Chase Raz
Wednesday 29 November 2017
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WHAT EXCUSE DO I HAVE NOW?
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I'm currently teaching a class at my University that I haven't taught in
almost two years. I was hired to write the course as a marketing course
for new media, but it evolved into a class called Business Technology and
Ecommerce. Business technology was the name of the game, so to speak,
just like in the rest of my professional life.
Since my departure from the course years ago (for some other digital
marketing courses), the class has been retooled to Business Technology and
Design. Yikes!
Now, don't get me wrong. I've "done" website design for over twenty
years, but design was never my specialty. Neither was development, if I'm
being perfectly honest. No, my speciality has always been on the business
side, firmly with ideation and strategy.
The second week of this course's new version that I'm covering is all
about Adobe Illustrator. The third week is about Adobe Photoshop. I find
myself in trouble because I've always used Corel software (Draw,
Photo-Paint) instead of Adobe. I honestly didn't know the material to
teach.
I'm about thirty minutes away from going into the classroom and teaching
the first portion, Illustrator. I've spent the last two days learning and
prepping... I've relied upon my similar experiences with Corel Draw and my
ages-old experience in high school journalism class of using some ancient
version of Illustrator, InDesign, and a number of Adobe's competitors in
these spaces, and I am quite up to speed.
In fact, I should be riding a high right now. The purpose of the class
isn't to teach these specific pieces of software, but rather to show that
basic proficiency--in terms of horizontal development--can easily be
gained using our business technology tools, in order to create more for
our businesses. We're specifically interested in knowing just enough to
be dangerous, in as much as that it helps us and not hurts us in the
modern business world.
I'm not riding a high.
In fact, I'm kicking myself.
Two days of cramming these tools and do you know what I have to show for
it? A LOT! I just whipped together a logo sketch idea that is
almost 18 years old. It's been floating around in my head since I was a
teenager. The design isn't special (it's really easy, actually), but I
told myself a lot of lies about why I couldn't start this business. I've
even started other businesses actively avoiding this dream enterprise!
The lies were supported by claims that I didn't know enough, or I wasn't
old enough, or some other bogus factor. I have a lot to show for this
experience: a lot of wasted time and a lot of excuses.
Now I'm old enough (mid 30s), and I apparently know enough.
