We hope it is still tasty, filled with nourishment
that we left it better than when we were here

For the Web, much like a child,
may throughout its life reflect
the hearts, the hope, the desires
of all humanity
poured out on its pixels

Dancing on a billion dreams
let the good shine
for this is the time
now is the time

To remember that the Web is humanity
and it’s greatness is determined by
each individual

Let us
break of this bread,
and peace be upon us all.

Each of us:
The foundation of
our future

Is it aging that has made me this way? Discouragement with the dramas
of our industry—the technology wars, the fragmentation of a
once-clear vision of what The Web was meant to and could become—could these things be in my way? Or is it that I just haven’t stopped
to give myself a chance to have a life and life is calling to me now—but I have yet to reconcile the relationship and remain stuck, or
moving toward that desired balance at a snail’s pace?

Here’s some advice from the heart: There is nothing wrong with giving
your life to an ideal. I have done it, and the rewards are rich—
friends from all over the world, respect from my peers, to have
traveled much of the earth and been made welcome upon it—that is the
miraculous part of giving your work your all, it comes back. Just
don’t let what happened to me happen to you—the work, the ideal
takes over too young and for too long, and you could easily end up
childless or without family, with little or no life structure or real
measure of how to reconcile this elusive balance.

I know eventually I will reconcile what work/life balance really means
for me. This pastry has been baked with love for you—work hard, do
beautiful and important work, and make a rich life for yourself in all
ways—for that will sustain you through your entire life.

What does this have to do with doing great design work? Getting off
the computer and into the world—interacting with the happiness of a
child among animals, sounds, smells and rich environments are all part
of refreshing ourselves as well as inspiring us through the sensory
joy of simply being.

So do yourself a favor this week. Get offline and go do something
that’s colorful, smelly, silly and joyous!

Of course this is deeply upsetting to me, and being far away from all my family members the need to connect with them, and most especially my mother, was immediate and extreme. Fortunately, via email, tweets and yes—even Facebook—the family rallied around as did many other friends and colleagues. This outpouring of love and consideration is what is keeping me strong right now.

As I said my goodbyes to the workshop to go and figure out what the next steps are going to be in terms of my Mom’s health and well-being, I thanked everyone and began to cry, speaking from my heart. This is why we’re here. This is what the Open Web and open communications technologies are for – to connect people across the world. To strengthen, to educate, to empower and most importantly, to love.

Mortality reminds us in very cold, frightening terms how fragile our life and times truly are. The Web, which is a naturally social and interactive communications platform, can help bring us all closer. The fighting, the drama, the debates – they all become irrelevant in these very mortal moments. Let us all reach for the greatness within ourselves and put it into our Web work every day, because even on those days we feel it’s overwhelming or doesn’t matter, it really truly does. One world, one Web, one love, my brothers and sisters.

Within a few moments we were engaged in a kitty vs. human romp all over
the house, each of us chasing after her toy. By the time we stopped,
with at least one of us exhausted (you can imagine who), the
electricity had been on for a half hour, the WiFi back on. When I went
back to work, I was able to refocus the article into something that
made sense.

Why we lose or deny us the power of play, whether it be with our
children or pets and especially each other, is a disturbing question.
I encourage everyone to ask if they play enough. And if you find you
don’t, I encourage you join me in learning that play is as equally if
not more important to the creative process than the hyperfocus we tend
to give our work.

Let’s play!

If you seek comfort in your work, then claim that comfort – for you
deserve it. But if you seek revolution and evolution? Desire to become
more involved in evangelizing or advocating a given position? Ask a
pauper, or ask a Queen, and you will come to understand what it means
to be both a pauper and infinitely wealthy in the same moment. You
will also learn that the greatest equalizer of all is found in our
moments of shared truth, no matter where we sit in the grand stadium
of life.

To me, that is the greatness of the Web – that we can become equals -
that we are made equals in our limitations and our vision. And through
our conversations – the open discourse that drives an Open Web, we
will certainly extend beyond our limitations and visions to new levels
of insight and inspiration.

Move through the world, and work to not be afraid to face the facts of
poverty or to be enthralled by royalty. We are equals in those kisses
and wounds, and uplifted by shared resources and truth.

Over the next year, I was brutally disavowed of this
by my students, who regularly would grouse about the lack of “real”
color on the Web. Almost as new to the Web as my students, I was
struggling for a way to explain this to them that showed that 216
colors was actually a luxury for many people in 1995 – up to and
including working Web designers, who often had to limit the palette
even more if they were serving users without 256 or more color
support. Then one day, I stopped by my office to pick something up,
and one of the daytime professors whom I’d not met was there. She
jumped up and gave me a hug, expressing great personal warmth and an
artist’s excitement about the Web. “Molly,” she said. “I feel so free
on the Web. I’ve been working in print design my entire career and I
finally get to work with more than four colors!”

Suffice it to say, I had found a positive answer for my students! At
the time, her response was very unique. Nowadays, we never really need
to think about color limitations anymore, except insofar as those who
take extra care in designing for forms of color blindness. Otherwise,
on-screen color palettes in the millions exist in today’s Web design
and development. It is a solved problem, and if that problem can be
solved, so can the many others which we face. Go forth today and color
the world, and embrace our progress as creatives, technologists and an
industry.

The answer is still “I don’t know.” People refer to me as an expert. The truth is, the only thing I’m expert at is not knowing! At its essence, this is perhaps the ongoing fascination for those of us working the ever-changing Web. We don’t know. Every day is a new adventure, every project an opportunity to learn. Out of this experience, I’ve learned we workers of the Web should be proud of all the things we don’t know, because it opens up a literal world of opportunity and discovery.