AEA15: Career Advice from a Cranky Old Man

I have the good fortune of attending the premiere conference for web designers and developers in the country - An Event Apart (this time in Austin). Some notes below from the keynote presentation from Jeffrey Zeldman. Titled "The Fault, Dear Brutus (or: Career Advice from a Cranky Old Man).

• Our other jobs (before we became designers) give us perspective. Makes us thankful to be a designer. We are extremely lucky.
• Work never sells itself. You have to be able to explain your design.
• Never talk about aesthetics. Talk about the business problems you're solving.
• Attitude trumps work I'm most companies (great work + bad attitude = fired).
• In big companies, politics trumps work. Its not fair, its just how it is.
• First impressions are forever.
• We have met the enemy and he is us. We are the only thing standing between us and success.
• You need a good portfolio. Use sites like Dribbble and Behance if necessary to make sure that some of the work you do can be shown.
• Blog like nobody's reading. Blogging is how he ended up on stage today (inception joke).
• Don't wait for someone to hand you the dream job/project. Take it. DIY (do it yourself).

Quote by Dan Graziano

And once again, those who are determined to miss the point will always succeed.— Dan Graziano, ESPN

Rules

In her article for Inc., Margaret Heffernan speaks plainly about how flexible hours inspire productivity. I am totally on board with her take on this, but what struck me most was this bit on rules in general. Makes me wonder what the implications are for parenting, because she's right — monitoring and enforcing rules is no fun.

"...I have always resisted rules, for myself and for others. Why? Because once you have rules, you have to enforce them—and there's no more tedious task in life."— Margaret Heffernan

Don't Build a Boat

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Coach

John Wooden died on Friday at the age of 99. His accomplishments on the basketball court are virtually unrivaled. In 40 years of coaching, he had only one losing season. At UCLA, he won seven consecutive national championships and at one point in his tenure there, the team won an unheard of 88 straight games. Amazingly, his basketball achievements are not the what made him so successful, according to most of the people that knew him. Later in life, he was a motivational speaker and was always "coaching" those around him.

This is my favorite of all the leadership and motivational expressions for which is so commonly known:

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. — John Wooden, Legendary Basketball Coach

Rest in peace, Coach.