I've been christened

Today I received a new honorary title from a colleague. Thank you, I think? From his email:

"You are the WoundHealer. He who walks with the Neosporin."

User research from Australia

Today our team attended a presentation of the executive summary from a multifaceted user study that was conducted with Australian teens. On the slide, "Things teens like to do," bullet point #3 was:

"Pawn noobs."

After the formal presentation was over, I got to give my team a dissertation on the origins & deep meaning of the non-word "pwn," which our Australian research partners obviously chose to write phonetically, accent & all.

PayPal has changed

The main My Account -> Overview page has been updated in production. I'm happy to say I had a part in making that change by brokering an 11th hour compromise between a visual designer & UI designer after a long and politically-charged stalemate. It really had nothing to do with me, my team, or my vertical, but I hate to see people getting nowhere fast when a little mediation can fix everything. I ended up directly with the final mockup, picking colors & border treatments. Account Overview is PayPal's most-viewed page, and this is the first actual work I've done that has made it live to the site.

Oh hhhelllll no...

My manager comes by escorting a gentleman I've never seen before, and introduces him as a new PMM who's going to be working in our vertical. I extend my hand and say I'm Bamidele and his expression changes and he shakes my hand really firmly and says,

"Oh you're Bamidele..."

What is going on!??!?!

"We've been watching you, Neo..."

(I'm going to be lazy and just copy & paste what I wrote in an instant messaging convo earlier.)

Okay that was REALLY FREAKY.

The main project I'm on is on this really accelerated schedule, and we're doing usability testing not next week but the week after that.

We've spoken with the manager of the prototypers to get a resource, and he's identified the person who is most likely going to do the prototype, but the prototypers need scenarios & mockups & stuff and we're behind on that.

So I wanted to go talk to the prototyper in person to get the dialog going & see what we can do on schedule... phased handoff, etc.

So I go to the cube and knock and introduce myself and the gal cuts me off, speaking in a very intense, dramatic, but quiet tone.

"I know you're Bamidele."

...

I ask, have we met before?

"No, but I know who you are."

Oh... oh... kay...

So we're talking briefly and she says give her 10 mins and she'll stop by to look at the wireframes. I'm like ok great, I sit... and she cuts me off again.

"I know where you sit"

All...

...righty then.

She's at opposite side of the building. What the heck.

My calendar for the week

Tons o' Fun!