Typical Day in the Userverse

First thing this morning I got a call from a recruiter at Green Key. She asked if I was interested in a contract at healthcare company. She asked for identifying numbers like birthday. This is so the recruiter can submit your personal details to a job on your behalf. She said that she would email me a job description. Well after an hour I didn't see anything so I called her. It was not a working number!

Then I received a call 15 minutes after that from another recruiter that I dealt with before from Teksystems. She asked if I was interested in the same job. I said yes but someone called this morning to submit me. But I could not get in touch with her. She said "Come on Geri...you give your personal information to someone without a job description?" I had to laugh. Then she said she was on her way to meet with the manager of the healthcare company and I should let her submit me. I said ok.

Five minutes later recruiter number 1 calls back and I told her I was going with Teksystems and I got nervous when I could not contact her. She insisted that the phones were out and to give her a chance. I felt bad for her but I said sorry I am going with the "baller".

Typical crazy day for jobseeker in ux.

My Personal Brand

I am using this time between consulting jobs to develop my message and brand. I have been getting a lot of emails about developer positions. Although I can assist in the development phase it is not something that is a primary skill set or passion.

Currently I am reading "The UX Career Handbook" by Cory Lebson. I attended a presentation of Cory's at the Triangle UXPA and that is where I purchased the book. Its a great resource and I am learning that regular blog and social networking activity is expected of a UX professional. One of the exercises that he gives in the book is to Google your name. I was pretty surprised with the results, because at first I searched with my full name, which returned a disappointing number of results. Then I searched with a shortened version which returned a much more promising number of results. My Twitter page was at the top of the list. It is good to Tweet as a professional that is looking for opportunities.

In the book Cory uses the acronym PAR to describe the projects in your resume. It stands for Problem, Action, Result. In my descriptions of past projects, I use an acronym that I was given by the HR staff at Mayo Clinic to prepare for an interview. It is SHARE, which stands for Situation, Hindrance, Approach, Results, Evaluation. In the past I tried to keep the word in my head to describe the projects in my resume, but I am in the process of creating a MS One note file with all of my talking points to use during an interview.

A Call for More Products That Support Aging

This article was in my news feed today. It was about how in 2050 there will be double the number of people over the age of 50. Currently we control 83% of the wealth and 50% of the spending in the US.  Yet there are limited attempts to design products for the capabilities of this group. It is reasonable to assume that since this group spends as much, that there would be as many solutions that are geared toward specific needs of the group? I don't think that is the case.

Human Computer Interaction

I have received the official word that I passed my Thesis Exam. I will be graduating with a Masters of Science in HCI. I am happy for the chance to impact how technology interacts with Older Adults. It seems that there has been an increase in spending for Alzheimer research . Great news however I hope that it includes some research on how technology can impact care-giving.

Holidays

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. I look forward to sharing more insights on interaction design.

Project Management in UX

I have been trying to find examples of project management charts for MS Excel. It is important that I stay on task and continue on refinements to my interaction design. This is a wonderful site that explains how to create PM Gantt charts using Excel.
http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/03/13/want-to-be-an-excel-conditional-formatting-rock-star-read-this/

@Chandoo.org

Completing MS in HCI

Posting Again

It has been a while since I have posted my thoughts on Interaction Design. A lot has happened most recently I successfully passed my oral defense for my MS in Human Computer Interaction. It was a cold and blustery day in Iowa but I went in and treated it as a pitch meeting. I do have some minor revisions that I have to complete but I know that I can do it because I believe in the subject.

This will be my second Masters degree. My first came before User Experience studies had taken off. I earned a MFA in Design from OSU. Friends and informed recruiters have told me what a unique combination I have: the creativity of a designer and the analytical capabilities of HCI. 

I have been amazed that I have been able to work in various industries that many may consider outside the expertise of a designer. Not only have I worked in these positions but I have made innovations in architecture, aerospace and robotics. In every domain that I have entered I have had to learn that there is a hierarchy with regard to the disciplines. I will expound on this further in future posts.

I would like to use this opportunity to share some books that influenced me the past couple of years.

• Work Like Da Vinci: Gaining the Creative Advantage in Your Business and Career by Gelb, Michael
• Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl's Principles for Discovering Meaning in Life and Work by Pattakos, Alex
  
  
  
  
  
  
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An Augmented Reality application development.