This episode is me apologizing for the literal radio silence and filling you in on all the very valid reasons why I've been MIA with new content here in this feed. I miss you, and I miss putting content out regularly, but there have been (and continue to be) some significant transitions in my own world, not to mention the world at large that have impacted me and this show... TRANSCRIPT Greetings. User Defenders. Remember me? Your faithful host. Well, maybe I haven't been so faithful lately. I have taken a, quite a bit of a hiatus as. I have a feeling you may have noticed. I think the last episode that I released in season was in November with Shaheena. I think that was episode 70 and. Then I released a very special recording live from an event apart Denver in January of 2020. That's when we were all innocent. Do you remember? We were all innocent and we hadn't experienced COVID and, the racial injustice so clearly seen, this year. not that it's new, but it's just been very, very exposed this year. so. All that to say 20, is it safe to say 2020 has kind of sucked so far? I'm usually a really optimistic guy and I. I'm always excited about the new years. I'm always excited about the fresh starts and, and normally they, they shape up pretty good, but this one is really just bit the big one I'm telling you, all that to say, again, I'm still very hopeful. I'm very optimistic. I know things can get better and will get better. I hope, at least, I know that. We've learned a lot, right through the COVID stuff. We've learned a lot. How to, I hate to say wash our hands. I think we all knew how to do that. Maybe we're a little more diligent than we were before. And then these masks seem like they're going to become a mainstay for quite a while for the foreseeable future. all that to say, okay. I, I just wanted to come back on here and explain what's been going on with the show what's been going on with me. Why there hasn't been a new episode in really six months. And, there's a really good reason, not just. Everything. I just explained that's happened this year. That's that's probably, that could be reason enough, I suppose, but I've gone through some significant transitions, myself. this year and actually that it all began actually last year, right around when I did release the last episode with Shaheena in November, I did receive my, my job loss notice, after six and a half years of service, I was being laid off at the company I'd been at. And you know, of course it sucks to be. Laid off right before the holidays. That wasn't fun at all, but the, my company was very gracious. I will give them a lot of credit for giving me plenty of notice. I, my layoff date was January 3rd of 2020. So they gave me nearly two months notice. And, and so they were extremely gracious through, through that whole process. but you know, the, the, the job seeking. The defenders, those of you who are looking or have been looking, especially after COVID I know a lot of you have been affected by unemployment. The numbers don't lie. Right. And I've heard your voices on Twitter and. And, through email and through my DMS and everything and through the community, of course, as well. I know how hard this can be firsthand. I have. I felt your pain. I felt your, just what it's like before COVID I felt how hard it was to find a job harder than I thought it would be. I mean, it's been about 10 years, honestly, since I've had to pound the pavement, because my transition for the six and a half year job before that was fairly quick. So. I've learned a lot and I definitely want to be sharing. I will be sharing with you in the near future. I hope, about what I've learned about job seeking and, in UX. And so be on the lookout for that. my empathy abounds for you defenders, if you're in that situation, Let me just continue my story. I, I was able to find a job fairly, I guess, fairly quickly after my, after my actual release date of January 3rd, I was able to interview with a wonderful organization and I want to thank Doug Collins. Many of you probably have heard of him. I've seen him on Twitter. He's definitely one of our big influencers in UX and I got to know him a little bit through the show and through Twitter. And, he was really instrumental , and notifying me of this opportunity and, in Denver, and I was able to get on board this organization and just super, super challenged. I'm going to read an article in a minute, just really explaining a little more about that, but yeah. That I wrote recently, but I realized that not all of you have read my article, actually, probably very few of you have. So, I feel like it occurred to me. This is the way to communicate with you is through the podcast. Many of you, I should say, this is the primary way because many of you are simply subscribed to the podcast and wait for episodes to come out. And I am grateful for that. I'm grateful for your subscribing and keeping. Keeping alert. And I apologize again for the super long delay and, kind of updating you on what's been going on and why there , haven't been very many episodes, at all in don't while. So, rambling on here. I just wanted to, tell you that, I did land a job that is still, I, I may be transitioning again. I'm not quite sure yet. I did get, another. Notice date due to COVID we were impacted, we thought we were gonna make it, but we were impacted. So I do have a, a, a pending layoff date in mid July. If, if, the another contract doesn't open up for us, which we're trying to pivot to. But all of that to say, I'm going to share an article with you. If you're still with me. Thank you for sticking around. I wrote an article that. It really explains everything. That's, that's kind of taking place here. apart from the recent news, I just shared about, another possible, pounding of pavement for me. So here goes, when I started user defenders podcast in 2015, everything I was learning about being a new podcaster told me that I needed to add a minimum show up every week with new content. I was hearing things like, "If you're not consistent, you're non-existent", so being a naive new podcaster and content creator, I thought I could and must follow this protocol for my audience, you to notice and catch on to what I was trying to do with the show. So that's what I did for at least the first six months or so until I realized firsthand just how much work goes into releasing even one episode and y'all know my episodes. I've got a special artwork that I do for, I try to do for most of the guests and. There's transcripts now and there's show notes and timestamps. And, not to not to mention the editing process is very grueling cause I'm, I'm kind of a perfectionist. I really do take a lot of pride in the quality and in the output. I've done the editing for the last probably 10 episodes or so. And, it's hard, but it's, it's, it's my baby, you know, so , I've definitely, gone above and beyond there, and that takes a long time. So all that to say, I went off on a tangent there briefly. I'm going to get back to the article, but just to explain kind of how much work goes into even releasing one episode. I then changed the frequency of the show to biweekly with no breaks. And then as that became difficult to sustain, I added seasons with up to 12 episodes. And then I brought the number down to eight episodes per season, because like I said before, if it's, if eight is good enough for master of puppets, that's good enough for me. You see, it's not just about me anymore. In fact, it hasn't been since I stood before God and a group of witnesses at the alter in 1999 with my beloved. And I said, I do until the Lord, we do see. So 20 years later, I'm happy to report that I'm still joyfully married. Sometimes it's not, if I'm being real, all right, marriage is hard, but it's worth it when you find the right one. So. our family has quadrupled in size. we have six children in practically, every stage of child development from 18, all the way to three and everything in between. My wife has commented on several occasions that I always tend to start a new venture. Every time we have a new baby notably and she's right. I have. Notably. It was my MySpace famous band, Ralph Hinkley Syndrome in 2009, after our son, Ben was born he's 11 now. And it was User Defenders after our daughter, Emery was born. She's six now, needless to say every single one of my ventures has been a juggling act of family and faith as is to be expected. I'm proud to say that UD has been and still is a labor of love as I've dedicated countless thousands of hours and dollars to get it off the ground , and growing by releasing powerful and inspiring content on a consistent basis for nearly five years now. Up until recently has we know I've hit some recent bumps in life, transitions all eventually good things that have caused me to reflect on the driving force behind every venture I've undertaken until now. And it continues to be...it' s excellence. Just before the holidays, late last year, as I mentioned earlier, after six and a half years of service, my company gave me a layoff notice. Reality check. All of a sudden I'm remembering after not having to pound the pavement for nearly 10 years, how hard it can be to land a job in UX. And like I said before, my empathy now abounds fellow Defenders. After a few emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually draining months of trying to sell myself and convince companies of how awesome I am... I hate that. I was able to get back on my feet again at a wonderful organization that believes in the superpower of UX. So much so that they created a brand new team of specialists with a great leader who has some very lofty goals, especially in the next six months to get our UX practice off the ground. I already know this is going to be the most challenging and rewarding role of my entire career. In fact, I'm convinced. I'm going to grow more in my UX career this year than I have the previo