Jason Spector.com

As many of you may have noticed, my presence on this site lately has been a little sparse. Since my fun wrap up of 2009, a lot has happened and I took a small hiatus to soak it all in. In short, I’ve made the move from an employee to an independent consultant and entrepreneur . Why? To be honest, it was thrust upon me as so many others before me. And like many others before me, I took it as an opportunity to explore what I want to do, where I want to be and how I can make the greatest impact.

But before we look forward, we should take a look back…

As we wind down 2009, the blogosphere is a buzz with end-of-year posts. Everyone wants to finish up on a high note and why not? We’ve all watched, learned and experienced many things and events that we never would’ve even considered this time last year.

Now it’s my turn. But what to write about? Hmmm….

Before I was involved in design, user experience, crowdsourcing, social media and the various other aspects of my professional life, there was animation. I’ve always been a seriously dedicated fan of cartooning and animation – the creativity, energy, innovative techniques and most importantly, how it made me feel creating it and the audience feel watching it. So when an animation legend like Don Bluth speaks, I listen.

HootSuite, my preferred Twitter client, recently upgraded their app with several new features, some UI tweaks and a few minor design changes. The long-awaited and highly-anticipated updates were the LinkedIn, Facebook and Ping.fm integrations as well as Twitter Lists. What prompted me to write this post, however, was a single subtle change that I imagine many users might not catch. But being the type of UX guy that I am, it drove me a little nuts. I’m referring to the updated character count of the twitter posts.

When you’re a designer first starting out, you work hard (as you should) to present yourself as a professional. You pump up your resume with “work” you’ve done, stack your portfolio with class projects & neighbors’ websites and practice your elevator pitch until it’s just right – all in the hopes of landing that first job or that first batch of freelance clients. Now you’re feeling good and ready for the “real world” of professional design. I hate to break it to you, but no, you’re probably not.