I have a new job! Funemployement did not last long, thankfully. I stumbled across a great opportunity with a really smart team. This really deserves it’s own post so more on this later, except to say I am super excited and start in a week.

My time off was filled partially by a truly lovely vacation to Phoenix and Tucson for a week. Amazing time, lots of sun and desert, a hot air balloon ride, a hummingbird exhibit that I never wanted to leave, and the discovery that the Android kicks the iPhone’s non-existent rear end when it comes to navigation, among other things. I’m so happy to kick the AT&T/iPhone combo to the curb. Overall, the Android (2.2 on the HTC Evo 4G) makes me feel like I’m living in the bright and shiny glorious future that is 2011.

I’m so, so, so in love with 2011.  If it weren’t 2011 I wouldn’t have my gadgets, my geeky hobbies, my delightfully nerdy career or the freedom to be me. However, that being said, often I imagine being my age in the late 1920s.  Obsessing over the style of the era, I find myself watching Boardwalk Empire on HBO, hunting down prohibition-themed bars in the alleyways and hidden attics of Seattle, and even hosting a 20s themed New Years.

This evening I came across this picture on someone’s tumblr and realized I inadvertently (subconsciously?) have 1920s hair now:

I meant to have Tron hair. :-)

Serendipity?

I worked at an amazing startup called iLike until Myspace acquired us at the end of last year. Both were great experiences for me professionally, and I had fun.  But alas, it is the end of that era. Myspace recently went through some fairly exhaustive layoffs and I’m now unemployed. I hold no ill will towards Myspace, they did the best they could and for a year I fought hard for them.  In the end, they treated us quite fairly.

Now, I’m on to my new full time job: looking for a job. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I’m excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to really step back and imagine where I would like to go professionally. It has made me think a lot about why I do what I do and what direction I want to go with it.

My conclusion so far is that I love (love love love) being a product manager. Thinking about user scenarios. Friendly, intuitive interactions that make people smile. Problem solving. Being decisive and unafraid. Going to battle with a great team. Getting to the root cause of issues, and with any luck solving an issue before it has a chance to ship.  It all makes you want to come into work in the morning.

Previously, heading support meant cleaning up product’s messes. Treating only the symptoms. Being in product gave me a chance to dig into the causes. Where were users going to get hung up? Was this designed for superusers or for someone who’s never seen our product before? What were the assumptions we were making? Was it easy? Was it quick? How many clicks did it take to accomplish something?   It was a breath of fresh air.  It was like moving from the urgent treatment ward in the hospital to the preventative care section. Finally, power to make things better from the gate!

Suffice to say, I find work of this nature very rewarding and fulfilling, which makes this the most exciting job hunt of my life.  I know what I want to do. Now I just need to find a team and a product that I can direct my energy into, something that I deeply believe in, and a place where I can continue to grow.

Thanks to my friend Sam (via iLike) for passing this along.

UPDATE: If you have iTunes, you can download this and one other Jack Conte song for free from Stanford’s iTunesU page, as well as a bunch of other free tunes by some talented Stanford alumni.

But most of all, because stuff like this can be found on the street and end up in your Flickr friend’s photostream:

If can haz
Originally uploaded by Jamison

Sidenote: I’m traveling right now, but in Spokane, Washington, not in the valley. Just being in the hotel room here kind of reminded me of my last trip to San Francisco. I’ll be back in Seattle on Saturday evening.