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Ken Mohnkern
interaction designer .. writer .. reader .. traveler
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- Summary
I am an Interaction Designer with over twelve years of experience, and a Technical Writer with seven or so. I have been the user's advocate on many web projects (sites for consumer products, financial institutions, and educational departments), and a large artificial-intelligence software system. I have designed and run usability tests and academic studies. I have written and edited documents of many types, including government reports, academic papers, and process manuals (the most illuminating of these was for a chain of car dealerships).
Experience- Aug 2009 - PresentSenior Experience Architect / Buzzhoney
- Aug 2005 - May 2009Interaction Designer / Carnegie Mellon University
I was the interaction designer on a large, multi-disciplinary software research project. My main challenge on this project was to manage the interface design for a half dozen independent components, ending up with a seamless, simple interface for everything. After that project ended I was kept on to rebuild two websites: the departmental site and a project site, both built using the Drupal CMS.
- Jan 2004 - Aug 2005Product Development Manager / Carnegie Mellon University
I was with the IT Services Qualification Center at a time when they were developing their first certification product, the eSCM-SP (eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers), and managed the editing and writing portion of their document-production process.
- Feb 2003 - Jan 2004Technical Writer/Editor / InnerLink Strategic Solutions, Inc.
- Jul 1999 - Jan 2002Interaction Designer / Blattner Brunner, Inc.
- Jul 1999 - Jan 2002Interaction Designer / Lighthouse Interactive
- 1985 - 1999Various positions / Carnegie Mellon University
Education-
1994 - 1997Carnegie Mellon UniversityMaster of Design in Interaction Design
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1980 - 1985Carnegie Mellon UniversityBS in Mechanical Engineering
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Posts
- Aug 04, 12
by Wendell Berry
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.(via The Writers Almanac)
- Apr 18, 12
Where was I?
Oh. Posting a sad poem on last year's Sept 11. (NP pointed that out when we were doing a photo walk in Oakmont.) So this post is meant to push that one down the page a bit.
NP and I took a photo walk in Oakmont this past weekend and we both got a lot of great shots around the river and up into the neighborhood a bit. But then something weird happened as I was loading the photos off my camera, and I lost them all. Yes I did.
- Sep 11, 11
Here's another poem, appropriate for the day.
At O'Hare, after a first jump west to California,
I thought my father was dying, as I waited
for the connecting flight. Being hungry
I ate pizza with the people eating pizza....
(Read the rest at The Writers Almanac.)
- Sep 05, 11
I didn't know this:
Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894, partly because it was a convenient way for President Grover Cleveland to appease an angry workforce after he violently broke up a strike.
Read the whole story over at The Writer's Almanac.
- Aug 12, 11
I got to work today and there were open spots in the paved parking lot so I didn't have to park in the gravel overflow lot like usual. Not because I arrived early, but because it's a summer Friday and a bunch of people must be starting their weekends early.
I pulled into a prime spot and turned off the engine, leaving the radio on to listen to Paul Simon's song, "Rewrite," all the way to the end. I'd heard it many times as a witty little ditty but had just recently heard the words in the final chorus.
I once took a course at the Iowa Summer Writers Festival on (if I remember the term correctly, and I don't believe I do) the Dramatic Moment, the point in a story when it stops being about this particular character in this particular situation and becomes a story about humanity or the world or society. Or about me, the reader. It's the point when the skies open up and Capital-T Truth is revealed. I hope to do that. Just once.
In "Rewrite" the narrator tell us he's working on a rewrite of a story. He's gonna change the ending and trash the title so he can sell his story for big bucks. Witty and light-weight, right? Then the last verse:
I'll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm.
Gonna substitute a car chase
And a race across the rooftops
Where the father saves the children
And he holds them in his arms.Damn. Little ditty gets me every time.
- Aug 03, 11
We rarely get comments on our blog posts. (I've decided today to write in plural, being in the mindset that the blog and its contents are ours - mine and yours.)
But we got this comment today on a post from a month ago:
Thanks for the article, I read it and the post and I have to say that this all gets more confusing when you are new to all this,just when I think I understand it all, someone throws in something new. I guess I will all click in to place at some stage!
It ended with a link, which I've deleted.
It's vague enough to make me think it might have been legit, but vague enough to make me think it was phony. The link clinched it. It went to a viagra site. We deleted the comment.
- Jul 22, 11
For a guy who isn't into poetry, I post a lot about poetry, don't I?
This winter (Remember winter?) I went with my writing group to hear Philip Lopate read his poetry and prose. I really liked it.
Today's Writer's Almanac features him:
we who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting
as a group
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift - Jul 17, 11
Some interesting (to me) things I've come across lately:
- Slide Rules! I'm old enough to have owned one of these and learned how to use it, but young enough to have never actually been required to use it.
- The Tunguska event was an enormous explosion over Russia in 1908, caused, probably, by a meteoroid. (Where "enormous" equals the largest impact in recent history. (Where "recent history" is undefined.))
- Pocket Eyes is a keychain-sized pair of pince-nez. I think I need a pair. Pince-nez reminds me of a book I read (but whose title I can't remember) where dogs have become sentient and many of them wear pince-nez on their snouts. And it's kind of a cool retro-y word.
There you go.
- Jul 10, 11
Tomorrow, let's celebrate the one-year anniversary of humans discovering Neptune.
One Neptunian year, that is. It takes Neptune about 165 Earth years to circle the sun, and tomorrow is that long from the date that Earthlings first saw the chilly planet. It's way out there. "Light can travel around the earth seven times in a second. It takes four hours to get to Neptune." (via Metafilter)
(Neptune has 13 (THIRTEEN!) moons: Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Proteus, Triton, Nereid, Halimede, Sao, Laomedeia, Psamathe, and Neso.) (via Nine Planets)
- Jun 18, 11
On this date 199 years ago the US went to war with Great Britain, beginning the War of 1812, which makes me think of this song:
The Battle of New Orleans was fought after the peace treaty had been signed.
(via)
