Third Innings
Karthi Subbaraman
Design Leadership @ Salesforce | Building #pifo, a not-for-profit fostering betterment and belonging.
I still remember that day vividly!
I got out of the plane, cleared immigration, took a taxi and was figuring out the address.
The driver said, "don't worry, la. I take you there".
Little uncomfortable but I have to trust him. New life begins in Singapore. new language(singlish). new environment. new culture. new everything.
I asked myself. Can i shed the old me here in this airport and start afresh? The answer was a resounding yes. I felt better inside.
That day evening I met some friends for dinner. Someone asked me what do i do these days? I thought for a second and said, I am DESIGNER.
My husband looked at me and wondered what the hell i am talking about? I am technologist. I write code for a living. Where did design come in?
The person asked me again, oh you design system architectures?
I said no i design interfaces, i design experiences, i make life easy for human beings. I am a cognitive scientist and I am going to make the world a better place to live (cliched but true). Everyone looked puzzled in that room except me. I was clear in my heart. I was not yet clear in my head though.
I said this is it! I need to forget I am programmer and become a designer inside first and then everything else will happen outside. In that moment, I had to burn the programmer in me so that the designer can be born. This was 2006.
I could have flourished as a programmer and have design as a side gig. I could have earned more. I could have joined investment banks and written algorithms. I could have told my hiring managers I also worked with user interfaces. In that case design would have been a side gig. I wanted to change the equation. I didn't want any side gigs. I wanted only one gig and that is design and nothing else.
My life changed. I was happy. I was penniless but I spent hours in library and I missed meals happily. I loved the human nature. I was filled with curiosity and questions. I could not wait to meet professors and bug them with a bunch of questions at the campus. I could not even eat quietly. I asked why this behavior, why are we like this, why not like that, what about other animals yada yada yada. It felt like I have fallen in love again. This time not with a person but with a subject. The love story continues and I had amazing experiences in the past 14 years of Design.
I am amazed that i am not bored in this love. It hasn't come down even a pinch. On the contrary, it has only intensified and increased. I am humbled at the vastness of this subject. I don't think this lifetime is enough to learn it all. I know i will go my grave ignorant anyways. But I love learning all things design. It keeps me happy. It keep me grounded. It keeps me simple.
The moment has come now to take this love story to next notch. A next notch always needs a pivot. This time it is pivot of my lifetime.
I love learning design. The best way to be a learner is a teacher. So dedicating rest of my life to be a life long learner and saying no to everything else that could take me away from this path. I was on the fringe doing many things for the past 24 months. I also learnt and taught design. Time to make that full time. Time to say a big NO to all distractions.
Let's us begin again
I don't know anything else.
I know a little design and let me tell you everything I know.
The learner is born to teach you all things design.
The journey begins ....
learning is different from education. I love learning and not education.
let us learn design the way it must be learnt!
Traversing from Phenomenon to Strategy. Teaching | Consulting | Advising Views are typically personal & provocative to explore latent attitudes.????
4 年Very Well said. I think the design of Comfort Zone is in itself open to interpretation depending on what drives one or motivates the other.
Global Delivery Strategist | Champion of Automation | Data Analytics Innovator | Customer-Centric Team Builder | Ex-Crayon | Ex-Prodapt | Ex-Verizon
4 年Karthi, your passion towards learning have given us the opportunity to be your Mentee’s.. Wishing that you keep learning and we continue to learn the world of Design from you n become ‘The Makers’ ??
Enterprise Product Mgmt | Influencing Innovation through Test, Learn and Scale | Digital Workspace, B2B(2C), SaaS, IOT
4 年Amazing and insightful to know more about your 2nd Love affair (14 yrs and strong??). Great Power and God speed to you. Heard Rave reviews about your classes interactions and personality from Kritika Ramraj? and connected with you here. Have been learning titbits from posts then on. The Passion and grind (a happy party style one) behind the current success is inspirational... Helps keep treading the path I chose..and many more for sure...
Designer | DataViz | UIUX | Visual Storytelling |
4 年Yet another awesome though process Karthi ??
Senior Product Design Manager | Private Banking | Consumer Banking | Stock plan management
4 年We’re fortunate to be part of this new innings