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Semantics and Salaries

This came across my twitter stream today, right on the heals of a conversation I had with a recruiter who was desperately trying to decode a job description for a “web designer” that a client had recently sent him. Ok, so let’s lay aside for a moment the fact that recruiters really shouldn’t be doing recruiting for positions that they don’t understand, and just focus on what this data is telling us about the industry and the role that semantics play in describing what we do. To me “web designer” and even “interactive designer” are both incredibly vague terms. Sure, I will use the term “web designer” if I’m describing…

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The Passion Myth

I’ve been waiting for someone in the tech/startup world to write something like this for a very long time, and finally, one of the 37Signals guys has said it. “Startup mythology demands that to create something great, you need superhuman sacrifices. You need to work for no pay, you need to put in 120 hours/week, you need to preferably sleep under the desk and live off pizza as a sole form of nutrient. As a result, you need to abandon your family and risk life without insurance.” From It doesn’t have to be all or nothing with a startup Before I get into my big, tangential gripe (something which I…

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Is “Caring About Product” Enough?

A startup that doesn’t care about its product is a bit like a restaurant that doesn’t care about its food. That may seem hard to imagine at first, but if you think about it for a minute I’ll bet you know of at least one restaurant you’ve eaten at where this appears to be the case. It’s very easy to see the signs – poorly curated menus, classic dishes gone awry, food sloppily executed. These are the kind of places that leave you wondering, what are the people who work here so busy doing that they can’t ever bother to sit down and taste their own food? Or worse yet…

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Why is Everyone So Upset About the Groupon Super Bowl Ad?

Here’s the thing. I get that people are feeling mislead, that their heartstrings are being tugged ever so gently by a message of social or environmental responsibility, only to be snapped back to the hard reality of consumerism, all in the space of 30 seconds. But what I don’t get is why anyone is shocked or outraged by this ad. I mean, I know someone who is addicted to Groupon and Gilt Groupe and Daily Candy and the like, and to be honest, she is pretty much obsessed with shopping, deals, “hot items” and “hot spots”, and little else. Is it possible that Groupon just knows their audience really well?…

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Competition, Accountability, Food.

Last year, my boyfriend Josh and I decided that we needed to make some changes to our diets. We’re generally very good eaters – anyone who knows me knows that I love to cook and I do it often – but it was the middle of winter, energy and morale were getting low, food was generally of the comfort variety, and we realized that we could make some incremental changes that would help us start getting in the right mindset for spring. For me, that meant cutting the wheat and gluten out of my diet, eating more nutritious, less filling meals, while Josh was beginning to realize that his soda…

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Hello, My Name is Christin

With SXSW right around the corner I think it’s time to dust off ye olde blog. We’ve been through some rough times around here the past couple of years, from losing my original domain at xinroman.com to almost losing the second one (turns out that the customer service people at GoDaddy are actually extremely helpful – who knew?). But I figure it’s not too late to resurrect some old posts and finally get around to writing some new ones. For those of you who don’t know me or know why you’re here, my name is Christin Roman and I am a User Experience Designer in NYC. I started this blog…

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