Go Find Your Work
Graduation Address to 2018 graduates of CCA Master of Design in Interaction Design
The following is a short talk given to the 2018 class of Masters of Interaction Design at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. As a new adjunct faculty member, I was invited to speak to the graduating class.
Graduating is a big deal. I know you’ve all worked very hard to get here. Kudos!
Right after I graduated, a friend of my dad asked me what I majored in. I said proudly “I have a liberal arts degree with a specialty in painting!” And he looked me right in the face and said…
“So…you are trained for nothing.”
And I replied
“RIGHT?!?!? SO MANY POSSIBILITIES!”
Looking back, if I’d been trained for something, I might have started up a traditional career ladder…and I would have missed the new things that were happening. Like…desktop publishing. Multimedia. Oh, and the World Wide Web. Instead of feeling trained for nothing, I felt prepared for anything.
Fun Fact: Most of the jobs I’ve had didn’t even exist when I graduated.
And I’ll make this prediction: the same will hold true for you.
Maybe that’s not a comforting thought. So let me offer some relief:
You’re all going to get jobs. You are. Trust me.
I know this because you’re prepared, you’re coming out of a great program, you’ve built a solid community of support with each other (do not underestimate the power of this,) and you’re entering a growing field where the demand for your skills is high.
So yes, stay motivated and be proactive, but please don’t be freaked out. We need you to be calm, so that you can go out and change the world.
Question for you…are you all thinking about job interviews? I hope so. Because I’m going to share a couple stories of interviews I’ve had, and what I learned.
* * *
My very first job interview was with Rick Holliday of Holliday Development in San Francisco. First thing in the interview, Rick asked “Do you know what a real estate developer does?”
And I answered “No.”
First tip: Do your research. Learn everything you can about the company, the industry, the products, the person. (Thank you LinkedIn.)
So Rick told me what the company did, and said they needed someone to do filing and answer the phones, to fax things (yes, faxing), and I could play around on the Macintosh computer thingy.
Then he asked “So…what do you think?”
I said “Sure! that sounds like fun!”
It turns out you can build a very fulfilling career just by saying that phrase again and again.
Now career is a sneaky word. Career as a noun is defined as “An occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress.” As in “a business career” or “career advancement.”
And that sounds so great. Very clear…so nice and tidy.
But there’s a second, lesser known definition, which is Career as a verb. Which means “To move swiftly in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction.” As in “the car careered across the road and went through a hedge.”
You don’t need to career through a hedge. But you don’t have to have a career planned out, either. Remember, much of the work you’ll do doesn’t exist yet.
If you insist on a super-directed plan, you might miss the unexpected opportunities to be part of something new and emerging. And we need you to bring human-centeredness to things that are new and emerging. Now more than ever.
So keep on the lookout for new ideas. Focus on exploration over advancement. If you focus on the work and on bringing value to the work, advancement will come.
Which brings me to the next story: my interview with Adaptive Path.
Which wasn’t really an interview. It was a conversation with Janice Fraser, who is one of the founders and also a personal friend. I knew and respected her work, and she knew and respected mine. Our meeting was to see if what they needed was a good fit with what I wanted and what I could offer. Which it was. My years at Adaptive Path careered into amazingly interesting opportunities, very few of which I could have predicted.
Janice says many smart things, but here’s one of my favorites.
She says: “In any meeting…everyone should leave the room smarter for having spent the time together.” She makes it her goal that every meeting has intrinsic value…that the meeting isn’t the thing getting in the way of the work…that the meeting is the work.
And meetings should be run so that everyone is smarter, more engaged and more motivated as a result. It’s a powerful mindset to have…it will change how you attend meetings and how you run them. (And you will run them.)
I encourage you to bring this mindset to your interviews. The company might be interviewing you, but you are also interviewing the company. Walk in with confidence in your own power…it’s a meeting of equals. It’s your chance to get an “inner view” of the company. So ask the hard questions.
Such as… “When customers use the product, how is their life better?”
“Tell me about a project that didn’t go well; how did the team deal with it?”
“What keeps you up at night?”
“What’s the company’s commitment to inclusion? To sustainability?
“Tell me about a time when you saw that commitment demonstrated.”
And don’t be shy to give an inner view of you. You are all wildly interesting people. Share what makes you excited…what makes you light up, what makes your freak flag fly. Run the interview so that everyone in the room is smarter for having spent time together.
Lastly, recognize that you can say no if it’s not a good fit. Because although you may want the job, you must also ask yourself “Is this my Work?”
I’m talking about your Work in a bigger sense…as in “life’s work.” As in the reason your chose this grad program. As in “the Work that is most important to you and to which you give a lot of effort over a significant period of time.“
Now is when you start to find your Work. It’s what will drive you…that thing that is fulfilling and meaningful and purposeful and challenging…that might break your heart but can also heal your soul. The Work that makes a happy life.
In fact, it’s at the top of the list of things that make us happy. In her talk Gaming the Future of Museums, game designer and author Jane McGonigal synthesized a ton of research on happiness into four simple principles:
- Having satisfying work to do
- The experience of being good at something
- Spending time with people we truly like
- The chance to be a part of something bigger.
You’re already part of something bigger. You’re CCA alums, part of the powerful network of this institution.
You’re practitioners, joining a field known for openness, generosity, candor and heart.
You’re designers, solving big, complex and systemic problems that change how people live and behave, now and in the future.
You definitely are not trained for nothing.
You’re prepared for anything…and for everything.
It’s an honor to be a part of your community. Thank you.
And now…go to find your Work!
