Thirty Five

Much like last years popular Thirty Four, here are thirty five things I’ve learned in thirty five years.

• You may think the lead guitarist is the bad-ass in the band, but you’d be wrong. It’s the bass player.
• If you were to drop off the face of the earth tomorrow, the people who call looking for you, those are your real friends.
• There are statistics everyone chases no matter what industry you are in. Stop sweating it.
• It’s actually not that bad getting 80% of your protein from beans and legumes.
• Shipping is infinitely harder than ideating.
• Hiring employee(s) is incredibly difficult. Oh hi person whose entire livelihood is in my hands. Nice to meet you.
• Shoes can really make an outfit. You can never have too many.
• Scotch is really good.
• Friday Night Lights is not about football.
• The smartest thing you can do is to surround yourself with people smarter than you.
• No one really knows the “right way” to do it. We’re all just faking it. 
• Stressing about doing it the “right way” is what makes you better at “it”.
• Find someone who will tell you what sucks about your work. Make friends with them.
• Guns ‘N’ Roses will likely never reunite. 
• Yes, Netflix lost a million customers. But they still have north of 20 million PAYING customers. You should buy their stock.
• Giving is perhaps one of the biggest gifts you can give to yourself.
• The Audi R8 is a machine to be reckoned with.
• Lying to your kids about Santa Claus is incredibly easy to do. Suckers.
• Every decent domain name is taken. If you spend six figures on one, be sure to do something cooler than color.com.
• Disconnecting helps you to really connect.
• Gray hair is like getting highlights. Except it doesn’t cost you $200 every 3 months.
• Textmate 2 was renamed to Sublime Text 2.
• It takes great discipline to know when enough is enough.
• We’re all chasing the same thing (love), whether you know it or not.
• There is never anything positive on the evening news. Puppy drowns, more at eleven.
• I will never be as cool as Ryan Gosling in Drive. I’m ok with that.
• You don’t see a lot of long hair on successful business people. I’m going to change that.
• Having a mentor means you’re willing and eager to learn. That makes you smart.
• Marriage is hard work. If you don’t want to work hard, don’t get married.
• The way I used to dress in 5th grade is popular again. 
• If you’re going to grow a mustache, make sure it kicks ass. If you don’t know what a kick ass mustache looks like, Google “Tom Selleck”.
• The artist(s) probably spent the better part of a week or two putting the tracks in just the right order. Don’t be a dick and skip to track three.
• Firing employee(s) is the hardest thing I’ve had to do in the past 5 years.
• You don’t need millions of customers to be successful. I’ll take 1000 customers paying me $25/month any day of the week.
• If you want to make something for yourself, work harder than everybody else.

An Interview - The Great Discontent

Brooklyn Beta

I’m tired of web work. I’m this close to calling it an opening a cookie shop. It’s not for a lack of amazing clients, I love each and every one of them, and what’s more, I love serving them with passion and respect. Doing good work is in my blood and I’m good at it. But lately I’ve been burdened. My work isn’t making a difference for a greater good, for people who are hurting or in need. I’m not working on something that “matters”. Granted selling cookies out of a shack to locals doesn’t “matter” all that much either, but at least I’d be talking to people face to face, conversing about life and not the latest CSS animation (God help us all) on Twitter.

Enter Brooklyn Beta.

Brooklyn Beta is unlike any web conference out there. In fact, I wager to say that it’s not a even web conference, it’s a people conference. A ‘really-smart-people’ conference. Somehow I managed to work my way into the presence of the aforementioned group at this year’s Brooklyn Beta and what I found was that I wasn’t alone in my thinking. By communicating with our voices (where you open and close your mouth creating sounds by manipulating your tongue and lips into different positions) I discovered people who had families, wives and children, passions ranging from social justice to craft beers, ideas that had nothing to do with aggregating hashtags on Twitter via a new web app that required a Facebook account to login but instead were attempting to solve real problems.

In an almost Jobs-esque style, Chris Shifflet and Cameron Koczon were able to forecast a growing passion/movement that was reflected in their selection of speakers. We heard from Joel Rose about the problems our US education system is facing. We heard from Todd Park about the problems with the US health care system. We heard from Viktoria Harrison about the lack of clean water for millions of people around the world. Definitely not something to expect from a web conference but as I said, this wasn’t a web conference, it was a people conference and the people were buzzing.

The thing about really-smart-people is that if you throw a problem their way you can almost start to see the gears turning in their head. Put three or four of those people in close proximity and all of the sudden it’s an impromptu SWOT analysis of proposed solutions around a table of bacon flavored cookies. Yes, bacon flavored. I didn’t get a chance to ask Chris or Cameron but I don’t think I’d be too far off to say that this was part of their plan all along: using our talents for causes that are bigger than ourselves, working on things that “matter”.

And thats where we come full circle. Brooklyn Beta hit home with me and with so many others that I talked to. I can only hope the inspiration that was gathered in those few short days continues to grow and spread. 

Sometimes

I play guitar in a band every now and again. Sometimes my role is to provide a lead line, other times it’s to providing a driving rhythm. The most enjoyable role however is tearing it up with a melodic solo that expresses everything you feel using everything you know. Most of time it’s fitting and compliments the song. But sometimes it’s unnecessary. Sometimes a song doesn’t call for you to solo all over every measure. Sometimes, it’s ok to play nothing at all.

When we design experiences for users, our bag of tricks is an abundant resource that we tap at will. We add polish and depth, reflection and gloss. Sometimes it’s magical and the design is killing it. But sometimes, maybe more times than not, it’s ok to remove the polish and depth, reflection and gloss. Sometimes, it’s ok to play nothing at all.

Really Good Advise

I didn’t know what else to title this — if you are doing client work, this is really good advice.

What do you mean, you don't like IE6? Really?

How I’ve always felt, but never been able to say as well as Remy.

Why I Don't Care About Responsive Web Design

Andy Clarke has a short write up on Responsive Web Design (RWD) and why he doesn’t care about it. I couldn’t agree with Andy more.

.NET Magazine Awards

I’m honored to be nominated for Developer of the Year at the .NET Awards. Head on over and vote for your favorite in all the categories!

Interview

The folks at Web Courses Bangkok were kind enough to ask me a few questions.