Cue the fireworks! Here at Smashing Boxes, we’re celebrating Independence Day a little different this year. We asked members of our team to reflect on parts of their lives, both professional and personal, and to complete this sentence, "This 4th of July, I am declaring my independence from..."Here’s what a few of our team members had to say.
This 4th of July, I am declaring my independence from...
Todd Crown, Senior Mobile Application Engineer:
This 4th of July, I’m declaring my Independence from storyboards and xibs. With SwiftUI coming in iOS 13, UIKit and the ever frustrating world of constraints will be a thing of the past. No more crazy code reviews with indigestible generated XML created by individuals that prefer drag and drop (think Dreamweaver). Finally, we can move on from the debate, to xib or not to xib. There's no more question.
Shannon Rentner, Senior Director of Marketing:
This 4th of July, I’m declaring my Independence from content creation via email. In lieu of a Content Marketing Platform, using an editorial calendar and a project management tool like Asana provides me and my team with a view across all publishing stages, from ideation to social promotion, so that ideas, edits, approvals, etc. don’t get lost in email or in Slack.
Neal Raval, Project Manager:
I declare myself free from incremental development practices, which has proven to be inefficient and not considerate of clients' needs. Focusing on iterative development gets our clients useable software, faster.
Rachael Pickering, Director of People and Operations:
I’m declaring my independence from my phone, or at least how frequently I use it. Now, I am seldom without my phone - it has my key card, my wallet and my symbolic lifeline to the world. However, I often find myself forgetting to look up; to participate in the here and now, to hold eye contact, to be present. I hope to change that in the near future.
Bonnie Cook, UX/UI Designer:
This 4th of July, I’m declaring my Independence from a larger misunderstanding of what design thinking and design sprints are as separate entities and how they also work together. By focusing on education through company-wide workshops, my goal is to provide an informed and empowered agency experience to our clients.
Geoff Register, Software Engineer:
This year, I’m declaring my independence from complacency. I am now in my third week here at Smashing Boxes. I came here from the service industry, which offered little challenge in my day-to-day work life. My advice to others is that if you're not learning much where you are, teach people around you. And when you're no longer growing from teaching, it's time to shift to a different role where you are the student again. Like hiking through mountains, you will go up, then down, then up again - but always forward.
John Cole, Director of Engineering:
This 4th of July, I'm declaring my independence from speaking in cliches. Going forward, I'm going to hit the ground running on a paradigm shift - which will address my core competency of thinking outside the box, when following best practices concerning low-hanging fruit.
What about you? What do you want to declare your independence from? For some extra inspiration, check out our recent article How to Stop Chasing Happiness and Flourish.
