Handling, Surviving and Benefitting from Disruptive Change and Technology
I’ve always been a huge fan of change, on principle and because I find it rewardingly challenging. Yet, even as an admirer and active participant in it, throughout my career, because it’s technology related, it poses many risks that demand you to rise to the occasion or perish. In that a designer, with whatever software or hardware we work in, is dictated by the latest technology and outside events. But even as a die-hard embracer of change, things can get out of hand like multiple spinning tops accelerating too fast.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I once worked in a retouching department with accomplished, well-trained and experienced retouchers, experts really. I was a snot-nosed 19 year old at the time and they were primarily twice my age, then, I’m their ages, at 41 now. The company we worked for purchased these high-end German Heidelberg Topaz scanners to replace our old guard Howtek drum scanners. It was very much a case of ‘who moved my cheese?’ There was an uproar at the change, me as the newbie and upstart to boot, was the only one for it.
I argued “why wouldn’t you want ONE MORE TOOL IN YOUR TOOLBELT?” I found this response irrational. Let me get this straight, the company is upgrading the equipment and they were paying us to learn. How could this not be advantageous for our present and future both? But now I see, this was a disruptive technology for them, they had spent their entire careers, 20 years plus, gaining experience, confidence and expertise, with one technology, and were now being asked, to unwillingly realign themselves with a “new way.” So after watching the videos for this module I can have a bit more empathy and insight for their then plight.
So what’s the solution? What’s the correct response? I think the example of the head of Intel speaking with Clayton Christensen discussing The Innovator’s Dilemma is a great illustration of how best to handle these types of situations. The figuring out how to best apply these new paradigms to oneself or businesses.
Most of my early career, layout and design was done through the industry standard QuarkXpress, which had ousted, PageMaker (a nightmare Publisher type software). I think I began working in Quark 3.0, but around version 8, maybe? My memory is rather fallible with specifics like software version numbers. The reigning software got bumped out by Adobe InDesign, Quark’s supremacy was due to the capacity of businesses and individuals to install scripts and customize repetitive workflow. Finally, InDesign installed their own generic scripts and bumped them out. Witnessing and participating in this revolution, I’m still not entirely clear how it happened, these are just my suppositions. Here is tech expert Dave Gerard’s take on it, with more specific illustrations, than my grand sweeping generalizations.
Irregardless of how or why they triumphed, it left many professional NYC studio designers in a lurch, needing to scramble to catch up and fast. When paid and hired for mastery of a software, not just the conceptions and knowledge of the greater industry, you best know your software inside and out. I through happenstance, because I ordinarily in practice, like to keep a full-time job plus a part-time job, because I believe in the financial safety of dual streams of income.
I had by happy coincidence gotten trained, on a friend and manager’s offer, at my part-time second shift job, when a trainer came to that agency, not my day job agency. In the end, when there was a monstrous file that needed to be picked up from InDesign and everyone at the day gig was still only familiar with Quark, I was tasked with the work.
In the end, you are what you know, when your bread and butter relies on technology. A reason I’ve spent a majority of my career in production over creative is preference. I do creative work bundled into my production, but with less politicking. I’ve always found satisfaction in the adage, the proof is in the pudding. Because production work has a direct and measurable outcome, there is no navigating politics or managing machinations. It is what it is, because you can see it and touch it. When you succeed on press, nobody can argue your skill set or debate the politics of talent or having a great eye or some other nebulous, though necessary attribute.
In college I had a friend that was a talented linguist. She had writing aspirations as well, but studied mathematics, with plans to become an actuary. Why I asked? She loved math because there was a finite answer. Which isn’t always true when you get further down the line in it. But basically, she reasoned, your answer is right or wrong, not biased by subjective evaluation.
Logic and measurable, that’s how I feel in many ways, is the surer bet. It was interesting when the economist Carlota Perez posited that the old-guard establishment was treating the technological innovations as a casino. I was able to transfer to another job, when work was getting slim in one studio, after about 5 years in that studio, of course with the requisite recommendation of my SVP head of studio, to the next word of mouth referral, to the following head of studio.
The recommendation would only have gotten me so far and solely through the door and interview process. If I couldn’t have swam versus sunk, in the InDesign software it would only have been a trial. Interestingly, some of the work from the former studio, I ended up working on the exact same files at the latter studio, and though the boss recommendation was my “in” my permanent “keep” was the success of being the only one in the next studio that was versed in it formerly, and didn’t need additional training walking in. I was rather miffed, later, when I didn’t receive additional training, and others did, just because I “knew it already” but frankly, you can never know too much, and software, especially Adobe is both deep and wide. And I see any learning or training as another attempt to stay current and valuable, and never self-satisfied nor complacent.
So, I’ve lived and died by the sword of knowledge of adjusting to changing technology, and in a way, surviving by your wits alone, or in other words, as this week’s videos and reading attest, by your capability to adapt to disruptive change. It is this change that makes or breaks proceeding forward. It separates the wheat from the chaff of adaptability. Even earning this degree, is a stretch to adapt to the disruptive change of my industry progressing in technology at a breakneck pace, that most nor any, including myself, can barely keep up with. Adapt or die, that’s my slogan.
Currently every job posting in NYC wants a “junior” designer to be able to do what I do in print, digital and now they even want a senior UX/UI, all of that and the kitchen sink, including an endless lists of software proficiency. Previously,it was the big boys, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and DreamWeaver, and way back when Quark, now it’s countless programs, that seem to get invented and popular within months. Frankly, I took a seminar in Sketch, and if you have the background and experience: If you can do one program, you can do them all intuitively, because they are built on the same premise and rationale. No one is reinventing the wheel, even when I learned InDesign, I felt it was primarily Quark with menus and quick keys rearranged, so how steep was that learning curve really.
But I question this, even if your most senior people with decades of experience can’t keep up, then who can? Who can fill these jobs and do everything, when they are different subsets, like different dialects of a main language? Some Romans can’t understand some Venetians.
Pile on these infinite requests are on offer for a sub-standard living wage, because they want you to do everything and know all, as a senior designer, yet take the pay of a junior designer fresh out of college? Sometimes I think it is buzzwords or trends and not even the people shooting off these lists of requirements are quite sure what they are seeking. It’s not one size that fits all. Or at least, not well. There’s no denying being a generalist, but at what point is that a just a dressed up jack-of-all-trades and master of none?
How do our studies infer we should handle disruptive change? I really don’t know a direct translation into my real life experiences. but like the man that raced the train, I will die trying to keep up and figure that out. Maybe we are in the phase, before the change is installed, so this is the chaos portion, and maybe with AI or real leaps and bounds technologically, this will all settle in. Who is to say?
