Leap Walking

This is a response to Penelope’s post about how you shouldn’t dodge the recession with grad school. But before I go on, I want to state that I am in grad school, but I made my decision before the recession came. So for those of us who are already in grad school – this probably won’t matter (since we probably made decisions to do this based on other reasons).

Penelope’s post makes sense for people who are looking for a way out of the recession. And for the most part, I do agree with her. I don’t think it is a good idea to go for an MBA, an MFA, a PhD, whatever – if you’re trying to seek refuge from the storm.

But in a way, I don’t think that’s going to stop the tens of thousands who will end up in grad school. So, if you’re in that camp, well… my best advice to you is not to see grad school as a safe haven. It’s extremely deceptive to think that all you have to do is read books and write papers, and do well in class. There’s a lot at stake and a lot to lose in the years spent in grad school.

Grad school is deceptive

One of the main reasons is this – your professors have their own agenda that’s not the same as yours. They tend to value your intelligence and critical analysis of your work (and will reward you for it), rather than your ability to make money and survive. It’s noble, by all means – but far from practical.

The solution to this is to give them what they want, but get what you need. And what you need are:

• connections
• skills
• ‘tricks of the trade’
• opportunities

Connections: Know what’s at stake

It is incorrect to say that there is a huge gap between the corporate and academic worlds. Often times, very established leaders and experts move seamlessly between the two, providing an essential bridge for mutual benefit.

I was just given an opportunity to work with Microsoft for my Masters thesis, and I owe it to my lecturer through her connections. In a way, the process felt a little like going for a job interview, because I knew that it would make a difference to know what the stakes were, and at the end of the day – there were some students who didn’t get what they wanted.

Skills: Discern well between learning and applying

Penelope was right in saying that, to learn entrepreneurship, you have to do it. It can’t be gained by just reading books. But I also believe that there are some people who are so clueless they can’t tell the difference between reading a how-to book and saving their own lives.

If you can’t understand how to translate knowledge into practice, you’re in big trouble. If you think that books should be written in a style suitable for adolescents to make it easier to understand, you’re digging your own grave. This brings me to my next point.

Tricks: Learn the benefits of failing

One essential benefit of grad school that you can’t always get in the working world is the opportunity to fail, and fail often. Don’t take this for granted – smart folks know that getting out early and getting your hands dirty is key to understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In my meeting with the head researcher at Microsoft, I made an absolute fool of myself when I claimed that ethnography was the same thing as field studies. It took me a week before I realized this, but they still let me in. Students are easy to forgive, but there’s always a limit.

The tricks aren’t about failing, but learning from them. It’s easy to say, but I doubt that you’d throw yourself in the deep end of the pool if you knew you couldn’t swim. My take: jump first, swim later. There’s always a way out.

Opportunities: Practice, preach and play

From the onset of the course, I was determined to take the road less travelled. While some students avoid part-time work and external activities in order to concentrate on studies, I run the other way.

I hunted down a flexible job that would pay me enough but not drag me down, signed up as a volunteer on a project with the Interaction Design Association, tried my best to attend every single free event related to my industry, and started following industry leaders on Twitter and started a blog to share my thoughts. I got to work with industry experts almost overnight, and it makes a difference when they know you by name and can vouch for your work.

When it comes to push and shove, all that extra effort clearly stands out. If you’re in a really good school with the smartest bunch, you won’t just be able to collaborate – you’ll synergize with the best. There will always be opportunities to learn and lead, take what you can (or should) and run with it.

The biggest problem isn’t time management – it’s focus.

I’ve been on Twitter for awhile now but I’ve only started using it extensively as a:

• social graphing tool
• messaging tool
• friending tool

Twitter works best in two ways:

• avid follower
• ambient intimacy (credits to Cennydd Bowles for introducing the term to me)

Avid Follower

An avid follower is someone who uses Twitter to see what other interesting people are up to. Recently, a massive surve of celebrities have hopped onto the twitter bandwagon, creating what seems to be a tipping-point of the phenomenon. But that’s twitter for the mainstream. Consider specific industries, especially the web-related ones. Twitter is really great for getting to know prominent leaders in the field, and for getting the latest scoop about stuff around their lives.

Ambient Intimacy

Twitter is also great for folks who want to keep track of each other’s activities. I know it sounds a lot like Facebook, but it’s harder to add someone to your facebook account that you don’t know. With twitter, there’s less problems because it doesn’t reveal a lot about you. People who choose to follow you on twitter should already know who you are, by trusting what you have already published online, or by your twitter history.

It’s for that conference meet-up where you met someone but didn’t want to send emails to over and over again, or that pub meet where you wanted to find out more about the speaker who gave an interesting presentation.

It’s also useful for self-organized groups, such as volunteer groups or charities, where everyone does their own thing, but comes together once in awhile to do something. It’s easy to pick up on a conversation from a Twitter post at the next meetup.

Twitter works for me

I’ve found Twitter to be beneficial for me in the following ways:

• exchanging ideas with people from the user experience industry
• finding out the latest news or events
• exploring opportunities offered by people that I’m following (jobs, promos, offers, etc.)

Some people use twitter for social accountability, or as a to-do list. Some applications extend their functionality with twitter as an alert tool – rememberthemilk is one of them.

But you already knew that.

What you may not know is how fast I can get to know people on twitter, which helps to break down the ice when I speak to people or want to build on relationships.

I recently volunteered for a project involving some really fantastic people in the user experience industry. It was really hard at first to speak up, especially when I consider my relative lack of experience in the field – but because everyone encouraged each other to connect via twitter, I am starting to get to know these individuals a bit better, even though we’ve never met in person.

Filling the gaps

Twitter isn’t a substitute for real face-to-face relationships, but it does fill some gaps – especially in between times when you don’t meet face-to-face with people. It makes sense for some of us who are really busy but still want to maintain good relationships, and for those of us who want to build relationships that cross physical barriers.

I don’t think calling Twitter a “micro-blogging” platform does it justice – simply because people tend to think of it as a small blog. It’s not quite that. There are a lot of things that tend to be published on blogs require more than the 140 character limit that’s placed on each tweet, and people just don’t understand why they would want to blog about walking their dog or eating a sandwich.

So, coming back to the ‘ambient intimacy’ term – I believe it’s really all about that “gap” of relationships you wanted to address – people who you want to build a relationships with or get to know, who aren’t as accessible.

With all that said, I’m looking to meet new people: http://twitter.com/jaremfan