Jyotsna ⏾

product designer 💛🌟 prev. founding designer at two early stage startups.

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

portfolio refresh: navigating my personal site with the num keys 1,2,3,4,5

sound on 🔉: https://t.co/QY9TyWFxbj

[Soleio @soleio]

Silicon Valley meets Washington DC.

Americans everywhere will benefit enormously from the work @ndstudio unveiled today with https://t.co/vMkKHPu8nc

Very proud and impressed with the leadership of @jgebbia as our nation’s first CDO. Executing on this vision is no small feat.

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

"One ingredient of computer magic is software’s ability to create even more magical experiences. The early pioneers of modern computing described computers as dream machines.

Great software supports human intellect. But magical software enhances human creativity.

Great software makes us feel like we live in the future. But magical software allows us to imagine the future that comes after it." - Linear

Big shoutout to every tech company that creates opportunities to feel passion, who channel Steve Jobs' energy to inspire and create belief.

Read: https://t.co/9P6HQrrZ1F

[joshpuckett @joshpuckett]

How to Ask for Help

If you're a junior designer, I want to share a few things that will help you ask for help more effectively, be it wanting a portfolio review, introductions, advice, or anything really.

1. Be direct.
Most of the people you want help from are busy people. It is *greatly* preferred when you are upfront and direct about what you want. There are only so many hours in the day, and I'd rather know exactly what you want and how I can help.

2. Be specific
There are very few people in the world who ever want to 'catch up' or 'get their brain picked' when you don't know someone and it's ambiguous what they want.

If you want feedback on your portfolio, ask for that. If you want ideas on how to reposition yourself, ask for that.

If you aren't specific, you'll either get no response, or get generic response. My general feedback on every portfolio will always be: show your work upfront; remove half the words then remove more again, and spend 10x the time refining the work shown vs the design of the portfolio itself.

3. Be concise
Everyone is busy, so be respectful of their time and be as concise as possible with your ask.

4. Follow up
If you don't hear back from someone, the most likely answer is they either missed your message or forgot. Platforms like X have, somehow still, terrible DM's that always seem to be buggy, so just follow up respectfully. I don't find it annoying; rather I appreciate the persistence and reminder.

5. Follow through
If someone takes the time to help you, and gives you advice or suggestions, you should follow through on them. I love hearing about how things went or the updates someone made, but I'd guess less than 3% of the time I hear back from someone. Want to know an easy way to start to build a relationship? Follow through. Those who follow up I am more likely to want to continue helping and building into.

So what does this look like in practice?

Instead of "Here's my portfolio, let me know if you have thoughts!" say "I'm updating my portfolio as I look for a full time role at a startup. Would you mind letting me know 1) if this would pass your first 5 second screen, and 2) do you think the work examples I have selected seem credible to an early stage founder?"

Instead of "I'd love to meet if you're ever down", say "I have a few first round interviews coming up in a few weeks. Would you be open to doing a 30m practice portfolio presentation with me? I'll show up at any time that works for you this week or next."

I have generally found our industry is full of people who want to help others, so I hope this is helps you better ask for help!

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

@majamediaco @lindazhangau I love this!! how wonderful!

[Ryo Lu @ryolu_]

efficiency, productivity, speed

we keep worshipping these words like they are what we live for

ship faster
merge more
manage more agents
compress every loop
remove every pause
turn every hour into output

but what is the point of endless production if there is no time left to think deeply?

not react
not optimize
not summarize
not clear the queue

think

to sit with a question long enough that your real intention starts to appear
to find the purpose underneath the motion
to ask whether the thing being accelerated should exist at all

ai could be a new canvas

a way to make strange things
personal things
impossible things
tools, worlds, poems, games, interfaces, films, languages, rituals
things that let more people touch the shape of their own imagination

but instead, so much of it is becoming slop factories

more content
more funnels
more tickets
more fake work pretending to be value

you can merge 2000 prs
you can manage 500 agents
you can wake up to dashboards proving that the machine kept moving while you slept

but what is the point if you only sleep 5 hours a day?

what is the point if you stop talking to other humans?
stop learning about the past?
stop playing?
stop wandering?
stop being surprised?

what is the point if your whole life becomes optimizing the system that is consuming you?

speed is not meaning
scale is not wisdom
automation is not freedom if it only makes everyone run faster

and where are we running?

toward what?

a world where every person becomes a manager of machines, and every machine produces more things no one had the time to truly want?

the danger is not that ai makes us lazy

the danger is that ai makes us endlessly busy

that it gives us infinite production before we have found intention
infinite execution before we have developed taste
infinite motion before we have learned how to be still

maybe the real frontier is not more speed

maybe it is discernment

knowing what not to make
knowing when to stop
knowing when the most productive thing is to sleep, read history, call a friend, play with a cat, walk without tracking it, or stare at the ceiling until the false urgency dissolves

tools should give us more life
not turn life into a tool

if ai is going to matter, it should not just help us produce more

it should help us become more human
more imaginative
more free

otherwise, it’s the same old factory
just without humans

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

@saragordic wait i love this

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

@majamediaco excited for your notes on experiencing and exploring in sf soon!

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

saturdays are for getting outside! i finally have weekends stress-free, now that i don't work for a high intensity sf startup that works 997.

this new phase has brought so much joy to my boyfriend, and it's endearing how he jumps to plans our short trips now. this past weekend, we travelled to northern california to mt shasta, and lassen national park.

[maja 🔭🍒 @majamediaco]

i would like if more people used this app to share photos of their day to day real life sometimes. i like seeing small random corners of the world through other people’s eyes. what did u see today? did u see a cat? or a dog? sunset? a cool tree?

this weekend we made homemade pasta. we ate it sitting on my friend’s bedroom floor while we listened to vinyls. and they have a cool cat. and i listened to some live music. and the sunset from the park was really cool

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

@Fayeezashaikh gorggg

[kevin mwachiro @kevmwachiro]

Just Be You.

[Jay Alto @theJayAlto]

make cool shit. share it on the internet. meet smart people. repeat.

do it for long enough and you'll never have to apply for a job again.

(plus you get to delete linkedin)

[ML @marlouiise]

Some more takeaways from today at @valiocon from @DrCapsoul and @saturday. Shoutout @drewwilson for putting together a special event

I loved how both Evan and Mackey talked about finding moments of joy in hobbies and childhood sources of inspiration. when we think about finding a flow state we can think back to times as a kid watching anime or fishing, for example, where we got lost in the work

Evan
- go outside your medium for inspiration. films, video games, childhood hobbies
- challenge yourself to think in 3D not just 2D - what’s an immersive 3D world you can build for people to experience. Evan built a presentation that did this and took us through a design journey of his work in a 3d prototype instead of static slides
- when you feel overwhelmed or burnt out go touch grass, return to childhood sources of joy and earliest forms of inspiration
- find a way to bring who you are into your work. go do side quests. you are what you do

Mackey
- most meaningful decisions begin with a belief that you can do it, some unreasonable confidence and not a qualification for having done it before. belief can help us become skilled
- knowing more should help us notice more. that simple moment of noticing something can be powerful especially when it comes to defending and protecting great work
- pick your battles. if you feel strongly about one thing dig in and defend it and let everything else go

[Will @willlenzen]

“I come from the part of the world where people did work rather than just talk about it. And so if you feel that you just can’t write or you’re too tired or this and that and the other, just stop thinking about it and go to work. Life doesn’t have to be so overthought. I mean, you don’t have to wait to be inspired. Just start working.”
Joyce Carol Oates

[pauline @pauline_makes]

the future is bright @floguo

[joshpuckett @joshpuckett]

A few reflections from a whirlwind couple days at @ValioCon

- Everyone deeply wants and needs community. The desire to meet, connect, be known was palpable. Conversation spilled over into the hallways and nooks local haunts and deep into the night.

- Creativity is universal. I met folks from all over the country and world, as far away as Norway, Kazakhstan, and Singapore just brimming with ideas and twinkles in their eye. We are all so, so similar in ways we often don’t take the time to appreciate.

- Leadership has no age requirement. Some of the younger, new ValioCon attendees “just did things” and led breakout demo sessions and conversations.

- Mentorship and *sponsorship* has never been more important. It’s clear that our industry, and many others, are still unresolved in how to consistently and reliable offer pathways to emerging talent. We can all be doing more here.

- The kids are alright. I’m old enough to say that now but man; the energy and expressiveness on display was inspiring. I’m excited to learn more from these folks and it’s so encouraging to see.

And to close, a massive thank you to @drewwilson for continuing to create space and throw an intimate, independent conference like no other 🙏

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

feeling super jealous and fomo from all the great talks coming out of this conf - at the same time really grateful to all the folks on my timeline giving me a glimpse into this space!! tysm

[ML @marlouiise]

Feeling inspired and grateful for two talks already this morning at @valiocon, some takeaways by @floguo and @WesleyBancroft

Flora
- be yourself so hard, people think you’re crazy
- suffering for something you find worthy is a gift and privilege. much of life’s beauty lies in friction and the effort involved.
- you can choose to see work as a slog or you can choose to see it as an adventure
- we must pursue creating good, true, and beautiful things

Wesley
- ask not what you can get out of work but ask what you can give. work is an offering and an act of love
- it’s not about how to win and it’s not about the output. The output matters, shipping matters but the transformation within yourself during the process is the most important
- treat your desk like a workshop. I think this means to see it as a place to tinker, experiment and have fun
- love in a team looks like clarity, candor, and reliability

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

@soleio Love!! And totally agree :))

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

I wish we were more intentional about the language we choose to use. Proclaiming that the future belongs to the people who build, those who are AI-pilled, AGI focused etc., even though well-intended, is exclusive by design, and normalizes a hierarchy of human value. I have persisted with this messaging as well, as depicted in my blog “field notes from the job hunt”, when perhaps what I meant to say was, if you want to stay competitive as a designer in tech, you need to have a builder mindset.

Maybe language like this has led to the doom and gloom we witnessed in disappointment as 10 year olds interviewed by the nyt expressed their pessimistic predictions about AI displacement in the future.

My point is: the future belongs to everyone. Not a class, a subset, or a special group of people who have embraced AI. It shouldn’t matter if you have access to technology, or a computer even. You matter. And the future is yours.

As Eleanor Roosevelt put it, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

[Soleio @soleio]

The future belongs to designers who build.

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

Relevant links:

NYT article: https://t.co/gCmLstRmpR

Field notes from the job hunt: https://t.co/DKnGzQX81k

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

@notjerrywang haha full circle moment!

[Jyotsna ⏾ @jyotsnavenk]

I really enjoyed @notjerrywang's essay "founding designer, explained" so much so that I featured it in the collections page on my website. I came across it about four months ago.

Getting a shout-out from him today was unexpected and refreshing! Thank you!!

the essay: https://t.co/llFAhbDe3I

[jerrywang @notjerrywang]

@jyotsnavenk
designer exploring creative computation through playful, tactile interactions inspired by synthesizers and midi keyboards.

https://t.co/KqLkPglTc3