By a number of measurements 2020 has been a terrible year, and so I am almost embarrassed to say that it's actually been a very good year for me and my family. I am really grateful for the year we've had. A Year of Service As the Federal and State responses to the Covid-19 pandemic [...]
UX Careers & Kungfu [Video]
https://youtu.be/pKmFKXK2WVs Earlier this year I posted a bunch of words that I used as part of my talk at the UX Hustle Summit. Now you can enjoy the dulcet tones of my voice and video of my Covid grief beard. My sincere thanks to Abriel Shipley and the organizers of the UX Hustle Summit this [...]
Reflecting on a Year of Death
The Verge has published a memorial for my friend, Molly. The Covid-19 Pandemic began for me, in earnest, when my friend called me and told me that Molly had killed herself. I was in the office and I got the call. In my lectures, when I was a professor of Philosophy and Art History, I [...]
UX Research Is an Aesthetic Activity
What I'm thinking is that the UX Researcher plays the role of sensory organ for the larger organism that is the organization.
Confucian Philosophy for UX
Reconceptualizing my career is something that my Confucian training enables because, fundamentally, a career is a matter of kungfu mastery.
For PhDs Seeking Jobs Outside Academia
With a new year and the new decade I am thrilled to be starting a new career with a new job in a new company, in a new industry. Below are some of the insights I gained from my job search. Although this is written with PhDs in mind, I think that much of what [...]
Ars Contexualis and UX
Ambiguity kills everything in User Experience (UX) design and research. And yet, the field itself is perplexingly ambiguous, "With the lack of consistency and simplicity in how we define UX, we've stripped it of its meaning and, more importantly, reduced the job to a mere buzzword," as Yazin Akkawi states. For example, what is the [...]
Reading Warhol’s 129 Die in Jet!
This post is prompted by a question my friend, Louis, asked on Facebook yesterday: I've written about the Orly Crash and the significance that tragedy has had on the development of Atlanta's arts communities for Burnaway. Here's my response to Louis and I thank him for prompting me to write this down. Depending on what you [...]
Modes of Knowledge-Making and Identity Politics
Adrian Piper, Catalysis III, Documentation of the performance,1970, Photographs by Rosemary Mayer, Collection Thomas Erben, New York © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin; via whitehot magazine. What follows are my lecture notes for my class on Contemporary Art at Georgia State University. During this class we were discussing Carrie Mae Weems, Kara Walker, Betye [...]
Why Do You Think You Want More Art Criticism?
Andrea Fraser "Museum Highlights" (1989); via Frans Hals Museum It's that time of year again when someone in Atlanta writes about arts journalism, this time from my friend, Andrew Alexander. Andrew asks readers of the Saporta Report to imagine an Atlanta without arts journalism. And, as is the custom, there are generalized complaints from folks [...]