This one was taken from the north side of the Charles River alongside the MIT campus, looking towards Back Bay (part of Boston).

A closeup of the ice.

This is the Longfellow Bridge, opened in 1906.

Here’s a sample of her work:

 

   

 

  

 

   

Prior to the move we heard that Bostonians were a little cold or aloof and really bad drivers. So far, the former is false and the latter is true, but they are no worse than Vancouver drivers (and definitely better than Richmond drivers!). One local that we met said Bostonians are obligated to tell outsiders that they are cold and aloof even though it’s not true. I hope they don’t come get me for revealing the truth.

We haven’t had a lot of time to explore Boston proper yet. We spent our first month out in Framingham in a hotel, so didn’t get into the city at all. A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Boston Common which was quite nice. The architecture here is fabulous — and now that I’ve finally unpacked my camera, I hope to start photographing it.

The move has been a series of little pains the entire way – and it’s still going.  The MathWorks provided a really good relocation benefit, but many things outside of their control were imperfect.

We were “professionally” packed and moved from Vancouver by Great Canadian Van Lines.  There were 2 packers – one knew how to pack but not how to keep his trap shut and the other couldn’t do either – he was constantly on his cell phone and, for example, had tossed an unwrapped silver cup carelessly into a box (I only found it because I had to find some things they shouldn’t have packed).  We were not impressed at the time, nor when we had to unpack some of these carelessly packed boxes.

On the other hand, Arpin Van Lines (who sub-contracted the Canadian side) were pretty good overall except for passing on my complaints to Great Canadian before the guys had loaded the truck…  We’ll see how well they respond to my claim for 3 missing boxes, though.  The other headache is our car arrived with a brand new noise.  It’s also to be seen whether the shipper will deal with this.

We nearly didn’t make it into the country because we didn’t realize our daughters needed US passports when entering by air. We thought their Canadian passports were adequate ID, but we got a lecture about how wrong we were about that.  Again, this is something the immigration lawyer should have picked up on. Luckily we just ended up with a stern warning.

Besides the physical move, we’re dealing with starting with essentially no credit here.  AT&T wanted a $500 deposit per phone if we wanted a contract, so we’re on an expensive pay-as-you-go plan until we build up some history.  We’ve applied for some store credit cards and been denied.  It’s great fun.  However, we’re about to get a mortgage, so that should help on the credit problem.

We also had some fun navigating the health care system almost immediately.  First Kim got conjunctivitis and then Lior came down with a fever.  I was so used to walk-in clinics in Vancouver that it was a shock not to have them here.  You actually have to 1) be a member of a doctor’s practice and 2) call your doctor to make an appointment.  If you don’t or can’t do either one you need to go to the ER.

We still need to register our car here.  After that, I think we’ll be done with the biggest parts of the move.

When I first discovered Twitter, I was very skeptical. Who cares about what I’m doing now, let alone what other people are doing? The public timeline is a mess and filled with too many “going to bed” posts. However, I started to warm to Twitter when I started following people I knew or had only met briefly at conferences. Many of them are interesting and smart and there’s the occasional link or discussion of interest. It’s also a great tool for a procrastinator like me looking for a diversion. (OK, maybe I should do something about that.)

Last month I was looking around for a new job. (Side note: After 13 years at Creo/Kodak, some people thought I would be there forever. Why is that?) I was updating my resume for an interview in Vancouver and twittered:

to which Matthew, whom I had met only once at a UPA conference a couple years ago, replied:

If not for what happened next, I would still be cursing Matthew for such useless advice.

And the roller coaster ride started.

One stupid message about fonts and we’re moving to Boston. It’s amazing.

PS: If you want to follow me on twitter, go to http://twitter.com/jzip.

I’ll be doing more of this usability stuff and I can’t wait for my March 24 start.  I’m joining a 30-strong usability team and a huge usability community in the Boston area. The story about how I got this job deserves a post of its own.  Stay tuned.

The rest of the family is also excited by the move.  Not only is Boston an old city steeped in history, but it also has a much larger Jewish community that we’re looking forward to joining.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

(Note: She did not cry after the crash at the end.)

User experience is an organizational value. Either the organization understands and values UX, or it doesn’t … and it can be very, very difficult to “bubble up” a corporate value. Now, you may still choose to do usability at a company that doesn’t hold the customer experience as a core value.  The important thing is to recognize that going in, and temper your expectations accordingly.

Truer words could not have been written.  The challenge for those caught in companies or organizations like this is to choose your course of action carefully.  Either path may lead to gray hair, so be prepared.

For those of you who decide to fight to make UX a core value, you must take that fight up the corporate ladder.  It’s not enough to woo the engineers and designers, though it helps.  Management has to be on board and supporting you.  All the usual advice applies — start small, communicate clearly, and set excellent examples.

Neither my wife nor I watch much TV although we have been briefly addicted to various shows. I have a current addiction to Battlestar Galactica and my wife was recently watching Desperate Housewives. What we find, though, is that once we miss a few shows (easy when kids are in the mix), we don’t miss them. TV is probably one of the easiest addictions to kick – just turn the thing off.

It will be nice to rid the living room of the box. Have you noticed just how the TV or “home entertainment system” dominates the room? If you have enough space for a dedicated entertainment room, perhaps that’s fine for you. We just have one room big enough for guests and a 27″ TV. We’d like to shift the focus back to people.

We are not banning all video entertainment from our home. We just signed up with Zip.ca (Netflix for Canadians) and will watch the movies on our computers. The subscription offsets the cancelled cable charge, so in the end we are entertainment neutral, I guess.

If you got rid of your TV would you miss it? For how long?