I'm writing fairy tales about jam again. Let me tell you, it's not easy hiding a work frustration in a jammy fairy story!
One of the hardest things to learn in any job is to know which tool to use; and when.
You need to know what the expected outcome is; your audience; your colleagues; your limitations; their limitations; existing expectations; and have a good sense for how much change can be bourne. Barrelling into an existing organisation and expecting people who have used certain software for years to change to your preferred package so that you are most comfortable with, is probably too much change for the organisation to bear.
It will have a cost too, far out reaching the actual cost of software - training people in the new software, loss of production while they get used to their new tools, frustration because they have to change their mindset to cope with new skills, possibly even morale - people might get quite bent and twisted at this forced ripples in their ponds. You've got to understand that it's probably easier for you to have a bit of pain learning to use the existing products, even though you think they're inferior and beneath you, than trying to get 30 people to change their ways when they have no desire nor real need to.
Keep eating the strawberry jam rather than making everyone love partridge berry jam - it's less painful for everyone and will leave a better taste in your mouth and less egg on your face. That last sentence would make more sense if you'd read the convoluted fairy tale I just deleted out of Notpad.
Let's face it, if you're half the whiz kid you profess to be, it would be a fairly easy transition to make. The test of a mature, experienced trademen is his ability to see the implications of his solutions - be that guy!
UX Melbourne
Blogging every day when you don't have anything to say. Why is that? I blather incessently normally; stick a goal of daily posts in my way and *crickets*
Okay it's mostly just because I'm tired - bad sleep last night, late again tonight. Just calm down, will you? not everything has to be a Pulitzer Prize winning blog post: sheesh!
I got your user experience right here, baby
Tonight I stayed later in Melbourne to attend the UX (User Experience) Movie Night. This irregularlly scheduled event is most often held at Horse Bazaar in Little Lonsdale Street.
Most members and affiliates of this rag-tag group of UX'ers, and associateed disciplines, wander in after work for a movie kick-off of around 6:30pm. The movie is generally 20-60 minutes long, and something of interest to us - maybe a talk by someone of note at a conference such as Bruce Sterling, or a video of a presentation by a designer such as this evening.
The UX Melbourne group are a good bunch of people loosely held together by the threads and passions of user centric design and development. Humans, we're about the humans, baby!
Sometimes groups like this can get a little networky and attract the wrong kind of people. You know the type: sales and marketing types, commonly known as 'social media consultants' these days. But we don't suffer those types gladly plus, we're a bit cliquey so they don't stand much of a chance. But we're loosely woven, remember? So there's plenty of opportunity to say hi if you're new, and strike up a conversation with the little groups that form after the movie has finished.
While the movie that was shown tonight didn't hold my interest, seeing Ben, Wil and Fox sure did. Though I can't say that we 'caught up' as the strange and frankly bad electronic music that played afterwards made sure no one could really hear much of each other. Just as well there's a UX Melbourne Book Club meetup later in the month and bound to be another movie night soon.