On Falling Down. Or Getting Up.

Today I watched my children play in the back yard while I was trying to perfect a pattern that allows me to mow the lawn the same way each and every time. For what it’s worth, I have not yet won this pattern battle, and we’ve lived here nearly seven years.

As often happens when I am allowed to play observer with my children, I (re)learned a lesson today.

As the kids played, they laughed. A lot.

As they played, they also fell down. A lot.

Both things happened at the same time, most of the time (hey, they’re kids, after all).

Every time they fell down–even when I had a reaction of “oh crap, that one had to hurt!”–they got up, still laughing.

Sometimes they did not even bother to dust themselves off or collect themselves a bit. In fact, they mostly just kept going. And going. And laughing. And falling. And laughing some more.

I am, I think, afraid of falling just as much as any person is, if not more. I think that most people, even those of us who will say that failure is okay, do not like to fail. Falling down, well, it kind of sucks. Especially when you are an adult, or when you have eyes on you, or when you put pressures upon yourself, or when you want to reach goals or expectations, or when others are relying on you.

Or, you know, just in general.

So, while I will continue to dislike my failures and flaws, and while I will continue to hate my mistakes–and often myself for them (and for a really, really long time)–I think it is important to at least remember what my kids already seem to know:

You might just as well keep going, because you will fall again, and it only sucks if you worry so much about falling that it keeps you from moving forward at all. And, you get to get back and and keep moving, anyway. There’s always something else/more to do.

IDEA 2008: An Interview with Bill DeRouchey

If you do not know by now, IDEA 2008 is going to be in Chicago on October 7-8, with a pre-conference on October 6th, put on by MAYA Design.  The conference is going to fantastic–we’ve recently added Jesse James Garrett to speak about the Aurora concept browser.

Behind the scenes, I’ve been the “Event Coordinator”–and while it has not always been clear to me what that is (it’s mostly “do as much as I can in every situation possible–fast!)–and it has been a lot of fun working a little deeper with the Information Architecture Institute and getting to understand “how things work” a bit more.

One of the roles I took on was to interview some of the talent.  We’ve got a great line up for IDEA 2008, including:

• David Armano
• Jason Kunesh
• Dave Gray
• Elliot Malkin
• Edwin von Gal
• Jesse James Garrett
• Chris Crawford
• Albert Canas
• Jason Fried
• Aradhana Goel
• Bill DeRouchey
• Andrew Hinton

My first interview was with Mr. Bill DeRouchey.

Many moons ago, Bill and I happened to have been up late on the same night. It may have been a weekend–well, it was any night, really, as we’re always up late.  Christian Crumlish had turned me on to some Brian Eno music and I was asking about alternatives. I don’t even recall what the selection was, but Bill made it–he set up a muxtape for me so I could find some new tunes to work/study by.

I checked out his website, watched is presentation from Interaction08 and we started some email chatter.  Before long, we were doing random emails, talking about book ideas, swapping war stories and a bunch of general back-and-forth humor.

We built some trust.

We became friends.

We hashed out a panel for SXSW called “Friendship is Dead” (and you should vote for it, please!).

We reviewed secret paperwork for each other.

We (gasp!) even spoke on the phone!

And I even asked Bill his thoughts about this in the interview that is now live on Boxes & Arrows:

RU: Over the course of 2008, you and I have become “friends”—at least I’d say that, and I believe you’ve said that. We most likely will not meet face-to-face until October at IDEA in Chicago, yet I’d say we have built a level of trust and respect for each other—we’ve even worked “virtually” on putting together a panel presentation for SXSW together. How do you think that happened, and who should we blame?

This fascinates me too. It’s true. We’ve never met face to face and we’ve only talked on the phone once, but we’ve had enough online interaction to build both trust and friendship. How the hell is that possible? Tracing it back is an interesting case study. On Twitter, I noticed a few friends (people I have met f2f and trust) keep talking to @russu. Okay, I’ll see what this guy is up to. Seems harmless enough, okay, follow. Then we made some connection on music, and the conversation developed from there. But is this really different at all from meeting people in the “real world”? You meet through mutual friends, connect on something simple, and then just keep talking. That’s the beauty of Twitter. People are giving you many opportunities to connect in some way. Sometimes it clicks and you make a new friend. If you never actually meet, so what? Yes, it’d be a shame, but geography should never be a barrier to connecting with other people.

Please take a moment and read the entire interview, and get to know Bill DeRouchey a bit better!

Blogging Everywhere! (Not) Enough Already?

Hi, I’m Russ and I’m a blogger.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one–or if I’m talking about you. Or you.

Like many people, I enjoy blogging. Like many more people, I learned a long time ago that blogging–and blogging well in particular–requires a certain degree of commitment and effort. Putting a bunch of jumbled thoughts or ideas into words that are easy enough to digest and interesting enough to get through can be pretty challenging. Ask any of those folks over on the right side of the page (and then see when the last time any of them updated their blogs, too!) and I’ll bet that they’ll tell you that they started out with a lot to say and that they saw blogging as something slightly different than what it is for them today.  I bet that they’ll tell you that blogging just happens to be a labor of love for them, as well–but that it also offers up rewards, too.  More than one blogger has had a prospective employer contact them with piqued interest based upon a posting or perspective.

Not me, mind you, but it does happen.

For quite awhile, the blogging scene was really becoming the bandwagon to get on. People still have blogs–but maybe now it’s called your MySpace Blog / Page or your FaceBook Notes or what have you. Those are more for the hobbyists, I suspect. People need to be able to whip out that poetry and prose as it strikes them during the work day, right?

And there are more Professional Blogs, which is where I’d classify places like TechCrunch and others–they serve a broader purpose than to just ramble on about your new kitten or what you had for lunch with Jeffers and Kimmers and whatnot. Your favorite newspaper will likely have a blogging section with plenty of spirited conversations and commentary to support it. Some (me) would argue that the UserGlue UserBlog is a professional blog–because I try to keep this topical and you’ll probably never hear me mention my wife, my children nor my pets here. Probably; there’s a baby coming and I’m suspecting I may be uber-proud and feel the need to post an announcement or something. Just saying.

A lot of people that I know enjoy blogging for themselves–they feel good about it. They feel as if they’re contributing. Some even feel as if their personal blogs, whatever way that happens, help them to stay in touch with their friends and family without calling everyone, say every time they have a near-perfect bowling game.

My friend Wil uses his blog in many different ways–it’s a way to hone his craft as a writer (sometimes providing content for books that we release under Monolith Press), keep his friends, family and fan base up-to-date on what he’s doing and it’s a good way to provide information to his consumers who want to know where he will be appearing, what he will be performing in and any new product that may be for sale. All in one tidy place. Well, all in one place, at least.

I blog here. I blog personally on a different site. And now, that place that I call “work” when I’m not dividing my time between UserGlue, family and school, has a blog for people to get involved in, if they so desire. No one is forcing my hand on anything, but I’ve been made aware that the mechanism exists, “if I’d like to participate”.

I think it’s a great idea and it can help foster a community and culture among your peers–help you take a look at how other people see things, what they find important and what they notice in their work lives. I think it’s the right approach to take to NOT force anyone to joining your club of bloggers, but at the same time, I feel you should try to be involved in opportunities like this as they arise.

The problem is, where does all the content come from? Personally, I try to contribute here and on mailing lists (such as the IAI mailing list and I try to do my best to be an effective editor at Boxes and Arrows and I even try to provide insightful responses to questions at LinkedIn. That’s a lot for a guy who also has to author 4 papers every 2 weeks for Business Administration courses and has a pretty full load at work, as well.

Is it okay to provide duplicated content? Is it wrong to actively not participate? Should someone try to provide topics for people to respond to in order to help foster the community of the bloggers?

Where does it begin or end?