupied to write more. But I’ll will follow up later in the week to talk about my involvement.

Overall, I was very excited to be part of the project. And everyone’s really happy with the response we’ve been getting.