Hi, I’m Matt Balara.I solve design problems with my head.

I only learned one thing at UX Australia this year.

No, that’s not a complaint. UX Australia 2011 was one of the conferences I’ve most enjoyed attending, ever. It’s just that I never really learn anything at a conference. Not that I’m all super smart and know it all already, it’s just that learning takes time. If it was your first time at a UX conference, what someone said in 45 minutes on stage may have been a revelation, and the half-day workshops I attended (especially Whitney Quesenbery’s storytelling workshop) introduced me to new and exciting concepts, but to really learn these things, I’ll need to do them, preferably with someone much smarter than me looking over my shoulder.

What I learned, or more accurately was reminded of, is the value of people.

Chats in Bars

The theme of people came up a lot this year.

At the after-party, I spent some time chatting with a young interaction designer from Germany named Susi. She was happy to meet someone who spoke German, and I was amazed she’d come so far for our little Aussie get-together. And she was taken aback by how nice everyone was. She thought there was a bit of an in-crowd, but everyone she got up the courage to speak to (and she knew no one when she arrived) was friendly, interested and welcoming. Her surprise surprised me at first.

On the way to a pub one night, I finally met the charming and funny Joe Sokohl. We discovered we had both lived in Hamburg Germany at the same time (not sure if Susi met him too, but his German’s pretty good) and shared some memories. We got on to how conferences work, and he mentioned how much he enjoyed coming over to Australia. My memory’s not nearly good enough to try and quote him directly, but he said he enjoyed our lack of rockstars; that there are plenty of great UX people in Australia, but that there’s little to none of the ego parading in-crowd mentality here.

The Cool Kids

Every conference has what Robert Hoekman Jr. called a “cool kids table” - that group of people who know each other from speaking at and attending conferences around the world. It’s unavoidable that when a group of people do something together that other people don’t do, that a bit of a clique develops, and we’ve got that in Australia too, of course. I’m more or less part of that group now too. Considering I feel I’m well and truly a part of this community, even though I’ve only been in this country three years, have only ever worked directly with one person in the UX community, and was accepted to speak at the first UX Australia although hardly anyone knew me and no one had ever heard me speak is proof enough that, in Australia, the “cool kids table” is mostly a concept in the heads of those who think they’re on the outside looking in. The cool kids don’t seem to know they are.

As Joe noted, Aussies tend to have their feet on the ground, and have a low tolerance for arrogance. I explained the “Tall Poppy Syndrome” to him: that Aussies tend to tear down anyone they see getting too far above the norm. But on second thought, I don’t think that’s what keeps our UX community grounded. We’re just lucky enough to have so many people who are genuinely friendly, don’t take themselves too seriously, and just want to make stuff that improves people’s lives and have a good time while they’re doing it.

That is worth a lot. Talk to most people about their jobs.

What Counts

Considering my recent Facebook cull, and compounded by reading “Big Deal” last weekend, I’ve obviously been thinking a lot about friends lately. And it may seem obvious, but that’s what really matters at conferences, and in anything we do: the people. It’s interesting to hear what people are working on and what an awesome process they followed to achieve the result, but the real value is inspiration, and that comes from the chats, usually in bars, where you find out why people really did what they did, what really turns them on and why they do what they do, in work and beyond. I can’t really say that I’m close with that many people in our community, but I’m surprised every time we get together by how many lovely people I’m lucky enough to call colleagues, and I’d really like to come to call more of them friends.

Sappy? Naive? Unprofessional? Well, this is a love letter.

I love you UX Australia.

Generally I’d try and summarise the great presos I saw at a conference, but that’s obviously not what was on my mind this time. Luckily, some smart people have done that for us:

What do you think? Leave a comment…

Consider a feeling every blogger knows: an idea appears; something important, meaningful and complicated enough that you can’t quite write it yet. So you think, instead of writing. And just as it gels in your head, you read what you wanted to write on another blog.

That other blog belongs to Andy Budd: founder of Clearleft, smart & funny guy, interview victim and totally slack blogger. I’ve been pretty slack myself of late, which is why Andy’s “My blog is dying, long live my blog” took the words right out of my mouth. His situation’s changed (lots of work and new colleagues to discuss ideas with), and a combination of too much input from too many sources, and new modes of expression like Twitter, has killed his urge to blog.

Slack Like Andy

This blog’s suffered some slack moments lately too. When Blogger’s Guilt has raised its ugly head, I’ve been telling it, “I just moved to the other side of the world. Give me a break.” Buying furniture, adjusting to working freelance, getting to know new friends, falling back in love, lying on beautiful beaches and exploring an exciting new city have been in focus – I’ve just had too many compelling reasons to spend time away from the keyboard. But now that I’ve started to settle into a routine here in Sydney, other reasons have been fueling my Blogger’s Block.

Scraps

Like most edglings, my online presence is pretty widely distributed: on this blog, my Tumblelog, Twitter, Facebook, delicious, Flickr, and quite a few more sites. It often takes a moment before I’m sure where to post what. I’ve been feeling dispersed rather than distributed. I’m rethinking how, why and where I present what, and such thinking tends to clog the content production arteries for a while.

Personal? Professional? Both?

For the last 12 years, I’ve worked for The Man – my online activities were solely personal and off the clock. As a freelancer, I now am The Man and I’m on the clock 24/7. “Matt Balara” is not only my person, it’s also my brand and my business. What I write, shoot, tweet and collect online are all me, but are also marketing and a potential client’s first impression. I’m becoming more conscious of what I’m doing online, and thinking through how combined or divided my activities should be, and what it might mean for my business. Also artery clogging.

Write About…

Part of leaving the clearly structured agency world and diving into the freelance pool is redefining what you do, or who you are professionally. Since arriving in Sydney, I’ve been lucky enough to have plenty of “whatever pays the bills” work, but haven’t had much time to think about those questions. Now that I have a little breathing room, that redefinition is rolling around in my head, but until it’s a bit further along it’s also hard to answer the “what should I write about?” question.

What Next?

My summary’s similar to Andy’s: I’ve got some questions I still haven’t answered. I’m leaning towards a single cohesive presentation on this site, whether it be life-streaming or clearly divided sections (blog, portfolio, photos, etc.), with all the other sources relegated to a clear data storage role. But the big questions above are the more important and difficult ones, and until I’ve got some answers there the changes will wait.

Considering the distributed (or dispersed) nature of our digital lives, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been going through these thoughts. What’s your feeling about personal vs. professional presentation? How has your online persona, content and personal brand evolved in the last few years? How separate or cohesive are you in the web? Do tell.

What do you think? Leave a comment…

On the last day of this year, Polaroid will cease production of its magical film.

In 2004 I became fascinated by a beautiful old chrome and leather folding SX-70 polaroid camera a friend had. Within a week I had bought two on ebay, and a year-long project was born. Every day I carried a camera with me, and made one polaroid of something interesting I saw that day, and published each of them online at Polaroidiary. It was an exciting exercise in seeing, discipline and storytelling, and the resulting collection is an evocative document of a turbulent year of my life.

After playing daily with the SX-70, and the magic of holding the framed object-photo and waiting, breathless, for an image to surface out of the grey murk, the finality of polaroid’s decision to cease production does indeed feel like the death of an old, well-loved friend.

Here are few of my favourites from Polaroidiary. You might also like to look through the archives, or just start at the beginning.

It’s definitely just not the same, but in typical optimistic, cheerful Photojojo style, they’ve gathered some ways to keep the Polaroid spirit alive in spite of it all.

What do you think? Leave a comment…

There’s not much worse than reading a blogger’s self-flagellation about how long it’s been since he’s written anything, and his pathetic excuses as to why not. So I won’t be doing that here and now. But a few people have asked, so I’ll just say this…

I made it to Sydney, and everything is absolutely wonderful.

What do you think? Leave a comment…

I failed to mention a pretty important event in my online life a couple weeks ago. Without us actually knowing each other at all, Stowe Boyd invited me to not only redesign his blog, /message (I did mention that), but he also invited me to write with him and a growing cadré of smart people over there. In case you missed it, I wrote my first post, “Why Aren’t You Talking to Me?” on the disconnect between my meatspace friends and my online social life. My second post, “Hello New Social App. Why Should I Use You?” just went online.

From now on I’ll be focussing more on design here, and shifting the whole social/web 2.0 stuff over to /message.

I must admit, the invite took me by surprise (floored me actually) and I’ve been very plesantly surprised by the response to my first post both on FriendFeed and in the comments. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Stowe for giving a relative stranger and unknown blogger a chance.

What do you think? Leave a comment…