Winning Big in a Gig based economy?, be prepared to weather the storm.

when I first graduated from a 2-year post graduate program in UI Design for Multimedia (Media & Communications Masters meets Digital Transformations and App Dev / product innovation in a dark alley with a sackfull of Pizzas) at SFSU I was already working my first IT job a Computer Graphics Studio Manager for Aspen Graphics, 333 Green St., San Francisco CA (sort of a glorified Photography & Print Shop serving the Ad Agencies and Marketing Giants of SF Media Gulch like Levi-Strauss, B of A, Wells Fargo, FCB, Hal Riney / Oglivy, Ketchum Public Relations, etc.). I was a total Newbie making under $25/hour (as salary so no overtime), working overtime on Xmas eve with no extra pay, and my newborn baby at the office with me on an all-nighter trying to print ad copy for a big marketing campaign's rush deadline...I was eventually fired when my boss found out I had been looking for a better job in the Digital Design e-Prototying area and was using him (my first and only IT job) as a reference.

24 Years and about 20 jobs later I am a survivor (sometimes just barely) in a very tough Software Application Design and Development Marketplace. I have done both Contract and Full-time In-House Work as Visual Designer, Information Architect, UI Designer, Human Factors Engineer, UX Architect, Solutions Architect 5 yrs at EMC2, Enterprise IA at Early Information Science, User Experience Designer, Busines Analyst, Product Design Analyst, Product Owner and assistant Product Manager.

I have never been an Art Director though I have served in several 'studio model' web development type ad agencies. I find myself wondering about Our future in Product Design & Development as I reflect upon the currently sorry state of affairs the present has come to offer, and it started well before the pandemic pulled the rug out from under all of us, but now it's gotten worse, much worse and with only 1 employee (me) do I qulaify for economic stimulous package? NO, I don't - and I don't like to apply for uneployement or accept a hand-out becasue it not close to being helpful and would not kick in faster than I can find another job BUT

I am both hopful and optomistic. Wary and slow to trust an opportunity or offer of employment. I have seen my average rate for UX design work fluctuate from 200k/yr to $45/hr with no medical benefits or visible means of support, (and I know you're thinking that you don't feel sorry for my shocking economic disparity; however "In fairness" 5 yrs ago "consultant/contractors" used to get compensated more cash to make up for the fact they had no medical, dental or retirement savings, then corporations got sick over how much contract labor they were consuming and refused to pay the staffing agencies their 30-50% markup, the agencies simply passed the reduction on to each individual worker so they could keep making their 'staff augmentation' margin, thus the contract workers of today are getting much lower rates equivalent to or less than internal associates with the same responsibilities (rather than a bit higher to comp the no benes situation), except without the benefits, no IRA cont.,no job security & no stability -often treated less than human or blatantly as disposable as a paper plate with no 'real job' and no future. So I have tried to tay busy, flip the paradigm on it's head, became my own staffing agency, I have worked for "just for the fun of it" supplementing my all-time low income and high travel expenses with a SMB loan here and a withdrawl from my retirement savings there just so I could keep operating at 'the top of my game' serving the Best of Global Fortune 500, sometimes as may as 40 large enterprise clients in a space of 10-12 years from 2006-2018, and I have stayed for 2-3 years at some very challenging high paid consulting gigs (GE Power, State Farm Ins., Microsoft Consulting Services) where the initial ask was only for a 90 days assessment or temporary assignment.

Then things started to change, partly due to the Market Conditions, partly due to me aging out of a younger person's UX workplace, partly due to the general public-facing misunderstanding of what a UX Design does and why / how valuable it is to a company's ability to innovate and ultimately please its customer base. I've seen rates shrink and I was OK with taking a cut in pay just to stay active in the marketplace, even if it meant realocation 2-3 times in 4 year period at my own expence hoping to score another long-term contract or 'positive work environment.'

But what I found instead was people taking advantage of me, me taking myself and my service offering further and further out on a limb in a high-risk, higher volatility situations, trying to survive )(often getting burned financially on a gig that dried up before it every really materialized) and stay competitive or - treading water to keep hover swimming in place without any forward traction or freestyle acceleration - freelance has become a pejorative term. FF to June 2020 and I am seeing the "Back to Work" surge in SDLC related hiring hit an all-time low of $40/hr Senior Roles with the Job Descriptions acting like 3yrs exp as UX Design is a normal amount of tenure to require for a position whose 'what we want' wish list of UX skills requirements looks like a 10-12 yr veteran at least. what doe it mean for our industry when employers are asking me to take a 66% cut in pay with no benefits or hope for a steady job? I understand that with 20-25% of all people out of work right now it is a highly competitive market with many individual - myself included - very hungry for work and more than willing to 'get back at it' for a fraction of what they were making before, and I'm good with rolling up my sleeves and working at what sometimes feels like a volunteer rate BUT, I simply can't get any leaner for your corporate consumption of my labor with little or no return on my end.

I have over 12 Years of hands on experience gathering and validating requirements for “Software Application Design” which is more technical and more difficult than simple Web UI or dot.com UX Design. While I started as an UI & visual designer leveraging primarily adobe photoshop and illustrator over 24 years ago in 1996, I have since received formal training as a Business Analyst in Rational Unified Process by IBM, GE Power UX Architect, been trained in SCRUM mgmt and Backlog Manger /Product Owner by EMC Corp and served as Enterprise Information Architect at State Farm Enterprise Digital Strategy working on IA, Taxonomy Dev, SharePoint 2013>2016 upgrades and migration, designed Enterprise Intranet UI/UX for over 24 Global F500 firms including AARP, NYC.Gov, NYC Dept of Health, NYC Dept of Corrections, Franklin Templeton, Glaxo Smith Klein, Charles Schwab, AT&T & HP Customer Support, Phillips Medical Imaging, Illinois.gov, mySSA.gov and Duke Energy Corporation.

I believe that one needs to apply all of 6-7 Product Design skills as Needed to Achieve a Successful and repeatable Design and Softwaare development Lifecycle process executed with a consistent method applying technical, artistic and people skills.

Information Architect, Interaction Design, Solutions Architecture, User Research & Usability Testing, Visual Design, Wireframes and Rapid Prototyping usineg Sketch, InVision Studio, Figma, Axure, Adobe XD, Mural & Front End Development skill in developing a JavaScript library of reusable “UI Controls” or widget / code snippet based active scripts within an HTML5 / CSS wrapper using tools like Bootstrap.JS, Vue.JS, Tableau, Microstrategy, Node.JS and MS Office tools like excels Sheets for Requirements Traceability, User Stories, Visio Flow Charts for User Journeys and Process flow diagrams and static wires, Axure RP for interactive wires and PoC’s. I endorse a hybrid of Iterative UX Design and Re-work based on USER INPUTS AND FEEDBACK gathered much as BA but with the visual aids of wires and prototypes / Agile Dev Sprints + Design Sprints / CMM Waterfall Software Development Lifecycle = Envision, Assess, Define, Design, Deliver, Test, Rework & Deploy. See illustrations I created below to work with SMEs in explain the method and engaging them as active collaborators in the design process.