Just my own personal and professional ramblings. It's a non-blog because say "non-blog" three time fast, it sounds like rambling. Right? I know you just tried it.
This morning my Mac presented an software update, which ended up taking around 30 minutes to complete. I really had work to do, but thought this would be a good time to drink some coffee and play my piano (which is in my office). Not a bad way to start the day.
Anywhoo, here is my rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, composed of course by Francis Scott Key and arranged my myself. Copyright belongs to me: don’t steal it.
It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged anything, but before I start my day of work, I think I need to get this down on tumblr.
Where the heck are all the moms out there? The web designer or designer/developer moms? The ones earning income AND raising their kids?
We know there aren’t many women in this field (about 16.2% are female http://aneventapart.com/alasurvey2008/#gen). But how many of those women are mothers? The women designers (web or otherwise) whose work I strongly admire (on dribbble.com for instance) aren’t mothers and I can count on one hand designer mothers that I follow on twitter. That’s five or less.
The reason I ask is because it seems impossible (for me) to be a great mother (of small children, let’s say) and a great designer.
I suppose some of this is a bout of jealousy. I am jealous that designer/developer Dads go to work and design beautiful stuff all day and come home to cute, clean, fed children. I’m jealous of women who have 24 hours a day to themselves. To sleep, to design when, where, and how ever long they want to, to take time to become inspired, to become better at their work. To worry about every blasted pixel on the page. To make everything perfect, put everything in it’s place, with the exact right color, and the exact right text-shadow and the exact right drop shadow and the exact right css3 gradient on that extremely-important call-to-action button.
See, I learned early on being a mother, that every blasted pixel does not matter. Home made cupcakes don’t matter. Home made halloween costumes don’t matter. Living up to your own expectations of motherhood is ridiculous and stressful, and makes you a terrible at being you.
Yet, when I’m working, I am trying to live up to the expectations of the great web designers out there. I struggle between pixel perfection and mother perfection, and hard as I try, I simply cannot be both. Or either. The ideas that “I don’t have to be a perfect mom” and “I have to design beautiful websites” are like oil and water. Because beautiful websites are perfect. And beautiful children aren’t perfect. What I’m left with is feeling extremely mediocre at my work - because being a mom trumps being a designer, every time. Dinner time, bath time, bed time all trump design and create time.
So where are you ladies? Do you exist? Are you happy with your results as a designer and as a mother? Are your websites AND children perfect? Are you, too, jealous of childless designers and dads who have more time on their hands to create?
Did you miss the business card exchange I hosted a while back? No worries! Mike Ouellette of Grumblebee Studio is hosting another!
Check his #bizx site for more info!
Ok, here’s the thing.
I (my company) has the opportunity to occupy a booth in the Center of Progress building at the New York State Fair this September for one day. That’s 12 hours - 10am to 10pm. The booth is supposed to be interactive.
What to do? I need your input. You work in the web (or design) industry. We’re talking interactive and progress here. What would you do? What could I do? I have some ideas, but I need your help.
1) A 12 hour tweet up. Anyone from twitter, let’s tweet up. we’ll have coffee and be geeky. If we’re lucky, we’ll be near the NY State Wine booth. We won’t actually DO anything, just, you know… tweet up.
2) A working tweet up. I’ll gather some talented peeps and we’ll get together, in the booth, and actually create something, live. Projected on a big screen.
3) I will work for 12 hours straight, projected on a big screen. I’ll have a “guess how many cups of coffee this geek has consumed?” contest.
3) If I can find a iPhone developer, we could create an iPhone app, live, in 12 hours. (interactive, and progress!)
4) I could just sit and do free consultations for 12 hours.
What would you do? Do you live in NY state? Wanna come to The Fair?
Simple as that.
Since people asked how I keep my inbox so shiny and clean, there is my answer.
Reblogged from David Perel:
I never thought I would say this but recently I have been very over twitter.
I’ve been thinking a similar thing too. For me, a few things on the social media spectrum have changed since the initial twitter surge.
1) Facebook. I never used to ‘friend’ people that I truly didn’t know or had no intention of meeting in person. It was “personal”. Now, I have many ‘friends’ from twitter - I do filter who I friend a great deal though. It’s pretty much only people who I know well enough to know that I’d still friend them, even if I met them in person. If that makes sense.
There is a lot of debate and opinions on the future of Facebook. I can’t see a world where twitter is dead and Facebook lives on. It seems like there is something in between, something that doesn’t exist yet. Or maybe the next trend will be old school - networking in person, via phone, via email.
Through twitter, I have connected with some fantastic people - hundreds of them, really. Now I fan their pages on facebook, friend them on facebook, read their blogs, meet them in person, connect with them on skype, etc. It’s almost like twitter is obsolete now that we’ve all connected. I’m sure that’s not 100% accurate, but it is a good point.
2) Dribbble. This has been a social media game changer for me and where I spend my time and effort connecting with people. I follow(ed) a lot of people on twitter whose work I respected and learned from. I wanted to know what they were up to and what work they were doing, etc. Some of those people I don’t care for on a personal level. Not that I don’t like them - the truth is I don’t know them. They may not tweet a whole lot, or maybe when they do, they come off as a complete jerk.
With dribbble, I can follow their work, only. I don’t have to read their rants and complaints and curses. I only care about what they design and build, and that’s what I get from dribbble.
3. LinkedIn. Yeah, that. I’ve been using it more lately, gathering up contacts and keeping my profile up to date. It’s kind of like my backup social network. If twitter goes down for good - I know where to find people I’ve connected with on a personal and professional level.
The conclusion here is that there is no conclusion. Is twitter slowing down or is it thinning out - weeding out and leaving more quality tweets, more meaningful connections?
Tiny prop plane + stormy clouds
This is Ari - (my niece) -I was 13 when she was born and today she is 15! And we’re headed to Hilton Head, SC for a short vacation
If websites were people.
It had to be said.
I’ve started an App Inspiration Set on Flickr. Most of the current shots are straight from Dribbble. At first I wasn’t sure whether people would be cool with that, but since dribbble is open now, I think it’s ok. I’ve given credit where it’s due by including the dribbbler’s name in the shot. If there is no name included, it’s because it’s a screen shot from an actual app.
If you find anything you’d like me to add, by all means, hit me up on twitter @meredithmarsh
I’ve also not yet figured out the difference between a Flickr set and a Flickr collection…
