Of designers, developers, polyworkers, unicorns (and drug cartels)
Why is still a problem how we call and define ourselves?
Recently a lot of discussion arose around how hard is defining in one simple job title the complexity of our daily work. Last in order of time, the talk at Front End London by Jon Gold and the follow-up post by Joe Critchley. But before there was the Unicorn-saga (here, here, here and here, and before here).
It’s a recurring discussion, revived by the fact that nowadays is finally making its way the idea that more hybrid skills are required to work in the IT and web industry (designer+developer, front-end+back-end, dev-ops, etc.)
So when I saw the presentation that Andrea Resmini gave as closing speech at EuroIA 2013, one thing catched my attention; this passage: “Information architects, user experience designers, interaction designers, service designers, content strategists. That’s absolutely uninteresting. I honestly do not care about labels. If I’m allowed to steal a good line from Jason Hobbs, if somebody asks you “what is that you do”, lie. Tell them you run a drug cartel. It’s easier and less complicated.”
BTW, his presentation is brilliant, as always. You should absolutely check it out!
Link: http://www.slideshare.net/resmini/the-poetics-of-information-architecture-26991604