cdharrison.com<\/a><\/p>\nEmbracing the Suck: Military phrase meaning to make the best of whatever situation you’re in..<\/p>\n
Background:
\n– Weight loss – 529 to 377
\n\t– weight gain due to being depressed, hating what he did, etc.
\n– Making sites since 1996.
\n– Former fulltime freelancer
\n– now: frontend dev for Morris Communications (magazine division)<\/p>\n
2013 state of the workplace
\n30% engaged and inspired
\n18% actively Disengaged – sabotage their coworkers (cost 450-550 million a year)
\n52% permanent case of the mondays – do just enough not to get fired<\/p>\n
Sometimes you just gotta suck it up.
\n– Consider the alternative – it could be worse.<\/p>\n
– dan willis, “great takes work”
\n– choose your battles and spend your energy wisely<\/p>\n
Negativity is a cancer! (this could be a talk topic!)<\/p>\n
Sometimes complaining takes more effort than just getting things done.<\/p>\n
Don’t fear new. New = opportunity. (he was told he’d be doing all joomla and drupal work. This was not happy news)
\n– learn on the companie’s dime
\n– doubtful he could have learned this stuff as a freelancer (no time\/money in it)<\/p>\n
Everything you do is a learning process for everything.<\/p>\n
– thomas edison’s quote about opportunity and how it looks like work.
\n– fabio at mailchimp, lead html email designer. was hired to do ui\/ux, but they approached him to do HTML emails.
\n\t– we know as an industry that html emails suck.
\n\t– when he heard this, he embraced the challenge.
\n\t– 5 years later he’s an innovator in a field where it was thought there was no room for innovation left.<\/p>\n
Opportunity opens doors…<\/p>\n
Help your team…
\n– concept of jumping on hand grenades (someday you’ll need help from the person you help today)<\/p>\n
Small wins are still wins. (make it something awesome despite the scope)<\/p>\n
Make learning a priority
\n– learning about sass etc and givng talks about it.
\n– things suck less when you share what you know with your coworkers
\n– codeschool etc. as good options for continued learning.<\/p>\n
“Sneak” new technology\/techniques into projects, but strive to get buy-in from your coworkers (if not management)
\n\t– Demonstrate the benefits of incorporating these new techs into an existing workflow<\/p>\n
Find creative outlets
\n\t– draw more.
\n\t– starting doing illustrator avatars for friends
\n\t– take pictures! (vader, ninja turtles)
\n– lilvaderadventures tubmler<\/p>\n
Scratch your own itch – side projects rock
\n– itembrowser.com – his first responsive project
\n\t– learned media queries, etc. <\/p>\n
Start using your powers for good
\n– jingle jam (10k) benefiting safeHOMES charity
\n\t– design + development + marketing
\n– someone could really use your talents!<\/p>\n
Happiness depends on ourselves – aristotle
\nEven sucky work can make you happy. Give it a chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his presentation on day one of GiantConf 2014, Chris Harrison talked to us about “Embracing the Suck”. Here are my notes from his talk. Chris Harrison – Embracing the Suck – 10:45a Thursday, June 12 @cdharrison cdharrison.com Embracing the Suck: Military phrase meaning to make the best of whatever situation you’re in.. Background: – … Continue reading Notes from GiantConf 2014\u2032s “Embracing the Suck” presentation by Chris Harrison<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,23,2,4,14],"tags":[34,35,29,33,28,32],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brainstorming","category-communication","category-design","category-development","category-process","tag-design-2","tag-development-2","tag-giant-ux","tag-happiness-at-work","tag-user-experience","tag-worklife-balance"],"yoast_head":"\nNotes from GiantConf 2014\u2032s "Embracing the Suck" presentation by Chris Harrison - Minotaur Design<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.minotaurdesign.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/25\/178\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Notes from GiantConf 2014\u2032s "Embracing the Suck" presentation by Chris Harrison - Minotaur Design\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his presentation on day one of GiantConf 2014, Chris Harrison talked to us about “Embracing the Suck”. 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