I'm getting ready to teach a teaming and collaboration workshop at the Institute of Design in January. It's my second go around and it draws from a variety of texts and principles. One of the key concepts of the class is that you've simply got to know a little about the people you're working with (skills, ambitions, hopes and dreams--all that good stuff). Those of you that have to hire or integrate people into a new organization are probably very familiar with this fact already but it surprises me with how little our educational institutions prepares graduate and undergraduate students for real work.
One of the ways we kick off this activity is everybody writes a bio about themselves, I always write the first one to show them what I'm looking for. As a new year sets upon us I might suggest that a few hours of contemplative thought and effort put into your own bio might be a great way to start off the year. Consider it a wellness for your brain.
But perhaps a few caveats, diagnostic tools can be dangerous when used in profiles so you need to exercise some caution when you employ them and two, this bio is geared towards an academic environment and team building, a resume written like this will have a short trip to the refuse bin.
Here it goes...
Name:
Chris Bernard, guest lecturer for the 2007 ID Teaming Workshop, MDM (Master of Design Methods) 2006
MBTI Score:
INTJ (You can try a simplified test here to get your MBTI score)
CPSP Rating:
Optimizer (My favorite diagnostic tool for teams. Well worth the 10 dollars US to take it)
Background:
I was born in Ames, IA and I grew up there as well. Both my parents were Professors at Iowa State University and my Father is now a retired instructor of French, Italian and Film Studies.
My Mother is now a Clinical Physiologist for the Veterans Association Hospitals. I have one younger brother who is an officer in the United States Navy and who lives in Manama, Bahrain. The holidays are always interesting in our house as we debate passionately from a variety of different viewpoints. My parents are also divorced and have been since I’ve been 16, this was not a fun period in my life but like many families that go through divorce we mostly turned out okay with a few hiccups along the way. For you movie buffs out there I’d simply summarize this period as like a PG rated version of The Squid and the Whale.
I have been married to my wonderful wife Christine for over 10 years and I have three children, Ben (7), Ellie (4) and Erin (7 months). I live in the suburbs of Chicago and have called the city and its suburbs home for 14 years.
Education and Work:
After high school I went to the University of Iowa. One of my biggest mistakes in hindsight was not taking it very seriously for the first few years. I was very big into art in my earlier education and had a few outstanding teachers that influenced my exploration and skills development in that area. By the time I got to college I put the passion for art away and tried to focus on conforming and studying things that I though I should be studying, like business-related courses.
I wasn’t very successful at that and after a few hard years I gave up and switched my major to Film and Video Production and Film Studies (after long ago putting my interest in art in a drawer and locking them up). I’m sure part of the passion around this new pursuit was due to my Father, who has been fascinated by cinema his whole life and instilled some of that in me. In fact, I can mark major milestones of my life based on certain movies my Father took me to see as a child. But I’m sure it was also because of my Mother, who always encouraged me to follow my dreams, no matter how far fetched they were-such as studying film in Iowa of all places.
I eventually got my film degree and went to visit Los Angeles and see some friends, with the intention of moving there. I didn’t like the city or my prospects and was very intimidated by moving (in my terms) so very far from home. Instead I went to Chicago and found employment (after about six hard months of doing a variety of nasty jobs) dubbing video tapes at a broadcast production studio. During this time I had an epiphany of sorts. I was playing on a friend’s Macintosh, a computer I had become very familiar with in college, and I’d also been hanging out in the graphics department with the two designers that ran it.
I certainly couldn’t do what the folks in that design department did but I thought back to those long dormant art skills I’d been ignoring and thought I could teach myself how to do what they were doing. So, with some brilliant mentoring and coaching from these two designers I slowly and painfully built up these skills over the next 12 months. Serendipity soon appeared when one designer left the company. It was now my opportunity to step in and I was totally prepared for it (Luck favors the prepared as Edna Mode and a few others say). I became a broadcast designer. I was self taught and a little rough, but I was collecting a paycheck to be a designer.
For the next few years I was bouncing around and taking on increasing larger roles in motion graphic, video and interaction design with a variety of small Chicago companies. It was great fun but I was also bored. By the late 90’s I decided I needed to go back to school to expand my skills. I became very interested in business and considered getting an MBA, I thought long and hard about design schools and art schools but honestly wasn’t brave enough to try to apply (nor did I think I’d get in). Instead I zeroed in on a program in marketing communications. Getting this degree was a pleasant, but not perfect experience, but it did help me get a nice job at an Innovation Lab at IBM as a creative director.
IBM was a challenging company that taught me a lot but after four years I found myself getting bored again. Being in my (almost) mid-thirties I also felt I was starting to run out of time to be doing something I didn’t fully enjoy doing for a paycheck. I considered simply getting a new job when I learned about the MDM program at ID. It sounded EXACTLY like the degree and school I was looking for. I submitted my portfolio and was fortunate enough to get in and joined the Fall 2004 MDM class. I graduated in May of 2006 from this program and went back to the grind of IBM.
During my time at ID I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do and I talked to a lot of people in the design community. I’d always had it in my head that I wanted the big creative job, with the big staff and the exciting clients. That stuff is fun, but it’s also exhausting and gives you an unbalanced life—especially if you have a young family like I do.
After thinking carefully about what I really LIKE I came the conclusion that I like the following: One, I like talking about the power of design, with anyone. Two, I like teaching. Three, I like getting my hands dirty and doing the work.
Now, it’s really hard to do all that in a 40 hour week as a design manager (oh, and if you meet a design manager that works less than 60 hours a week let me know, I’ve never met one) So, I had a quandary that I could have solved in a number of ways. Serendipity combined again with a little self-actualization helped me find a job where I could do all that. So recently I left IBM (and some GREAT people) to go work for Microsoft in a group that has the job of evangelizing the power of User Experience (working with new GREAT people). I don’t have all the mechanics of the job down just yet but basically it’s a platform for me to do the three things that make ME happy. Talking and living a life that cherishes the value of design, teaching, and getting to get dirty with the tools and techniques of the practicing designer.
Skills:
Over the years I’ve been more of a manager and project leader than functioning in the role of an individual contributor. Most of my more recent expertise is in the following areas: Consulting, strategy, business frameworks and design research. Analysis, synthesis, planning and implementation. Contextual research, cultural, human, physical and social factors. Business development, operations and management.
For interactive applications and Web sites I’m pretty good at developing navigation flows, interactive concepts, mood boards, navigation flows, experience models, wireframes, standards documentation and the creation and administration of usability test planning. I can created project plans but it’s not my favorite thing to run them. I’m also fairly adept at writing and negotiating contracts for IT services. I can build and deliver the big nasty deliverable and the executive summary and I’m very comfortable presenting to small and large audiences.
In terms of software I have detailed and applied skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, In-Design, Visio, and Microsoft Office. I’ve got functional and directional skills in video editing, rich media development and motion graphic design including AJAX, Flash, SOA and Java.
I used to work heavily in video editing and motion graphic design, I haven’t flexed those muscles for awhile but they are still there and I plan to start experimenting more in that space again.
Growth:
I’m a lot better at this that I used to be but I still talk too much when I should be listening—I mean come on, look at how long this bio is!
I’m a little too focused in my domains at any given time, be it computers, school or just plain old design. I need to spend time experiencing things outside of those domains. Areas of recent interest include coaching, legos, cinema, art, skiing, personal well-being. For example, regarding coaching; my kids are just starting to get into organized sports and it’s simply amazing to watch all of the different coaching styles and techniques that are out there. From a teaming and collaboration perspective I think there’s a lot from that domain that could make me a better designer.
On of my biggest regrets is I didn’t travel abroad much when I had the opportunity, I want to find time to do that much more often in the coming years. Now whenever I travel I also make it a habit to get out and find something interesting, unique and special about a place that I visit.
On of my other biggest regrets is that I put my artistic interests in a drawer. I used to be a fairly competent sketcher but I’m not anymore. I’d like to try to start developing those skills again.
I rely a little too much on intuition as a designer sometimes, I’d like to be a little more rigorous in terms of building arguments and recommendations based on facts and objective criteria—understanding of course that going too far in that direction sucks the life out of everything.
Why the Institute of Design?
When people asked me why I was going back to school I told them it was NOT because of a desire to make more money but because I wanted to make sure I’d keep doing something that I’d enjoy as I continued my career. I figured ID would make me a GREAT designer and that it would open doors for me. Now, the MDM program will NOT make you a great designer but it certainly opened doors for me and it’s allowed me to focus and articulate on my craft in ways that are much more meaningful than I was able to in the past.
The other reasons I came to ID is because it’s one of the best design schools in the world, there’s a wonderful group of people here and I was honored and privileged to be selected to be a part of it. Finally, I’d like to teach someday. It’s why you’re reading this right now in fact. ID put me on the path to do things like this.
What’s Next?
Learning design methods at ID is a bit like training to be a Jedi. You’re going to learn some great and powerful things. But you’re also going to have to take responsibility for what you know and put it to good use. Larry Keeley (an adjunct professor at ID) talks a lot about the ‘special’ burden that innovators have. They need to take on the hard and wicked problems that other domains can’t solve by themselves. I’m not sure what’s next for me but I can tell you two things that will probably drive most of my choices from now on. One, I’ll use my skills to influence in ways that are positive, broad and far reaching—I’ll try to make things better than they are. Two, I’ll advance my profession. The advance of design over the past 40 years has quite honestly been shameful when we compare it to other fields, I’ll use whatever influence I have to change those impressions and give back to the domain that has given so many opportunities to me.
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