Fixpert

Hello from Silicon Valley. I’m out here on the other coast for the WOW Web Design and Project Management Conference. Presently, I am lounging in my cheetah print bath robe care of the Cypress Hotel where I’m staying — I highly recommend this place, it’s hard to beat the freakin’ cheetah print bath robe, come on!

Today was the first day. We had excellent presentations from Molly Holzschlag and Aaron Gustafson. They’re spreading their Web Standards joy across the galaxy and I am basking in the glory of CSS. Weird imagery, I know, especially after I already put the bath robe picture in your head — basking in a bath robe seems very personal…I’m feeling a little exposed now.

Moving on, I wanted to touch on something that Molly Holzschlag said that really resonated with me this morning. She talked a bit about how important it is for web designers to maintain passion and optimism and to avoid burnout. Just hearing her say that made me feel so validated! A career in web design is no doubt engaging and rewarding — however, it is a job centered around constraints. Those constraints often inspire creativity, but when you are on the brink of burnout, they can sometimes feel like the last straw.

For me, as long as the challenges that I face every day have something to do with my specialization, I’m happy. If they present me with an opportunity to learn, I am grateful. I do, however, have the danger of losing my optimism during those times when so many of my constraints cannot be solved by good web-smithing. For example, maybe a Marketing decision is driving the desire for an interface that will be a bad user experience. The site metrics show that the bad user experience is producing better sales than the interface that tested well with the customers. I cringe, sad face emoticon.

Despite these challenges, I do feel lucky to be a part of something that offers so many unending opportunities to learn, and to work with creative, intelligent, fun people. And, of course, I’m stoked to be rocking out in California with some of those people this week! Air guitar solo!

Sugar pie honey bunch…you know that I love you. I can’t help myse-e-elf, it’s Duncan Hines and nobody else. Doo doo doo-doo.

This post is about much more than just Duncan Hines. It’s about the rampant co-opting of classic songs for commercial use.

We’re rolling back the prices, all over the place, so…put on a happy face

Ok, maybe that was never a song I used to rock out to, but still — it saddens me that I can’t seem to find the original words in my head anymore. I think Motown was particularly hard-hit by this phenomenon, and lately it seems that classic rock has invaded the American car commercials. I guess they’re trying to “get the lead out” of their sinking industry, he he he.

I miss the days of jingles written just for a product:

Z-z-z-zips! Zips are a lot of fun, what you do in Zips almost can’t be done.

…that’s freakin’ timeless. I’m particularly bothered by the 25 second commercial that aims to turbo-manipulate: to quickly get in, tug at the heart-strings, and get out. If a Mylanta ad can bring you to your knees in a few seconds, I think your problems go beyond heartburn. More on that later. Peace out.

Ok, I’m like so five minutes ago with this one, but just had to mention the highly anticipated release of Mint yesterday. This is the latest work from the mind of Shaun Inman. To pull a quote from his site…

“Mint gives you a short but sweet look at the how, what, where, and when of your site traffic.”

…and, it’s just so purty! Mint is such a dreamboat! I still have little cartoon birds flying around my head.

A recent discussion via Basecamp messages with some compadres led to a sudden realization for me, an epiphany if you will. Coffee is the common thread that binds the two disparate elements in my life: cycling and computers.

I have always felt that these two pastimes were in direct opposition to each other. One is pulling me outdoors, telling me to get outside and hop on the bike. The other is posting me up for hours or days indoors with no sunlight or physical activity whatsoever. And I always thought it was strange that I was so deeply committed to two specializations that are so different. But, now I realize that coffee is the magic that brings it all together.

Cyclists have a reputation for being coffee fiends, sipping espresso in spandex in the pre-ride dawn. And, computer nerds — programmers in particular — have long had a love affair with coffee. Exhibit A: the object oriented programming language, Java.

Thanks to coffee, I realize that cycling and computers are actually healthy compliments to one another. As long as I am sure to maintain a balance between the two, and manage to get a cup of coffee in between somewhere, I am happy.