About Myself

Irfan Kazi - 78 vintage from India and currently residing in Mumbai. I love everything that has to do with design, technology, art, music, and a weird mash up of all the above.

A day in my shoes?
At work? It changes a lot every day. At LRN all are leaders and I am currently leading the content development at Mumbai office which means the day starts of with sipping cappuccinos, and free non-aerated drinks supplied by company, J brainstorming, building prototypes in various languages and working with team to enhance their technical and creative skills.
I also still write code almost every day but recently my focus has shifted a bit more towards the conceptual, strategic and creative sides and as well as people management. In my free time I still like to experiment and learn new things the Adobe Flash we’ve all learned to love has to offer.
What was the most challenging thing you ever did using ActionScript or an ActionScript based library/framework?
The technical aspect is just one side of the coin; I think technology is at its best when it’s transparent to the user. The more magic, the better. To me the non-technical side of a technical project is often far more challenging to get right than the code itself. One of the more challenging technical tasks was the CD / DVD application framework built for http://www.thinkdigit.com/ whose look and feel resembled to that of Microsoft Windows OS.

Suggestions or sources of inspiration/motivation I would like to share with up and coming Developers?
Coffee is seriously a good place to start. Seriously though I think it’s about coming up with a goal/problem, breaking it down into smaller goals and reaching them. With Google and the other great useful flash resource we have all the information at our fingertips, it’s just a question of attitude if we reach our goals or not. The more you know, the more you’ll want to know. Don’t forget to keep on experimenting outside of commercial projects either, fun is a crucial ingredient and client requirements often restrict creativity.

Also I think it’s very important to listen to your own judgment and not think of anything as set in stone. Remember that the world was once flat. Einstein said “the important thing in life is to never stop questioning”.

RSS and twitter are my weapons of choice when it comes to getting inspiration. I do sometimes really go to sites like FWA for inspiration as to me that’s stuff that’s already been done. Technology is fun but it changes every day. It’s much more important to start with an idea and then use whatever tools are required to bring it to life.