It's been a long time since I've updated this blog. Many things have gone on in my life over the past few years; relationship breakdown, divorce, single parenting an angry teenager, adjusting to life on my own, beginning a new relationship, fledging the teenager, position changes at work, relocating my house - whew! It's been a busy time for me. Add to this that my dog, my furry best friend, died in the midst of this, an injury sidelined me in my beloved sport of fencing, and then a health issue the next year put the kibosh on fencing altogether for the foreseeable future. Many changes in my life over a relatively short period of time.
I like to think these changes were placed in front of me as a series of challenges to overcome. Change is never easy, even more so when one is comfortable in the known (even if not completely satisfied). Change requires discomfort and who, really, readily seeks out discomfort? I suppose when you are discomforted enough in your current state you will make a change - you are forced to change. But that occurs of your own doing. When change is forced upon you it's very hard to take. A lot of what I learned over the past few years is that change happens and that no matter how uncomfortable it might be, how we accommodate it is our test. I lost a lot of things that were very important to me, but I also gained a lot of things that are important to me now for which I am thankful.
Life's journey takes many twists and turns, at least it has for me, and I've often had to recalibrate where I'm headed with what I want. Nowhere is this more apparent that in my position at work. People who know me would say I have an intense curiousity about things - a real hunger to learn. I'm also a problem-solver and have an appreciation for aesthetic. These attributes led me to the field of web design in 1997. Curiosity about the web coupled with the hunger to learn how to create web pages got me started. The ability to add the aesthetic qualities to these rudimentary sites was what secured me a position at my current place of employment where I was hired on as a web manager in 1999. Over the next decade and a bit, the organization changed (as organizations do), our department realigned and roles within were shifted. Strategic priorities were established or changed and positions were adjust to reflect this. Through twists and turns, through what I call the "dark times", our department emerged into a new beginning which seems much more focussed. My role now incorporates a heavy amount of problem solving as I'm now involved in the richer field of Usability, User Experience and UI design. The biggest change to my role has been that the aesthetic determination is now removed from my role and placed elsewhere. This was difficult for me because I really loved that part of my role. But while the aesthetic might be frontman of the webdesign rock band, without the structure of the show, and the quality of the music, the overall concert(ed) experience will be lacking. What I once did end-to-end has been broken down into specialties and reformulated as a team effort. Which, while there can be challenges to this way of working, is actually not a bad way to do things. And the learning, to my great delight, continues.
So that is where I am at this point in time. Emerging from a whole lotta change but feeling renewed and re-energized and hoping I can keep the momentum going.
I like to think these changes were placed in front of me as a series of challenges to overcome. Change is never easy, even more so when one is comfortable in the known (even if not completely satisfied). Change requires discomfort and who, really, readily seeks out discomfort? I suppose when you are discomforted enough in your current state you will make a change - you are forced to change. But that occurs of your own doing. When change is forced upon you it's very hard to take. A lot of what I learned over the past few years is that change happens and that no matter how uncomfortable it might be, how we accommodate it is our test. I lost a lot of things that were very important to me, but I also gained a lot of things that are important to me now for which I am thankful.
Life's journey takes many twists and turns, at least it has for me, and I've often had to recalibrate where I'm headed with what I want. Nowhere is this more apparent that in my position at work. People who know me would say I have an intense curiousity about things - a real hunger to learn. I'm also a problem-solver and have an appreciation for aesthetic. These attributes led me to the field of web design in 1997. Curiosity about the web coupled with the hunger to learn how to create web pages got me started. The ability to add the aesthetic qualities to these rudimentary sites was what secured me a position at my current place of employment where I was hired on as a web manager in 1999. Over the next decade and a bit, the organization changed (as organizations do), our department realigned and roles within were shifted. Strategic priorities were established or changed and positions were adjust to reflect this. Through twists and turns, through what I call the "dark times", our department emerged into a new beginning which seems much more focussed. My role now incorporates a heavy amount of problem solving as I'm now involved in the richer field of Usability, User Experience and UI design. The biggest change to my role has been that the aesthetic determination is now removed from my role and placed elsewhere. This was difficult for me because I really loved that part of my role. But while the aesthetic might be frontman of the webdesign rock band, without the structure of the show, and the quality of the music, the overall concert(ed) experience will be lacking. What I once did end-to-end has been broken down into specialties and reformulated as a team effort. Which, while there can be challenges to this way of working, is actually not a bad way to do things. And the learning, to my great delight, continues.
So that is where I am at this point in time. Emerging from a whole lotta change but feeling renewed and re-energized and hoping I can keep the momentum going.
