Facebook Is NOT Making You Miserable. YOU Are.

I am, sadly, pointing you to the source of my Saturday WTF:

blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/facebook_is_making_us_miserabl.html by Daniel Gulati.

I don’t know Daniel, in fact, I don’t know any Gulatis at all. Daniel has authored an article that points blame to Facebook for making us (people) miserable.

I do know that I don’t agree with this:

In writing Passion & Purpose, I monitored and observed how Facebook was impacting the lives of hundreds of young businesspeople. As I went about my research, it became clear that behind all the liking, commenting, sharing, and posting, there were strong hints of jealousy, anxiety, and, in one case, depression. Said one interviewee about a Facebook friend, “Although he’s my best friend, I kind-of despise his updates.” Said another “Now, Facebook IS my work day.” As I dug deeper, I discovered disturbing by-products of Facebook’s rapid ascension — three new, distressing ways in which the social media giant is fundamentally altering our daily sense of well-being in both our personal and work lives.

I’ll counter with this: Jealousy, anxiety, and depression existed long before Facebook. If Facebook is altering anything, it’s merely the access to those who were previously not close enough, or instant enough in our lives.

That is, do you really give a crap about that person you haven’t seen since high school? If you did, why didn’t you use Google to find them YEARS ago. Or do you blindly accept the friendship request–or send it out–knowing that one of you, if not both of you, is merely trying to find out if the other one is a loser or successful, or whatever?

And I know that doesn’t happen all the time. But it happens. And a healthy portion of us are guilty of it.

If you don’t like it, quit it. It happens. I know plenty of people without a Facebook footprint, and plenty of people who have quit it, and plenty of people who simply don’t give it credence.

Don’t blame the book of faces. Blame the faces and how they use the book.

But, wait. There’s more:

First, it’s creating a den of comparison.

Life creates a den of comparison.

Ever have a sibling? Ever go to any sort of school? Ever been in a group of anything?

The good quote in the original article is useful: “And as we judge the entirety of our own lives against the top 1% of our friends’ lives, we’re setting impossible standards for ourselves, making us more miserable than ever.” which is attributed to Tom DeLong.

Tom didn’t blame Facebook. Tom didn’t articulate, in that quote, how we determine who the top 1% of our friends are, either.

Let me reiterate: This isn’t BECAUSE of Facebook, it’s because of HOW PEOPLE USE IT.

Oh, and because of life.

Second, it’s fragmenting our time.

Hold one. I’m sounding like a broken record.

How can we blame Facebook for this? I’m just really, really unclear on how a decision that people make on their own is something that Facebook should be blamed for.

If you don’t read the REALLY LONG EULA for iTunes yet you accept the terms and conditions within, you can’t be pissed if iTunes does something you don’t like or agree to after the fact.

Then again, fast food restaurants now have to warn you that HOT coffee is HOT.

Last, there’s a decline of close relationships.

Or maybe, just maybe, there’s an increase in the number of not-really-close-at-all-but-we’re-connected-anyway relationships, and that just makes the close relationships seem to be declining.

Wait, what?

And let me wrap this counter-crapfest with this:

But each time a Facebook interaction replaces a richer form of communication — such as an in-person meeting, a long phone call, or even a date at a restaurant — people miss opportunities to interact more deeply than Facebook could ever accommodate.

This is absolutely not true.

Everytime PEOPLE CHOOSE to use a Facebook interaction INSTEAD OF any other type of communication, such as in-person, etc. etc. then PEOPLE ARE CHOOSING TO MISS OPPORTUNITIES to interact in different, potentially more “deeply” ways.

I’m not BFFs with Facebook. Do I care about things people put on there? Sometimes. Do I sometimes feel jealous if someone gets something I don’t have? Yep.

THIS JUST IN: I’d be jealous if I heard about it in real life, too. Because I’m human.

To me, and maybe I’m the simple one here, this is simple: You can’t fault a tool for how people use it. You can’t blame a hammer for someone smashing their thumb with it. You can’t blame a bullet for a trigger getting pulled.

Don’t blame Facebook for people getting sucked in–part of that is to Facebook’s benefit, of course, but human behavior is human behavior without any tools in the way.

This, of course, would be akin to blaming a tweet stream for a misunderstanding, instead of trying to find another mechanism to fix it. Is that Twitter’s fault? Or are people potentially misusing the medium?

You tell me.

My Thoughts On #NewNewTwitter

As I write this, I’m not 100% certain, but I think #NewNewTwitter hasn’t yet been alive for 24 hours, at least not to the general population.

As I write this, I need to tell you that my relationship with Twitter is mostly via apps–probably most commonly through YoruFukurou (or NightOwl, if you prefer to translate).

This means that my relationship through twitter is, for the most part, not through the website. And in many cases, not even through Twitter’s own applications. You see, I sort of don’t make twitter a core part of my world these days. I like to skim it, and if I’m somewhere with a #hashtag associated with it, by all means I’ll pay attention, or temporarily add the hashtag to my Summizer iPhone app (this was bought by Twitter ages ago and then “sunsetted” or some other BS term for “assimilated and/or killed”), but really, that’s it.

Twitter is a content stream for me. And it’s neat. And it’s cool to see what some people are doing from time to time, and it’s even self-cool for me to sometimes throw out some crappy attempt at humor. At one point in time, Twitter was all about the lyrics, man, but then everyone else got the Twitter and it was time to call my favorite band a sell-out.

Or at least, it was time to not sweat getting tickets to every show and I no longer needed to say that I was a fan before you even knew who they were. Who give’s a rat’s backside, anyway?

So here’s my review on #NewNewTwitter:

It’s been out less than 24 hours. I looked at the website and I keep being pleasantly surprised at some of the changes in place. I looked at the iPhone app for some minutes on my commuter train this morning on the way to the big city for work and it was cool, and I wondered if some of the decisions were based upon user interviews or data or some Venn Diagram of both, but I didn’t think “holy balls that was stupid!” about anything… yet.

It’s not like #NewNewTwitter broke the model of 140 characters and a stream of information. It’s not like they put in place such changes that I was confused as to what I was looking at, like a location-based thingy earlier this year, that I just stopped using.

#NewNewTwitter didn’t go off the reservation, but it seems like they’re trying to find a way to do more without more actual real estate and without confusing people.

I don’t know if they talked to users. They didn’t talk to *this* user, but that doesn’t mean that they still didn’t. I don’t know that they owe me–or you–that explanation, either. I don’t know if they looked at data of any kind, or weird analytic overlays that tell them that 24 year old men tweet about fast food restaurants at 3p more than any other time of the day.

I don’t care, frankly. That’s on them to make that decision and to figure out if the decision has anything to do with making the app better for whomever they’re trying to serve.

And I’m guessing I’m not their big money audience demographic, and I’m okay with that. You should be, too, because you’d probably not design for you, if you weren’t there.

Maybe the music’s not too loud. Maybe you’re too old.

Like all things, getting used to change will continue to take time. Oh–and Twitter is free. Use it or don’t; and base it on the value you get out of it.

Tomorrow, I may feel different.

After all, 48 hours will have passed.

And We Go Marching On

As my last full time day at Happy Cog winds down, I am now available for work–project-based, workshop-based or even the right full-time opportunity–this is a pretty exciting time!

About a month ago, I made a decision to change my course: I resigned as a User Experience Director for Happy Cog West (San Francisco / Austin). The same “it was a difficult decision” standard rule applies here, as it does for any other person who leaves an employer that they’ve enjoyed working with.

I mean, I had the chance to work for Happy Cog, and that’s one of those dreams a lot of young geeks go to bed dreaming about.

I’ve worked with some of the caped crusaders of the Web, World Wide. Some of these folks you have seen or heard them online, you have read their books and their blogs and some of them you may have seen on bio pages. People like Drew Warkentin, a dangerous unicorn who is storming his way through the UX world, bringing a design and development strength with him that is rare to find, and I have been so lucky to spend the better part of the last year working closely with him. Stephen Caver who, despite his fondness for blazers with elbow patches (and to be fair, so do I) and a penchant for designing and developing like, well, like it’s his job, but with a passion about it that makes you think it’s his passion, instead of his job. I’d be remiss to not mention the incredible development stylings of Messrs. Matt Clark and Ryan Irelan who make it all look easy.

The offices of Happy Cog–New York, Philadelphia and what was San Fransisco and now is Austin, were all incredibly welcoming folks. They were as brilliant as you already assume, great at their jobs, and focused on building great experiences. This has been a feather in my cap, and one I’ll wear proudly for quite some time. I will miss them and the daily animated .gif attacks in Campfire.

And I will keep the experiences with me as I move forward down my own path. Time to get going on that!

Lessons Learned While Leaping

Back in October, I submitted my resignation to Happy Cog, and I felt that there was a pretty wide open road ahead of me. I had been talking to The Start-up™ since early August, and the “right fit” had been determined by both sides. The final words on the funding was really all that was being waited for.

I was excited. I had found myself in an opportunity that would allow me to work on the User Experience, focus on some Product Management, and put to good use many different Guerrilla Research Methods. For awhile, this was a bit of a dream come true. I was kind of itching with excitement!

As you read this, keep in mind that this is not about getting sympathy or whistle-blowing; it’s the way some things pan out. Sometimes, that is for the best, and I’m okay with chasing this adventure in a different direction now.

Frankly, had it not been for this curve ball, I doubt I would be moving in the direction that I currently am, with the velocity that I am currently moving at. Naturally, time will tell.

Now, shame on me, I should have been a lot more skeptical when The Founder™ pulled a bit of a focus flake-out on me in August. Rather than answer some specific questions about company operations, there was a lot of silence that ended some time in October. During that period, I was contemplating starting off on my own and making a go of things; it’s not an uncommon approach, but since The Start-up™ had shown back up and had enticed me with such things as:

good news – 1% has become 0.01%. will have some paper work for you soon.

Followed by, a day later:

i thought I had sent the message below to you yesterday! now 0.01% uncertainty has turned to 0.0%.

very excited and will have some paper work to you on monday.

A start date was determined as November 15, 2011.

This was followed by some freebie requests, like reviewing job descriptions, checking out some office space layouts, and things like that. And, of course, filling out that paperwork–the application form and the background check.

Funny thing about background checks. When your references (who you dutifully let know reference checks are coming) say “Hey, when am I supposed to provide a reference for you?”, the Spider Sense™ starts to tingle a bit. But, when you’ve got a start date in place, it can feel a bit like a formality–and let’s face it, some places don’t actually dive too deep into those things anyway.

On November 3rd, I did a check-in; I didn’t have an offer letter in my hands at this point and I’d been really diligent about getting my part of the bargain taken care of in a very timely fashion. There were some hints at the August-September flake-out happening, but I like to pretend I’m a positive person. Frankly, I was checking-in because if this bird was not going to fly, I needed to start doing some networking of my own and drumming up some work.

Fortunately, I got a response:

I just talked with my partners about that – they have been out this week at a conference and will be getting back to me before noon tomorrow with the specifics I need to include.

Sorry for the delay.

“The delay.” The Spidey Sense™ is a little more finely tuned for things like this, so when the “Do you have time to chat this afternoon” email came through next, well, I knew it wasn’t going to be offering me lots of options in the company. In fact, it was something slightly different:

Here’s the output of the call I just had with my partners.

We assumed that we would have our new contract signed by the end of last week and that hasn’t happened. There’s no indication that it won’t happen very soon, but the Nov 15 date I provided earlier was with the understanding that we’d be under contract by Nov 1.

All that said, my partners are asking me to put off your hire date until we are under contract.

Are you in a position to take additional project work through the end of the month?

My start date was bumped to December 1. This was with 2 weeks notice and right before Thanksgiving, so the timing wasn’t ideal, but it would be manageable. I don’t think this type of news puts anyone into one of those chaotically happy spirals; it’s a let down. Not a heartbreaking moment, just a slight twinge and, well, given the previous flake-outs, it was a big, big warning sign, too.

How big? Not that big, actually! Within 20 minutes, I received another email:

Just talked with [redacted] – they believe we will have an execution ready contract early next week.

Just trying to make sure you know this isn’t going to drag out.

Whew.

No problem, no worries, no need to pound the pavement–but just in case, maybe post to LinkedIn and Facebook that I’m looking for some project work to fill the gap. I mean, if I landed something that was a couple of weeks longer, it wouldn’t be a big deal, in my opinion, to ask them to slide back the start date a bit.

I did send back a note:

I would say that the timing for all of this is not ideal; it essentially leaves me with about a week to pull things together.

I understand the position that you and your partners are in, and I appreciate that you’re being straight with me. That means a lot.

I’ll try to fill this gap with something, and I’ll keep you apprised of what turns up for me and will assume you will be doing the same.

Everyone was trying to get along, and really remove the stress of the situation. I felt I needed to share that this was not an ideal situation for me, and I didn’t need to be coarse about it. Supportive response was quickly following:

I appreciate your understanding and promise we are making every effort to move things along as fast as possible. I am ready to have you on board.

A few more emails were exchanged about office space design and layout. Pretty normal “we’re on our way!” type of stuff, to me.

Until the following Monday came around, as I was en route to the airport to fly out to a client.

Do you have some time to catch up on the phone today? I have a 2-3 pm but am otherwise flexible.

If only I had been born yesterday, this would not have phased me. However, this was a very loud cup rattling against my cage. This was not the Really Good Email™ I was hoping for. This was the phone call with…

Our investors are making some mandates. You need to take a 1/3 pay cut.

This, of course, ended up being exactly one week before my last day. This is not a reality situation for me; I could have accepted these conditions, but I would have been trading in a lot more for it. I could have accepted the situation and started has a full time person who was also spending his full time looking for something else, and that is not the type of scenario I want to put someone else in, even if I felt they had pulled the rug out from under me.

I was offered contract work at a rate that I feel would have been pretty discounted. I understand the basis for the offer, as well as how that may have helped balance out the less-than-favorable handling of the situation. I mean, it was an effort–it was a try. I get that, and to some degree I respect that approach at trying to make sure there is some income, but I would still see it as a setting that I would not be able to truly commit myself to.

And, so, that is where we left it. I parted ways with The Start-up™ and my last day at Happy Cog is upon me. I have been fortunate enough that there are people that I have been having discussions with. They have been helpful in any number of ways, from networking to advice to leads to good conversations.

To be fair, I’d hate to be this founder. There’s a lesson about what kind of power/control you give up when you accept an investment from someone, too. Heck, there are many lessons, including the ones for me. That’s how it goes. I’ve gotten wiser, and it didn’t even take me a year.

I see this as a great opportunity. There is time now for me to work with any number of companies, in any number of scenarios. And that means that I have availability to partner with some great people and companies and identify the right opportunity/opportunities.

I am doing just that. I would love to talk to you about whatever it is you are working on. Please feel free to send me a note and then we can have some good conversations about what is next.

On Emotional Inference

The Messages

ALL FIELDS REQUIRED (pretend it’s in red, if you’d like to)

Damned if I don’t dislike that message. It kind of pisses me off, if not makes me feel kind of stupid for overlooking something. It also pisses me off because it’s an interrupt in a process that I thought I was done with and ready to move on from.

We’ve all seen it, of this I’m more than a little certain.

I pose to you this question: Who is to blame for how we (as users/recipients of the message) for the emotional inference? Does anyone get a little angry or irritated or aggravated just by the inferred tone of the message?

I know I do.

I’ll flip this around. If you haven’t seen Michael Angeles’ (Konigi) 404 page, well, here’s an image:

“Oops. Sorry. It’s probably our fault. “

How does this particular message make you feel, when you compare it to the previous message?

Speaking only for myself, I find the error message a little cute–and a lot forgiving.

The Inference

I’m speaking only for myself here, but for the above messages, one made me feel angry, annoyed, embarrassed and probably pissed. The other made me feel a lot less embarrassed and pretty understanding of the situation that was probably my fault, anyway.

The difference, of course, is how these messages are being authored and what emotions they are trying to infer–or avoid, even.

So then, when it comes to emotional inference, I ask you this:

Who is responsible for the way messages are perceived, the author, or the recipient?

(Here’s my answer: As folks in the UX field (and I’m including the beloved Content Strategist folks), it’s our responsibility to also apply empathy to the written word. That’s my belief, and I do try to subscribe to this the best that I can, which is often why I don’t have enough time to write short emails, to borrow from a famous quote. If the users of any of our systems are inferring emotions into what we’ve written, well, I just don’t see it as their fault, in a majority of the cases that come to mind.)

On Unicorns and a Guy Named Yoni

This has seriously gone on long enough.

And I’m looking at you. And you. And even you over there, who probably thinks I just mean all of those other people.

And if I’m being honest with myself, yeah, I’m looking at me, too, because I’ve done this before myself. Certainly, not on purpose, but I’ve done it.

If you’re landing on this blog, well, on purpose, then you probably know that there’s this thing called “User Experience Design” that’s kind of popular right now (but I can’t say as to how long that will last, nor that UXD will even last on its own).

Also, don’t get me wrong: HE is partly to blame, too. He’s let us all perpetuate this crap, too. Partly because he’s too nice, and partly because he gripes to me privately in IMs (well, so much for privately, now) that it’s been happening and it kind of ends there.

You might even have heard of this guy I’m talking about–Yoni. Jonathan “Yoni” Knoll.

Our community friend, and perhaps “guy who does far too much for far too little in return to the point that we almost expect things from him”-person, has an ugly label put on him.

That label is, sadly, “developer”.

Yeah, I said it.

But, developer in of itself isn’t the bad word–not at all. In fact, the developer-folk that I know are pretty awesome, and they wear the badge with pride. As well they should.

However, on Yoni, well, we need to stop using this label. It’s unkind and unfair–to him and to his career potential–to be boxed in like this.

You see, Yoni is a designer. He’s a damn good one, too. I have the authority to say this because I’ve not only worked with him on many of those community projects that he’s known for contributing to, but I’ve also worked with him in the capacity of “employee” (that sounds weird, but I guess it’s true).

Yeah. He can write lines of code. Fast. And really good.

But he also does all of that “designer” stuff that so many of us are happy to say that we do. There’s a ridiculously good chance that he’s better at it than most of us, too.

And that’s what needs to be known. He’s kind of a unicorn–except, well, I’ve seen his Photoshop skills, and let’s just say that he’s more of a UX Designer than a visual one and leave it at that. Still, he’s that unicorn-type that can not only design and define information architectures and interactions, but he can also breathe life into it.

And so he gets called “developer”, and sometimes, even “prototyper”, the latter of which I don’t think is so bad, of course, but I’m not certain that it’s as widely understood at the moment. I could be wrong, but “prototyper” still seems a little too “developer”-y to me at the moment. And labeling him that is simply wrong.

Also, I should cut to the chase, as this is rapidly turning in to one of those posts were I embarrass myself talking up one of friends.

The Chase

The .net Magazine award nominations thing got announced today. I nominated Yoni for one, and if you’ve ever worked with him, you already know that he’s earned your nomination. There is little denying this, so I ask you to simply consider nominating our unicorn friend in the Designer category.

That would be nice of you. That would be appropriate for him to win.

Here’s what I wrote, just in case you’re looking for a little inspiration:

“Developer of the year” is such a mistake here, as Yoni gets blanket-labeled that all the time. And that’s a mistake–he’s also a very thorough, thoughtful UX Designer who just happens to be more adept at code than you or most people you know. So, you see, he’s a Designer and a Developer and quite a bit more.

Frankly, you need the category of “Unicorn of the Year” in order to get this right.

Have you ever heard of a “Yoni Prototype”? Have you been fortunate enough to be a company that has one to show to your own clients, stakeholders, etc.?

If you had, you’d understand this nomination without batting an eye.

If you haven’t, you might have been under a rock, but that’s not all.

In addition to do the kind of work at the pace we all wish we could maintain, Jonathan also gives of his time–freely–to nearly any worthwhile cause, from the “F*ck Cancer” websites that help raise money for persons who have faced hardships with cancer to websites that support community-run conferences in User Experience.

Not only does he deliver and ship, he also gives back. When you’re looking at candidates, I ask you to consider reflecting on that point, as I don’t think you’ll find another person who gives back and still finds time to make a living making other people look so damn good.

You, too, can do one of these at: www.thenetawards.com/

There you have it. I’d like to see Yoni in the running for this “Designer” award. Hell, I’d love to see them create a “Unicorn” award, but until that happens, we’ve got this guy who probably gives of himself more than the rest of us, delivers and ships when he would be justified in not doing so, and also manages to help make a bunch of companies you’ve heard of look really good, either to themselves or to clients of their own.

Full disclosure: I carry bias in all of this. I guess that might make this “persuasive writing” then. And I can live with that.

Thank you for your consideration.

On Value, Worth

A woman goes to a mechanic to get her car fixed. The man takes a look at her car, starts it and listens to it intently. He shuts the car off, then pops the hood, takes a screwdriver and makes an adjustment.

He restarted the car and it sounded perfect. Good as new, you might say.

“That’ll be $110,” he said.

“WHAT??!! But that only took you 5 minutes!” was her immediate retort.

He simply replied, “$10 to turn the screw. $100 to know which screw to turn.”

I woke up today watching my pals Andy Budd and Jared Spool debate value and worth on the Twittery thing. Both sides were making some great points, and I’m not going to relive the discussion here (it was good, healthy, respectful and all those other things you hope for in tweety discourse); what I was reminded of is the story above.

The moral of that story is that you should understand your value and your worth. Survey your markets, talk to your peers, fill-out and read and review Salary Surveys from the professional organizations that you’re aware of–and reach out to find about more organizations that you are not yet aware of.

Understand what’s being charged for your product and determine how you measure comparatively, or adjust your pricing based upon what types of projects you want to work for, organizations you want to work for, etc. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a pay cut because the non-profit you’re passionate about could use your expertise. And, if you are charging too much, the many flavors of “No” that you hear in relative short time will help you understand that. If you’re not charging enough… well, that should be somewhat obvious, too.

Just make sure you know which screws to turn.

It’s Not About You

No, it’s not.

Almost never.

In most circumstances, it’s not about you at all–unless you want it to be, unless you feel like you have done something to make it about you, and then, well maybe it is.

But most likely, it is not.

Until it is.

And when you think it is, take a moment and reflect. Reflect upon those actions of your own. Wonder if what you do is a mirror of what you observe, or if you are just a glaring double standard.

But, really.

It’s not about you.

Unless it is. And then, well, here is hoping that the passive-aggressive tilts of the world stop for a moment and you are made aware directly.

Because it’s not about you. Not even right now.

Thoughts on Organization: Prioritize Prioritizing

A recent conversation with my friend Gabby got