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Do you guys sell wheels, lift-kits, and other automotive things?
Nope—the “you guys” is just me. I’m Nina.
I don’t sell vehicle rims, lift-kits, or anything automotive. Never have.
I’m just a designer. A Michigan kid, an optimist, and a Red Wings fan.
I’m also likely up way too late.
Why the URL bigwheel.net, then?
In 2002 I needed a website. I wasn’t keen on turning my name into a URL, and my ninavizz handle hadn’t happened yet.

My dad had sent me a card with a photo of myself as a toddler inside; seated on my mini-bigwheel atop the brown-shag carpeting that lined the home I grew-up in, with an excited smile as I looked down at my bigwheel’s front wheel lying on its side, having just fallen off. I have no idea why he picked that one image for my birthday card, but it summed-up how I was feeling… and ohey, the bigwheel.net domain was also available.

I still like it: it’s playful, it speaks to that first device that brought a sense of adventure, agency, and independence to so many of us; or at least, that’s my memory of my bigwheel.

You know you missed a great personal branding opportunity by not going with ninavizz.com
No… actually, I didn’t. I’m not a brand. I can blather personal branding with the best of them. At the end of the day though, I need to leave room for myself to not be a brand. The more room I leave for myself to be a grouchy Gen-X punkrocker, the better I am as an upbeat optimist working with great organizations to make online products more usable for real humans with true needs, everywhere. 🙂

All relevant domains are owned and should be getting forwarded.

Is any of your work for Palm, Yahoo!, or other earlier stuff available to view online?

Nope. Malware took it down over the 2022 holidays. 🙁
Hoping to restore it sometime before Summer 2023.

Yep!  2008.bigwheel.net

Because the above is an archive of my old website, things may break over time that I won’t notice. Pls drop me a note at ninavizz —at— the gmails, should you have any difficulty viewing older stuff there.

Are you on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn?

I am! http://www.linkedin.com/in/ninavizz

Most of my social media stuff is personal. I locked my Twitter & deleted most of my Tweets after the creepy billionaire guy took over, and now toot over in the fediverse—mostly about social justice and activism things.

My Instagram and Facebook are both private, and a purely personal spaces for me. I’m “friends” with many colleagues and past co-workers, but prefer to keep my work and private life separate with current endeavors.

Why the coffee cup icon when hovering over homepage images?
None of the theme’s icons made much sense, there, and I couldn’t figure-out how to just kill the darn thing. #wordpressdiyfail

So grab a cuppa, read my case studies, and enjoy! 😉

I see you used to live in the Bay Area—what would it take to get you to move back here?
I lived in the Bay Area for almost 25 years. It’s a cliché, but I did leave a big piece of my heart in San Francisco. I just don’t like what the City—or really, the entire region from Marin to Watsonville—has turned into in recent years. Living in the middle of that made me angry and anxious. Big affection for Oakland and Santa Cruz, too.

I do enjoy frequent travel, and have traveled weekly (for months at a time) for past projects. My ideal work scenario also involves a good mix of on-site, remote, and in-the-field (research) work, too. So, if you’re serious—let’s talk. Zoom, Skype, AirBnB, Southwest and Alaska Airlines, and I, are all real tight.

My current mountain-home in Oregon’s lush Cascade region does my heart mighty fine. I missed small-town life. I guess I’d have to accept Oakland’s Claremont Hotel if that property were gifted to me, though…

I don't understand your aversion to offering your salary history
Yeah—this is a sticky issue. I truly am sorry for the specific moments of awkwardness and inconvenience this policy of mine creates. I respect how hard it is to be a recruiter, and appreciate how this can throw a wrench into that already stretched-too-thin role a recruiter plays in hiring. Especially within larger organizations that have their Formulas. Those. Formulas. Formulas intended to remove bias, but in practice have been proven to amplify past biasses.

Pay inequality among people of different genders, races, ages, and abilities, is all systemic. So, much as your organization may be vigilant in seeking to prevent pay inequality (which I would only want to support and APPLAUD!), folks entering your organization who may have experienced discrimination in the past then have that discrimination carried into their present when compensation for this new opportunity is based on that of past experiences. Make sense? I wish I had answers. I have ideas, but not answers.

Not out to be a pain in the a**. Just out to do my own little part. The more of us who do, the harder it will be for organizations to mandate this information factor-into their formula for calculating an offer. <3

You REALLY met Erik Estrada?!

I did! It was an amazing moment. Ask me about it, sometime!