Hello Erik

Experience Zealot. Designer. Trained Psychologist. Blogger at HelloErik.com. Creator of UX is not UI.

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A non-specific response.

I recently read a comment on a blog of a semi-prominent writer and startup personality. The quote went something like “People ask why I would leave being a CEO to start a brand new startup. If they knew what being a CEO was like, they’d probably ask how I did it for so long!”

This kind of sentiment… bothers me. I have no idea that person’s situation, but the idea that there’s a difference in the types of stress a CEO would feel as opposed to a run-and-gun startup founder is a little suspect.

There’s intense, mind crushing stress in whatever you’re doing. If you’re in a low paying, dead-end job, and you rate your stress level as a 9/10, you’re probably experiencing the same biochemical stress response as a CEO that rates their stress level as a 9/10. Stress is no different inside the mind, doesn’t matter if it’s a $10 decision or a $10,000,000 decision. Don’t fool yourself into...

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Venue to Dissent

I’ve got a lot of strong thoughts on how and why things should be done in this industry of technology. Quite strong. Things fly by on FastCo or HackerNews or Twitter and I want to write a piece on it, but always end up backing out and adding them to the roundfile.

Nothing out of the ordinary, mind you. The standard opinions and thoughts that you know ahead of time aren’t going to go over well with everyone. Especially if it’s relevant to your current situation.

Problem is, where do you write about them? If one is trying to maintain some sort of public persona, but also accept they are likely to be employed and not independent, is there a venue? It seems like one can’t very well post articles that are caustic or criticize certain methods, behaviors, or beliefs.

The argument of “places/people that are sensitive/offended aren’t places you want to work anyways” is not valid for people...

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How I will use Svbtle. How will I use Svbtle?

I’ve received my invitation to Svbtle, which I was pretty excited about. Now that I am here, I am not sure how I will use it. My regular blog gets a few thousand hits a day, so that’s good. How do I split content to contribute here? Maybe different context and voices for different platforms? Shorter things here, longer things there?

It’s an interesting question. Op-ed vs human interest pieces. I’ll have to figure it out. And let’s not get started on if I should use Medium…

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