Ryan Jahn

Do you ever have the feeling that you’re just doing EXACTLY what is expected of you. Like in Donnie Darko where the portal comes out of his chest and he just follows it.

Have you ever had a conversation or an argument where you know that when you say what you’re about to say it’s going to return a specific reaction, you can almost guarantee it. And then you and the other person know what your reaction will be after theirs, so much that it becomes comical you are even bothering with the discussion, because there’s only one way it will go, and both of you know it way before it’s over. Because it happens the same way every time.

I guess people call these mannerisms, or personality types. Every now and then i get this over sense of awareness where i’m suddenly thinking one step ahead of what i say and i purposely don’t say it, mainly because i feel like i know what type of reaction it will return.

And that’s boring.

I think it takes some true practice to become a genuine conversationalist, communicator, and collaborator. Someone who can stay in the moment, hear what is being said and actually provides a unique response. Not was is expected, but what is needed.

What is it that helps us stay out of that day to day small talk that is human interaction and into an arena of ideas? How do we build a safe place where guards are down and vulnerability is the vain through which creative collaboration flows? How do we combat the dis-service we do to each other when we continually fall into a cliche’ dialog using the same old attempts, responses, and behavior?

The past couple of weeks have been very exciting here in Philadelphia. I’m learning what it means to work as a freelance designer and manage my time so i can start to work at the studio more regularly. Meaning, have enough energy to work after hours. There are so many things to do here. So many paths and options to take each day. The weekends are the hardest to organize, but as one of my friends puts it, “It’s a good problem to have.” I’m beginning to embrace the chaos and frustration that is organizing my time. Trying to consider it a luxury to have such a blank canvas to work on. I’m finding that a lot of the stuff i learned in school, the books, the authors, the classmates, are slowing coming back to me and i’m actually applying them. It’s sorta like that moment in a relay race where the baton is being passed. The receiving runner starts to run even before the other runner hands off the baton. The past year i’ve been the receiving runner, gaining momentum, hoping the other runner (my college education) does his job and catches up. Well that sounds a bit lame. But really, it’s all about trying things. Fail early, fail often. It’s sometimes hard to know what you’re are learning at that moment and it may not hit you until years later.

2 weeks into being a self employed contractor and it feels great. Today I worked from home. I started after lunch and have been going off and on all night. It’s wonderful. Probably because of the novelty of it all, so we’ll see how long it lasts.

Here’s a couple of my thoughts from the past week:

Making meaning from observation is a difficult thing to vocalize. To come up with any sort of meaning that I feel confident in requires dissecting the details. The language, the expressions, the environment, the tone, the hidden intricacies that only digital capture devices can store. I’m never confident in the generalities of the process. The presumption that I have figured some thing out in a few bullet points or high-level architecture seems to be a mistake to begin designing from. General capabilities simply means general usage. When you can pull real meaning from your research data you will end up with rich interactions for those specific users you observed, even more so if you have the luxury of designing for a specific group.

This sounds good, but I find the more I dive into the details of observation the more I realize the solution lives in many different interactions that cannot all be addressed in a computer interface, but that there are many types of interactions that take place to make a process or system more useful. True problem solvers have the ability to achieve a goal without regard for the medium used to reach that goal. One example is the bakery that makes the brownies for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The floor manager cut costs by about 20% one year by moving the flower across the room and one of the mixers to the other side. This streamlined their process and allowed them to move the empty flower bags out quicker and required less clean up and maintenance. I find this to be amazing. They didn’t even do anything! The didn’t have to buy anything, install anything, or adopt anything. They just switched things up. I hope one day to find a client that also understands this. That their goals are achievable in many different ways not just a new interface. Although it may be an aspect of the change they so eagerly wish to happen. Yet, “more user adopt-ability” they cry. Turns out your customers don’t want to use a computer. What now? Drive them to it anyway? It’s the way of the future. There seems to be the tendency for colossal shifts in forcing people to adapt not adopt. Where is the middle ground? Where is the elegance, the creativity? Who is the guest and where is the host?

I’m finding that making meaning out of user research data could be looked at as more of a reactionary process than an action. ”Let’s go make some meaning out of this data we just collected.” or “Let’s start the ’synthesis’ phase.” I’m trying to quit dissecting it so much and jump straight to the product. Start designing and react. See if whatever I put down fits. This trial and error style seems to pull the meaning out of the researcher rather than me going in to look for it and then designing the product.

Hopefully this isn’t to ambiguous. It’s strange to me that this is the sort of inner dialogue I have when making an e-commerce website.

“The medium is the message.”
-Marshall Mcluhan

Lately I feel like I’m going to explode. Why?
I think it’s just that, because I feel.
I feel the need to make.
Something… but where?
BOO YAH!

Also check out this guys work.
It’s amazing.

I will have been a full-time designer for six months this week. If you’re from Charlotte, then you’ll understand me when I say the past six months has felt like riding ThunderRoad at Carowinds (backwards). However, there have been times, when I’m working late by myself I get an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction. The kind where you sort of purse your lips together, tilt your head slightly and move your eyes up as if you just felt a drop of water hit your eye brow. Then in my head myself says to myself, “You’re really doing it. You’re really a designer. You’re doing what you set out to do.” The I say say to myself, “What does that really mean?” Then myself replies, “Don’t worry about it, just know that you’re doing it.” That sort of satisfaction. Then I nod and get back to work.

It’s weird though. Constantly being inventive. It’s a good problem to have, but honestly I would get so much more done at school in ten weeks than I have here. I’ve found creativity (and invention) culminates when the language, environment, and tools all work together, and by together i don’t mean “so happy together.” By work together I literally mean process. The way in which language, environment, and tools are used together to get work done.

“Subscribe” Is a word I’ve been using a lot lately. I don’t know how I feel about it yet, but let me give you some context. We live in America, every time you get into a car in America you subscribe to America’s road laws. You can say you disagree with some traffic laws, but still you subscribe and stop at red, and go at green. If you’re on the street and the sign on the door says, “Restroom for customers only” you can choose to subscribe to this or not. Subscribing to some thing is a great way to actively identify yourself to others. If you choose not to subscribe, this is where the art of persuasion, argumentation, and civil disobedience can come into play. Some subscriptions are tougher to cancel than others.

Basically, I like developing a shared understanding with people by subscribing to a certain language for different contexts’. But mostly people get frustrated when they don’t understand and if I use a word some one doesn’t understand we should talk about what it means and maybe use a different word that makes sense to the both of us. But this takes time, and in business if you don’t subscribe to the nonsense of business speak and you try and talk against the grain, you may be viewed as being “difficult”. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure business speak evolved out of the attempt to develop a shared understanding among business people, but it’s roots grew a weed.) The idea is by discovering a solid frame work of language in which to talk about some thing, work ultimately gets done faster. Business speak built a floppy frame work and for some reason design is trying to adapt/modify it. I wish I could insert a clever name for the people that gloss over words and descriptions, and never state the obvious because well, “obviously”. (Quick self introspection, I am pretty good believing there is no such thing as obvious, however I am a huge proponent of assuming the shit out of some thing, but also keeping yourself 100% open to that assumption being corrected with the mighty hand of science.) I challenge everyone to go get their assumptions corrected. (It may hurt, if you like being comfortable, keep assuming, and keep thinking things are obvious).

To wrap up. Respect Language. Have an opinion, even if it assumes, but remain open to get that assumption corrected by the mighty hand of science. Avoid using terms like “moving forward”, “bandwidth” (when talking about peoples time) and “allocate resources” (when talking about people). These are subtle mental shifts that mean a lot. So subtle. So… not human.

I’m starting a new city movement.
It’s called “Closer”.

Work Closer.
Eat Closer.
Live Closer.

So far it only exists in my head.
Please subscribe.