Joshua Walton, until recently of Microsoft Hololens, used the G-word to describe me in a LinkedIn post. He went on to say, “…Gary can do a drawing, act out an interaction, diagram a complex system, and vividly present experience design all in a days work.”
At first glance, I thought the “generalist” label might convey that I’m some sort of alien life form :-) What employer wouldn’t scratch their head over that one? But the fact is, I wouldn’t change a thing. This blog describes 1) How I became a generalist, and 2) Why being a generalist is valuable to an organization.
As usual, the best place to start is with a visualization:
To create a Passion Map, you have to work backwards and forwards— from things that first triggered your imagination, to skills you’ve developed along the way, to key milestones, to the roles you currently play. Connecting the dots in this way reveals the following insights:
- How understanding “People” is central to my work (Gary the UX Designer)
- My passion for scientific, aesthetic, and humorous discovery (Gary the Ideation Expert)
- The importance of KISS
- And of course, how tadpoles have fueled a playful and meandering career path (see my “I have ADDDD” blog post)
A Passion Map lens can also give companies a fresh strategic perspective. It is sometimes exactly what’s needed to jar loose some original thinking.
Here are a few passion-related maps of the corporate variety:
This drawing for Time Warner’s Roadrunner service set the stage for a redesign of its front end — anticipating the need for simplification, prioritizing of feature sets, and making the system do more of the work.
This drawing established a contextual landscape for the development of WordsEye features. It anticipated the kind of banter and wordplay we see onsite, the planned use of 3D fly-throughs, the use of symbols to enable instantaneous forms of communication, and the overall playfulness of the experience.
This drawing is pure whimsy :-)
Beyond more practical strategic or developmental benefits, drawings like these help establish a playful mindset, soften resistance to new ideas, and let people see their work in a new light. And far from being the work of an alien, these sketches, drawn from a more generalized understanding of things, can help human individuals and organizations get to the heart of what they are about.
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