Things I Like
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As writers, we don’t need companies like Medium to tell us how to use the web. Or define openness and democracy. Or tell us what’s a “waste of [our] time” and what’s not. Or determine how and where readers experience our work. We need to decide those things for ourselves.
This piece resonated with me on so many levels. I'm trying very hard to keep my thoughts, ideas, jottings right here on this site, where they are under my control and no one can take them away from me, especially since I have the source so even if my rented server space goes away, I still have this. But it also reminded me of the approach Editorially took to helping writers get their writing where they wanted it to be. It was a tool to help you write, but not to tell you what to do with those words.
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A really great interface trick to use for accessibility with tabbing. Love the idea, would love to see the code behind it.
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In the very beginning, I used Jim Collins' book Built to Last to figure out my core values. And then I gave those core values to everyone I worked with: Atlantic Records, CoverGirl, etc., and as I embarked on new creative projects or business partnerships, I weighed my core values and the proposed opportunity and I decided accordingly. Style is important, having fun and being whimsical and free is important, but I've always believed I can accomplish anything I want while also inspiring young girls and pushing for change around the world.
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And, most interesting to me, edgelessness means blurred lines between the disciplines that work together to make things for the web. Everyone that I’ve spoken with that’s worked on a large responsive project with a big client says that the process disrupts workflows, expectations, and work culture.
I had a really hard time picking just one quote from this piece, so read it, read it now! This is yet another example of why I love the web and why I love so much writing on the web, it is bringing together so many disparate ideas and people are using them to explain and understand concepts in a new way, much like Mandy Brown's Ferengi piece which I linked to earlier this week.
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I wonder how much effort we should be putting into influencing the evolution of those emergent social constructs, whether through our work or our personal interactions, and how much of that effort would be ultimately fruitless.
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Methodology is sticky in this way. We come up with our own techniques and plans and hold other people accountable to them, despite knowing that methodologies are, at heart, deeply personal. No one works like you do. No one works like I do.
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In the rush of a persistent accelerated now, interruptions and challenges to life in real-time are sometimes necessary in order to ask what kind of future we're building.
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I'm excited about the new possibilities of leaving complex math behind when doing a grid. I love that Rachel took an existing grid and made it with the new Grid layout. In addition, I'll be at AEA Boston and can't wait to hear her speak on this.
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What if we worried less about fixing the content, and instead accepted some chaos along the way? What if we looked at our work designing and building websites as opportunities to help others—to create ownership, commitment, and progress for the long term, rather than perfect webpages?
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All of which is a long-winded way of saying that our core discomfort with Medium—with most of online publishing—is we can’t quite see how the money works no matter how hard we squint. And we’re naturally suspicious of the ways that money skews our relationships, with each other and with art. (And art, lowercase-a, is what a lot of writing is, no matter what the investors tell you. It’s what we love in the writing we fall in love with.)
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What is web writing in 2015? Is it still based on the author model? If you enjoy watching a writer’s mind work over time (or you enjoy having that freedom as a writer), is there still a way to do that? Or is the writer’s-voice-driven Internet over, forever, everything’s atomistic now and it’s no longer possible to scrape an audience together that way even if you want to?
So many good things in this one that I had a hard time picking a quote. But the questions, about what is web writing, about platforms, about social networks, all very worth thinking about.
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Maybe this slow and steady thing isn’t for you. Maybe you’re going to be the next Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk and fit the profile. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t raise money, or that venture capital is inherently bad, just that there’s a big grey area between a lifestyle business and a venture backed moonshot. Raising venture money is a high risk commitment to go big or go home, and it isn’t for everyone. It certainly isn’t right for me, but neither is the surfer lifestyle business. I’m somewhere in the middle, with the Snyders of the world. I’m not a unicorn, I’m a horse.
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I envision a design practice that works in the intersection between art, design and computation. A company founded on the belief that the pragmatic and poetic is inseparable, and that modern design products should be dynamic, adaptable systems built in code. This kind of practice would create beautiful, intelligent, and functional design products for any medium, be it physical installations, web applications, or print products. Most of all, it would be a company dedicated to good ideas, with the talent to implement them despite technical requirements.
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As I’ve progressed in my career, my mindfulness practice has progressed as well. No coincidence, then, that I find myself more radical and questioning of our capitalist system at an age (and in a tax bracket) that’s most commonly associated with creeping conservatism. I credit my practice not just for helping me to survive the stresses of work, but for putting that work in context. Sometimes, that new context has led me to serious reevaluations of my priorities.
The last three paragraphs of this post are stunners. I stopped and reread them twice. The above is the second to last, but the last paragraph is a punch in the gut. Take the time to feel it and to think about what he's saying because I think he's onto something.
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And among the many things I am taking from David’s death is to be better with young writers, and young people in general.
After reading several pieces on David Carr, I'm trying to figure out how I can give back to those younger than me, be they working in the web or not.