A small snack of tasty track time at Oregon Raceway Park from May 15, 2011

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My first track days of the year at Oregon Raceway Park hosted by the Oregon Porsche Club were almost uniformly fabulous. Good friends, good fun, and good driving add up to a potent cocktail. Saturday’s HPDE saw fine weather until my final session, at which pointed it poured buckets but I still went at it pretty hard. High-performance driving in the rain is a wonderful test of driver skill and I highly recommend it! My instructor for part of the day, Paul Klas, offered nicely targeted feedback that helped improve my race line between turns 2-3 and where to brake on turn 8. Saturday night’s BBQ & wine tasting was also a hit with the 2-day die hards like me, especially now that I can enjoy alcohol (after having been allergic to it for the previous 18 years)!

Sunday’s lapping day started out wet, and I was actually black-flagged part-way through my first time out and told to “take it down a notch” because the corner workers were concerned about me. This rather boggled my mind because I was doing nothing but driving my best, but I tried to take it as a kindly sentiment and not a condescending one….  Anyways, I kept at it and after the track dried out around lunchtime my lap times dropped to around 2:04 and even more good times were had. Last season I clocked a 2:01 on R-compound tires and even though I’m running Dunlop Direzza V1 Star Spec’s this year (i.e., street tires) I think I can get close to that with more seat time. Mid-day Andy Chenoweth took me for a fabulous ride in his insanely planted Corvette, demonstrating such smooth inputs you could hardly feel any braking (OK, the racing harnesses helped a lot here!) and definitely not any shifting. Inspiring, and now I think I have to learn left-foot braking to get to that next level!

I had camera issues as the battery died in GoPro after my first session on Saturday so this little video of some later laps on Sunday was taken inside the car with my Canon point-and-shoot.

In the second lap I do get slowed down behind a couple Miatas, which are still quite cute. In the third lap, you can hear me go “Whoa!” because of the BMW parked on the right side after turn 3—not exactly what you want to see there! And here are a few pictures from the paddock as well, with our little cabal of Caymans and above it all, Mt. Hood:

A taste of autocross goodness from April 17 2011

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On April 17, 2011, Oregon PCA held their second autocross event of the year in the south paddock area of Portland International Raceway. Somehow Britain Smith devised a fun course that he christened “Course of the Americas” for us to drive in this tight, hazard-filled lot. I won my class (P5) and was eleventh fastest of all drivers competing that day.

Here are some visual highlights from the event, mostly fruits of nice camera work by my friend Trevor, comprising 3 photos and 4 videos (one kind of shaky filmed on an iPhone from outside the car, and the rest high-definition movies filmed with the GoPro camera from various vantage points on the car)

Seeking new professional challenge: what I want to do

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Having operated a successful digital product design and development consultancy (Devise) for the past 4 years, the time has come for me to seek a fabulous new professional challenge in the form of a full-time position. (My Devise co-founder and I are moving in different directions.) 

Being a respected design practitioner and community leader for the past 12+ years, I aim to work in a strategic & managerial capacity while continuing to stay involved in hands-on research and design activities. In crafting my professional future, it’s helpful for me to write up a description of my ideal role. Here’s what I want to do:

  • Make the world a better place by improving people’s experiences with medical devices and healthcare-related technology (and if not having a medical/healthcare angle, then designing for touchscreen/mobile devices, complex systems, gestural interfaces and/or immersive environments is most appealing to me)
  • Help identify business opportunities and solve complex product definition challenges through strategic application of the most appropriate research and design activities 
  • Creatively direct people and manage product design activities in order to help define and deliver delightful products and services
  • Collaborate with a cross-disciplinary team of highly intelligent and talented people to get the work done right, helping to ensure that all constituent stakeholders come together as seamlessly as possible to reconcile the viable, feasible and desirable in equal measure
  • Lead and help to build a team of user experience designers, including hiring, training and mentoring
  • Conduct original user research as needed to understand people’s real-world behaviors and needs
  • Deliver innovative design solutions as needed in the fields of interaction design, information design, visual design and information architecture
  • Instill user-centered design techniques and approaches to improve product development processes throughout the organization
  • Be respected for bringing passion, commitment and creativity to my work
  • Have internal authority within the organization commensurate with my level of responsibility in providing the business with great design solutions
  • Be supported in keeping up with professional trends by attending industry conferences as well as personally speaking & writing about interaction design
  • Remain based in Portland, Oregon with up to 10-25% travel to support activities such as user research, team collaboration and professional development

The possibilities beckon, and I’m excited to think where my career will go next. Could the universe deliver a role to me with all these qualities? If it needs a little nudge from myself and my friends, consider it nudged from my end, and I greatly appreciate any help you, dear reader, might provide in my search. 

Please feel free to get in touch with me to discuss opportunities, via email to liz(at)devise(dot)com, Twitter @ebacon, or via the web form at http://www.devise.com/contact . Cheers!