Apologies the article is several days late this week. I'd been travelling, which included the Futureproof exhibition in Melbourne, and have struggled to catch up since. Still catching up.

By all metrics the exhibition was a success. Each day of the exhibition was accompanied by a few talks each night which, refreshingly, gave me some new insights into various aspects of Industrial Design. It was great to see so many diverse topics discussed within the ID sphere. That won't, however, be the subject of this article. Instead, I've been reflecting on how, over the last few years, this old dog has learnt so many new tricks.

I don't recall what triggered it, but in a brief moment of introspection, I was marvelling at how much I've learnt since I started working for myself. Obviously I've been learning through experience my whole career, but this was amore specific insight. Particularly, new skills and especially new software skills. I started counting up all the new software I've learnt to varying degrees of competency since I started working for myself. Here's a list:

• Keyshot
• Davinci Resolve
• Prepromax
• Blender
• Rhino 3D
• Grasshopper
• Figma
• KiCad
• Xero

For comparison, here's a list of software I learnt in the few years prior:

• Creo
• MS Project

And here's a list of everything in the years before that:

• ...

That's right, nothing. I'd have to go back in time 10 years or more to find a new-to-me software skill.

Depending on if you read this blog frequently or not, you might be shocked to see Keyshot at the top of the above list. It is both the first bit of new software I acquired and learnt when I started Virtimachi, and the perfect example of why I'd never learnt anything before now.

I'm a veteran enough designer that Keyshot, and Hypershot before it, was a wave I didn't catch. Now, every designer knows how to use Keyshot or something like it. For me, there was ultimately never a need. I either had colleagues that could use it, and later, direct reports that were skilled in using it. It made no sense for me to learn it when I could pass the task onto someone far more qualified.

I stuck to the things I knew and was good at. I was very comfortable in that little space. Until I wasn't.

There's no more thorough way to shatter the walls of your comfort zone than to leave a "stable" salary job and start working for yourself. I like to use the word thrilling, simultaneously exciting and terrifying. When you the buck starts and stops with you, there's nothing for it but to pick up the tools and get to work.

It's not just the diverse range of software I have some level of familiarity with now. I've taught myself Markdown language and basic Arduino sketch programming. My concept sketching is greatly improved, and my DFM knowledge has also deepened.

That's not to say that I'm an expert in these things by any means. I've used Solidworks for a quarter of a century by this point, so I know what an expert looks like.

For some senior designers it may look like a backwards step; going back onto the tools after climbing the career ladder. I don't completely disagree. I'm sure for many senior designers they outgrow the tools and want to move into more strategy and management. That's not me though. I live and breath design, which includes creating with my own hands. I froth on building stuff. And for the same reason I'm on the tools, is the same reason I'm doing strategy and management. It's not one or the other, it's both. It's all of it.

While this may sound like I'm advocating for freelancing or consulting, that's not the point I'm about to make. Learning new things, either willingly or by necessity, builds self-reliance. By extension freelancing or consulting is one of the more extreme levels of self-reliance in modern society, but I recognise that it's not for everyone.

Self-reliance gives you choice.

It might seem contrary to say that I had a choice but also had to learn new software because I had nobody else to do it, but you're not thinking big enough. Notice that Xero is also on the list? That's right, I could have paid someone to do any of these things for me. Instead my choice was to learn them for myself. Now I know how to use these tools, if I was to make the choice again it's a much more low-stakes, and low cost (which I'll get onto in a minute), decision.

Obviously I learnt these things in a low-pressure, time-insensitive, environment. If I'd been in a pinch my choice would almost certainly have been different. Now, just because I know how to do a thing doesn't mean I always have to do it. Not doing the thing is also a choice. Spend the time doing it, or spend the money having someone else do it for me.

Actually, having the additional skills can almost certainly get you out of a pinch. As an example, just this week I was wrestling with an imported model in Solidworks that absolutely refused to do anything except give me errors. Fascinatingly, a different error every time. Instead of beating my head against the problem for hours though, I shifted gears to Rhino and got it done in no time. Likely to a higher standard than whatever I might have eventually cobbled together out of Solidworks. If I didn't know how to use Rhino, or didn't know what it could and couldn't do, that option would never have been available to me. As it was I didn't even miss beat, and I'm not even that good at Rhino.

Further, learning these new things broadens your understanding of how other people work. It strengthens your ability to have empathy for your fellow collaborators; educating your decision making and streamlining the collaboration process. It makes for smoother, faster, and better work. It makes you a better designer as well as create better designs.

So how then?

Invest in learning. Invest time and/or money, and often the two currencies are interchangeable.

Be hungry to learn. Learn how to do things.