write this on your hand.
This past week, I had a minor Crisis of Confidence — Career Version! Something about my job stress and having to get a website designed and this impending panel discussion at Web 2.0 Expo (at which I’m to discuss my internet habits) made me feel in over my head, a little.
I was feeling outrun, ability-wise, by all those developers and programmers and languages and buzzwords out there. The technological playing field is getting wider and more crowded and I was feeling fully in the slow lane and kind of irrelevant.
What I needed was a pep talk. And I got it from my sister Annie, who sent the following to me, and told me to “write this on your hand” so that I would have confidence on the panel at the Expo.
[by the way, she means “geeks” at the programmers and other technical humans I work with to bring a website to life, and means it in the kindest way]
The geeks need you. They are nothing without you. You are the informed user, a cultural functionary whose work it is to create an interactive visual communication that must be aligned with both your client’s goals and their audience’s technological comfort zone. Your work is to translate not merely information as such, but values and priorities and aesthetics, in a way that makes meaningful connection — and gets the business done simply. Technology is the tool. The tool is only as good as it is useful for executing a piece of communication or resource or art. Technology can shape culture, sure. But culture is a human function, and technology is a servant to that. Respect must be earned. Can a geek speak meaningfully to you? Can a geek offer something to the cause?
[the photo is from our very first iChat this past weekend, and she is recreating a thing we used to do when I was little. that made me feel a lot better, too. this has been a weird week.]
Becky. You do Ichat? I did not know that. I do the Ichat too. xxxxxxxxx@mac.com if you please. Let’s do the Ichat.