Slightly Remarkable

Several weeks ago, my employer sent my coworkers, boss, her boss, and myself to a one-day seminar downtown to learn about development (a term that has a specific meaning in the context of my employer’s line of business; if you don’t know what it means, don’t worry about it). During the course of this educational session, we were provided a series of 20 questions that we answered about ourselves, and 20 additional questions about how we believed others perceived us. It was a personality quiz, of sorts.

Now, I’m awfully skeptical of personality quizzes, because I believe they are self-fulfilling prophecies. At least, for a person such as myself, the results are always skewed to nearly exactly what I expected, and that isn’t because I know myself very well, but rather because I anticipate how the answers I choose will affect my results. In other words, I have an introverted personality because I answer questions that I know will classify me as an introvert. Savvy?

Nevertheless, I was asked to participate, and so I did. I’m not sure that I fully grasped the results, and I’m not sure that I ever will, but I am still, to this day, learning more and more about myself as a result of this personality quiz. If nothing else, the personality quiz was my key takeaway from the seminar.

So, let’s talk about this quiz. It’s set up in a very interesting way, classifying you primarily as one of four personality types (although everyone has some measure of each!). They are:

Dominance

The “take charge” trait

Extroversion

The “people” trait

Pace

The “patience” trait

Conformity

The “systems” trait

Now, from first to last, these traits follow a trend. The most dominant personality is strong and cares nothing of what other people think; the extroverted personality is very people-oriented and seeks happiness in relationships (and these aren’t only people-based; one could conceivably have a relationship that relates the sun to happiness itself). Pace personalities are introverted in nature and focus largely on the way they are seen by others, rather than how they feel or wish to behave of themselves. And, lastly, conformity personalities are heavily systematic, supportive, and find comfort in routines and predictable, planned patterns.

I’m not going to go through and describe what the quiz is or how it works. I am, however, going to talk about some of my own personal results of this quiz and what I believe they actually mean to me.

The most interesting thing that I find is that, while I believe this quiz nailed me perfectly, there are a few items that I strongly disagree with. Or did, when I first read them. Yet, over time, having seen myself and the way I behave, I have discovered that the aspects of my personality identified by the quiz which I most disagreed with are, in fact, the most true. My own personal denial of some of these aspects of my personality would make it evident that they wouldn’t appear in the results, since I answered the questions for the quiz, and yet the quiz results disagreed with my answers.

I won’t go through the results and analyze them in their entirety — at least not in this entry — but what I do want to focus on is one such segment of the quiz results which I believed was inaccurate at first glance. Today, it occurred to me that this aspect of my personality was accurate: “seeks a common purpose.”

Everyone has more or less of the four qualities that this survey calculates. My level of conformity, for example, indicates that I am “careful, thorough, dependable, conservative and systems oriented.” That’s pretty accurate. My dominance level? Agreeable as well: “You are supportive, collaborative and modest. You may place importance on security and prefer to work with leadership that has a strong sense of direction and purpose.”

Whoa, wait. That last part has some interesting implications. Okay, yeah, I’m supportive, collaborative and modest, I suppose. I can live with that. But what’s this “prefer to work with leadership that has a strong sense of direction and purpose”?

Most clearly, that last sentence means I naturally seek a support role, being the reliable platform upon which someone else — with a strong sense of leadership — may ride to pursue a goal that we share in common. Now, I never saw that as “seeks a common purpose” until today.

The quiz analyzes several other aspects of one’s personality, in addition to their primary traits. That is, their decision-making process or, more precisely, their sense of logic. Furthermore, the quiz analyzes “energy styles,” which dictate one’s velocity and endurance for approaching and accomplishing tasks. Of these energy results, the quiz states that primarily, my energy style is “allegiance.” And what does that mean? It means I have “a follow-through, supportive style. Dedicated to completing a predetermined project,” and, get this, a “sense of connection to a common purpose.”

Whoa, there it is again. I’ve always believed myself to be a leader of sorts, but that’s really an aspect of my dominance overtaking my extroversion; in other words, on a scale, my personality is more dominant than extroverted, but far more pace and conformity than the other two. Thus, if I am put in an authoritative role or in a position where it is I that must make decisions for myself or a group, then I step up to the role and take charge. However, I’m not typically given that opportunity, and I don’t frequently put myself into that position intentionally because of my stronger pace/conformity tendencies.

So, back to this whole “common purpose” thing. For some time, I disagreed with the notion that I was remotely interested in a common purpose, and this I believe stems from another aspect of my personality, which says that I “choose to work alone, and will prefer to interact with close friends and associates.” Yet, I really do find gratification in supporting a common purpose.

This morning, as I was returning home from a quick coffee trip, I found myself at a red light in front of a beige Chevy truck. When the light turned green, the person in front of me was driving slowly, and the person in the lane to my left was driving even more slowly. Naturally, I made my way in front of the person in the left lane to achieve the legal speed limit. This Chevy truck, seemingly reluctant at first, eventually became dissatisfied with his position behind the other vehicle and eventually changed lanes to get behind me once again.

As we continued down the road, we managed to find ourselves at another red light. Round 2. This time, there were no vehicles in front of me, but there was a person in the right lane, which I needed to compete for, as my turn was just a short distance from the light. The Chevy truck was behind me, and when the light turned green, I sped up quickly to get in front of the person in the right lane. This is where I felt a connection to the driver in the Chevy truck. After I sped up quickly and moved into the other lane, the truck also sped up and actually passed me rather quickly (despite my reaching the speed limit already).

How did I feel at that moment? I felt empowered! More accurately, I felt like I had empowered someone else, which makes clear my desire to seek a supportive role. I felt like I had started something, built the foundation upon which this fellow motorist sailed his ship. I felt connected to this person, whom I, through my own behavior, empowered to reach his potential, to achieve the goal that he or she really wanted. Sometimes, I think people on the road are careful about what will happen — the risks involved with doing what they want to do, either by law enforcement or disapproval from other motorists. Yet, this person on the road today was able to do what he really wanted because I showed him that he can. And that connection brought me gratification.

To recap, it seems that one’s connection to a common purpose is derived from naturally finding satisfaction in playing a supportive role. That role points a person of my personality type to follow someone whose purpose is the same or similar to my own, and because following that person and supporting them provides gratification, so does connecting with anyone who follows the same mindset or shares the same or similar goals.

It’s funny that, zooming out a little bit, as much of an introvert as I am, it seems that even introverts seek connection with people in some, often invisible capacity. Introverts and extroverts aren’t so different; we’re people, we just interact differently at a different pace, but ultimately we seek the same results. Friendships, relationships that matter, happiness, and a connection with others through some medium — common purpose, most notably for a supportive introvert such as myself.

More details, I think, can be extrapolated from this information. I believe I’ve merely scraped the tip of the iceberg from what this information really means about who I am and how I behave. I’m quite amazed at the accuracy of this quiz, though, and how I can continue learning more about myself every day by continuously evaluating and analyzing myself, and comparing those infrequent and oft impromptu epiphanies with the answers that have not yet been revealed to the my mind as true understanding (although they already exist on paper in these quiz results, I just can’t see them!).

Have you ever been in a conversation with a friend or acquaintance and somewhere in the midst of this conversation realized that all you could talk about was yourself? I have — and simply by saying “I have,” I am guilty of the very scenario I just described. Humanity seems naturally self-centered, and because we think in terms relative to ourselves, the way we perceive the world and relate to others in the grand scheme of things is based on our beliefs, experiences, and prognostications. This is reflected in our conversations with others. When your friend tells you he is not feeling well, he is telling you about himself; and when you respond, “I hate being sick,” you are expressing compassion based on your own experiences. Consider how you may respond if you had never been sick. Would you say “I have never been sick”? “That doesn’t sound like fun”? “My [insert relative name] was sick recently”? Isn’t it interesting that we seem to respond instinctively by refocusing a conversation on ourselves or our experiences?

You may wonder the actual cause of this self-centered point-of-view. After all, is it because we are conditioned from childhood to think in terms relative to ourselves and our experiences, or is this a natural inclination, and if so, why? Personally, I believe that it is a combination of both, but primarily a natural inclination based on a shrouded factor: knowledge. If it were merely based on our ascension to adolescence and interaction with others who also express themselves self-centeredly, then the question becomes, where did these people with whom one interacts learn to express themselves self-centeredly? Such an explanation is merely a sociological spiral with unknown roots or basis. The reason must be more natural to humanity itself than some attained or learned trait.

This brings me back to my point about knowledge. The more convinced or informed a person is about a topic, the greater the extent he is (usually) willing and able to explain it. Have you ever wondered how a nerd can be the most awkward type of individual in conversation, until you ask him about the half-life of carbon and how it is used to ascertain an estimate of the age of natural materials? Suddenly your question has somehow breathed life into him, and he begins pouring a wealth of information upon your pitifully uneducated essence (all right, I admit I took it to the extreme on that one). Of course, this lack of self-centeredness is only vaguely interesting to you, which is why you are no longer interested in having a conversation now that he is actually talking, because it is not something that interests you (which is why you know little or nothing about it); this has the added negative effect of occasionally making said nerd appear arrogant, as if he is showing off. In actuality, he is attempting to express himself in terms of what he knows. Many people know nothing better than themselves or the experiences they have had, and because that is where their knowledge lies it is the focal point from which all their conversation stems. It is not a sociological phenomenon, it is not a learned adaptation; it is the result of where one’s knowledge lies. (Of course, you could argue further that the reason one’s knowledge lies in a specific area is due to his passion for that subject, as would be the case in the above nerd example, but that goes a little beyond the scope of this entry. But passion is attractive, even if you’re a nerd, provided you have a fashion-sense.)

Although this is not necessarily a bad aspect of human personality, it can be undesirable at times, especially when it occurs in excess. Besides the fact that it appears to be ubiquitous, we often can’t express ourselves in any way other than what we know. If we want to discuss a topic, focusing on that topic often swings right back around to how we have personally experienced or interacted with said topic. How can we prevent or to some degree suppress the frequency and severity of this type of behavior? Two ways to circumnavigate it are general terminology and abstract thinking. That may sound intimidating, but both are used quite commonly, and curiously enough, they are primarily used by those who are better at conversing in an interesting, engaging way.

General terminology is the approach to conversation where, rather than revolving around yourself, you generalize the topic and speak within that frame of reference. For example, if a friend of mine is telling me about Nicole Kidman and her performance in the recent remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I cannot relate directly because I do not know anything about the Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Nicole Kidman, but because I have sufficient knowledge with regard to movies in general, I can speak in general terms to continue the conversation and, of course, learn something new. My response may be something along the lines of a question related to the topic, “What other movies does she play in?” to get more information; or perhaps I have a statement I’d like to make, such as “Horror films are awesome,” a generalized statement about horror films. This is better than responding with something along the lines of “I don’t care for horror films” and putting yourself and your conversational partner in an awkward stalemate until another topic is derived. It is also acceptable to sway the topic slightly to something that either interests you more or that you have more knowledge about. For example, you might be interested in knowing more about the person you’re speaking with and developing a deeper friendship, so you might say, “Are horror films your favorite genre?” or ask how frequently your friend participates in movie-seeing adventures. Any of these are acceptable, but the key is not to respond with a statement to which your friend cannot relate (i.e., a statement about yourself).

The second technique I mentioned is abstract thinking. Abstract thinking is, more or less, the ability to pull related concepts out of thin air and use them in conversation. This demonstrates that, although you have little or no knowledge about the topic you are discussing, you can understand (based on context or other details) where your friend is coming from. This often turns out to be a simple analogy or comparison to something you can relate to, such as relating a horror film to a bad dream, without actually diving into the little details that separate the two. Abstract thinking may also encompass several other techniques, but the idea is that you are discussing concepts rather than specifics.

As in my other posts, I don’t by any means claim to have a copious amount of knowledge about sociology or psychology, but I do find it interesting and have consequently chosen to write about my observations in these areas. So if you have something to add, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Although I am not exactly a psychiatrist — nor do I claim to be — I do spend a healthy (or unhealthy, depending how you look at it) amount of time meditating on myself in various ways. Searching within myself is often both revealing and enlightening, and I have discovered that, besides getting to know myself better (which, believe it or not, does not exclusively come natural), I am often able to improve who I am based on my findings. And yes, I have done this for a long time. A friend of mine at one point mentioned that my introspectiveness (which she did not see as self-centeredness, thankfully) would eventually dissipate once I “found my place.” I have yet to do so. Perhaps some eventually reach a point in their lives where they are satisfied with who they are, but I can never seem to achieve a level of change that makes me satisfied — each change stimulates more thought and thus more change.

Before you accuse me of egocentrism, allow me point out that Benjamin Franklin was similarly introspective. It’s not self-absorption or self-glorification. It’s an attempt to discover personality flaws, fears, and inadequacies within oneself, and of course, make the necessary lifestyle changes to remedy or eliminate these undesirable (yet natural) traits. It’s self-improvement.

With this in mind, let me tackle a couple of things. First of all, since I began driving several years ago, I have always had a slight precaution with being on the road. I don’t refer to it as a fear, really, because at the time it was a lack of confidence. With time and experience, driving has become second nature. Yet, interestingly, I have come to consider the possibility of an accident a very real fear of mine. The primary reason I now consider it a fear — although, by no means do I allow it to hinder me from driving — is that I frequently dream about getting in a wreck. In fact, I have begun keeping a track of how and when I dream of hitting another vehicle. Typically these dreams are not situations that are particularly dangerous — I dreamed last night that I hit a red truck in a parking lot — but, nevertheless, I have the fear of the event actually taking place in reality.

Having said all that, I am beginning to discover that this fear is merely an effect, not a cause, and may largely be based on my personality and upbringing. I’m not an overtly cautious individual, but I am careful, particularly if dangers are involved. My fear of an accident seems to stem not from the accident itself (although, to be clear, I am not jolted at the idea of being physically harmed in a wreck), but rather it seems to be from an overall fear of making a mistake, which in turn, seems to be directly related to the perfectionist aspect of my personality.

In other words, you might say that because I am a perfectionist, I react cautiously to taking any action that may result in a mistake. If I am unprepared, I see taking such an action as a possible mistake, and since a mistake seems to make me feel greatly disappointed, I always seek preparation prior to implementation. This seems logical and sensical, but the reality is that perfection is not always a possibility, and I have found that very difficult to accept. However, being conscious of the fact has made me realize that I should be prepared not for an action that could potentially result in a mistake, but for a mistake itself.

To be clear, I haven’t nailed down the exact method to qualify whether or not I am, in fact, a perfectionist. I cannot argue that the evidence I gave above indicates that I am a perfectionist, as that would be circular reasoning (these fears are because I am a perfectionist, and I am a perfectionist because of these fears — yes, quite circular). I will say that I have witnessed the personality trait of perfection in my mother, and that even if this is not a genetic quality, having been raised by her would surely affect to what degree I seek perfection (in this case, 100% of the time).  A quick Google search suggests that most people can only pinpoint the effects — not the causes — of perfectionism. However, I seem to meet all the qualifications perfectly.

We’ve all heard the phrase “play to your strengths” before, and that is my intention at this point. If I am indeed a perfectionist by nature, then instead of working to eliminate an entire aspect of my personality (and, by extension, my person), shouldn’t I attempt to channel it in a positive way? I believe that is the case, and since my perfectionism has been very helpful in providing wisdom (or at least avoiding circumstances in which much wisdom would be required) and prognosis, I can’t say that my fear of mistakes or accidents is a really bad quality to have.

Be advised, I’ll be keeping this blog updated with details regarding my nightmares — well, that’s a strong term. Better said, my dreams about making mistakes that result in accidents. My dreams seem to be a manifestation of my fears, after all, as I rarely dream at all otherwise.

Speaking of driving, I have noted a curious change in behavior over the last few weeks. Whereas I used to be the guy in a four-cylinder car driving 90mph on the feeder and taking 45mph turns, I seem to be very content driving at whatever pace the person just ahead of me permits. I find myself no longer complaining when people drive 10 – 20 mph below the speed limit, and instead of going around them, honking, and quite plainly displaying the extent of my American Sign Language vocabulary (which, naturally, consists exclusively of flipping them off), I am content to drive behind them at whatever pace they choose. I haven’t been able to relate this change to anything else, but I have noticed that my frequent and sometimes painful anxiety attacks, which often leave me seeking the nearest restroom, have subsided for the most part. My guess (and I may be wrong) is that I am a calmer individual overall. I may just be familiar and comfortable to a point where I am no longer anxious, or I may be more relaxed for some reason — perhaps a lack of stress. It’s an interesting thought and requires much more investigation, so I’ll leave it open for the time being.

In other news (or, perhaps something remotely interesting to you, as a reader or random Googler), I have made some fairly significant changes to the site. I have upgraded to Wordpress 2.7, which is really shaping up, and installed a few plugins and widgets (specifically, you’ll notice that the Delicious links on the homepage have fully visible comments, and the homepage sidebar includes tweets). I plan on making additional changes sometime soon and separating these longer entries to one side, with the more frequent, techie, and often more interesting posts from Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, and so on. And no, I don’t expect this means a complete redesign, although that may happen sometime in the future. I certainly don’t want to revert to a mostly black-and-white design like most of the more famous bloggers have (for some odd reason — if this is a trend, I can’t wait for it to end, Shaun Inman/Jason Santa Maria/Andy Clarke/others!). I’m not saying it’s ugly, but their older designs were so much cooler, and now it seems they’re just too popular/busy to make their own sites look nice (or maybe they find it frivolous?).

See you next time, my infrequent and possibly non-existent readers. ;-)

Dear Apple Inc.,

You may not know me. In fact, you may not care. But, I am writing to you in hopes that you will share a brief moment of your time to hear a couple thoughts that I have regarding the future of Apple as it relates to the health of figurehead Steve Jobs.

Now, despite having recently become an avid Apple fan and returning customer, I am concerned about the health of CEO and face of Apple Steve Jobs. In specific, though, I am worried about your future as a company. Although Mr. Jobs has allegedly overcome a rare form of pancreatic cancer and is working through a hormonal imbalance that has caused undue weight loss, it is becoming increasingly evident that Mr. Jobs will not — much as we may wish — live forever. The fact that Mr. Jobs’ health is so critical is easily seen when the stock price of Apple sways so quickly based on reports of Mr. Jobs’ health. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that. You already know. Why else would you have attempted to conceal details regarding Mr. Jobs’ health to the best of your ability during his struggle with pancreatic cancer?

In all fairness, I do wish that Mr. Jobs continues living a long and healthy life, but as a man ages, he naturally incurs more health problems as the immune system breaks down and the body wears with age. Since Mr. Jobs is not superhuman — mentally, perhaps, but not physically — we know that eventually his health will be a real issue, an unrecoverable issue, to the point where he must retire. When this circumstance becomes a reality, there is no doubt in my mind that Apple will take a hit from this news. This is inevitable — no one can live up to Mr. Jobs’ name as it stands.

The question now becomes, what can Apple do to make this inevitable event cushioned, less detrimental? My suggestion is to create a new face for Apple, a shift from the face of Jobs to the face of another charismatic, trustworthy, honest, cool dude (after all, that’s what Jobs is, isn’t it?). It may seem too early to reinvent an image that glows so brightly, and indeed you are right. Yet, Apple’s face has Mr. Jobs written all over it, and that face is slowly fading out. Naturally, the way to curb this problem is to nip it in the bud. I recommend that Apple begin moving toward a new face and slowly provide a transition so that faith and credibility — much of which is held by Steve Jobs — are seceded by a successor. Phil Schiller seems to be your worldwide marketing executive and first choice, but now you must qualify him based on his charisma, because for Apple, it is about image. It is about the “cool factor.”

Now, Apple, I must ask you. Who will be the next face of Apple? Will it be Phil Schiller? Please, choose soon. Not only as a customer am I eager to see this new face, but your investors will certainly be uniquely interested in the future of Apple, the success of which is largely attributed directly to Steve Jobs. I don’t think that Apple will continue so strongly without a figurehead, and it would seem your investors agree with me.

To clarify my reason for concern regarding the future of Apple — I think we both know that nothing is written without purpose and intended audience — as a customer, I chiefly enjoy the utility and simplicity of your hardware and software products. Unlike what some may suggest, I have completely switched to Apple products because of their feature set and ease of use. To ensure that I may continue receiving the highest quality products on the market, it is in my best interest to ensure that you, Apple, continue providing them. To that effect, I am seeking your attention, if for a moment, to consider your future and how the decisions you make now will affect your customers later.

Please consider deeply my thoughts on this topic. I don’t expect a response — you may never even see this letter — but I pray for Steve Jobs’ health, and I pray for many more years of the highest quality products Apple has so keenly developed in recent years.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Jona
Just another blogger at Slightly Remarkable.com, and not simply an Apple fan boy.

To whom it may concern (or more specifically, dear Al Gore & associates):

This blog entry may be of particular interest to you. You see, I am a Texan, and if that is not a sufficiently clear indicator that I completely disagree with you and everything you and the democratic party stand for, allow me to provide an example that nature has divinely revealed to me.

Today I witnessed an event that has not occurred in recent memory. In some areas of Texas such as Dallas, it is not uncommon to find at least mildly snowy weather. However, in Houston, Texas, it rarely ever snows. Today it snowed. In Houston.

If global warming is such an environmental problem, please explain to me why this region of the world, which should be hot as the Sahara, is receiving frozen precipitation? Yes, the truth may be inconvenient, but for whom? I think that snow in South Texas is perhaps one of the most obvious indicators that global warming is not a severe, immediate threat. But wouldn’t that be an inconvenient truth for environmentalists? We can’t have facts like that shatter your image, now, can we?

Well then, if you’ll all excuse me. I am expecting a shipment of polar bears and penguins for my new ice farm. I’ve also hired a few helping hands from Alaska. The Eskimos are turning out to be a great resource!

Many of us today are aware of accessibility and usability issues. We have Section 508, the Web Accessibility Initiative, and a host of other accessibility-related web sites and organizations.

I myself am an accessibility-aware Web developer, and I have made it my job to ensure accessibility standards are met in Web sites I work on, whether I am programming in JavaScript, writing HTML, using image replacement techniques, or beautifying pages with CSS. But this entry is not about Web standards, and it’s not about me. It’s about a new kind of standard; we need an initiative for something else.

Web Appearance Standards

Now, I’ve no idea at the moment just how such an initiative could be organized, but before we get into creating an online organization for making Web sites in general more beautiful, let’s look at the reasons behind my preposterous idea.

The Problem

Let’s identify a few problems with the Web as it is. First off, people are used to ugly and poorly designed Web sites. It has become commonplace for even the most popular Web sites to be ugly, poorly designed, huge in terms of page weight (kilobytes), and broken. I see more personal blogs and hole-in-the-wall (pardon the expression) Web sites that few people get to see, and these Web sites are beautiful, light weight, easy to use, and just plain fun to look at. Yet, when I visit Yahoo!, MySpace, MSN, Amazon, and so many more of the most popular sites on the Internet, they all have poorly selected typefaces, ugly or difficult-to-use interfaces, bland colors, a complete lack of simplicity (information overload), and so many other inadequacies that they would cause any competent designer to vomit. It is severely appalling to witness such high-end Web sites with a complete lack of professional, quality appearance. It is sickening. The only reason these Web sites succeed is because the public is used to seeing ugly, half-assed Web sites that only function correctly a fraction of the time.

Case in point: MySpace is a perfect example. This Web site is ugly as they come, and despite their recent changes (oh, yeah, they added gradients to their ugly menu — big deal), there is no sign of improvement. The Web site is, and always has been, ugly as sin (and I mean the worst kind of sin). They continue to try to develop new features, and yet for some reason frequently have to post messages to their users that certain features or aspects of the site are down. At least once per week, I get an error message that is “forwarded to the MySpace technical group” simply when logging in.

Like our wonderful accessibility standards projects, which have done an excellent job at creating buzz in the online community and slowly creeping into the mainstream, a Web appearance standard initiative will require a great amount of exercise to provide direction and consulting for both existing and new Web sites alike to carefully design their Web sites with appearance, accessibility, and usability in mind. Fortunately, many (I would say most) accessibility-aware Web sites and developers have a great eye for developing beautiful Web sites while adhering to standards — although the same cannot be said for the majority of the actual accessibility standards Web sites themselves, ironically — but we need to bring into focus appearance as well.

The Mission

“The Web Appearance Standards project is an initiative to strongly and adamantly encourage the aesthetic and visual amelioration of all Web sites while supporting complementary initiatives for accessibility and usability standards.”

The Road

Now I’ve had my rant — and perhaps that’s all this really is — but I think it’s time for action. I haven’t started this organization, and I currently don’t have the time or resources to do so. Perhaps someone else does. If so, the Web site will have my full backing, and any support I can provide in my free time.

Following are three things that need to be done to get this started.

First, make a Web site. WASIP.org (Web Appearance Standards Initiative Project — I know it’s long, but WASI was taken; if you’ve got better ideas, go for it). This Web site should exemplify the beauty that the project aims to spread, but also meet accessibility and usability standards.

Second, spread the word. Build buzz. Make it the next Web Accessibility Initiative. Get all of those popular bloggers like Jeffrey Zeldman, Dave Shea, etc. involved and on-board. If the initiative becomes a large enough organization, it will have a great amount of political influence in the business realm, which will weigh heavily in favor of raising the bar for Web design and usability, which brings me to my third and final point.

Third, start getting in contact with these larger, more popular Web sites and get them involved. Pressure them to redesign their Web sites. As a public relations tool, it will be useful for them, as they can have some kind of stamp of approval for beautification or something. Obviously this would be derived by a committee of industry-leading designers. Furthermore, the companies would benefit because their users would benefit. For example, I use Facebook instead of MySpace for two reasons: it looks nice, and it’s fully functional, 99% of the time. The effects are not immediately realized, but as a late competitor into a social-networking scene, Facebook is actually doing more than phenomenally well against is less-than-beautiful counterpart.

The Future

The Web has an incredible, powerful future ahead of it. It’s still very young, but already we are seeing problems, and these initiatives are very critical (particularly as early on as possible) to nip issues in the bud before they become even more severe down the road. When Web sites are designed as an afterthought, or by people who have no experience designing with high-quality, or by lazy, careless individuals who are satisfied with the status quo and working their 9-5 jobs, then everyone loses. Don’t let that happen. Find vision. Find visual.

Oh, and before you post a comment about it: yes, I am an avid Taylorist.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned many times how fond I am of entrepreneurship, a model that creates the basis for wealth generation through the free market system. Without getting into politics, although the short story I am about to tell you may involve them to a degree, capitalist economics is the foundation on which I have made my living. It is where I have come from, and apparently, where I am staying.

Yes, I am staying here. Not because I am unable to move on or find better things, though I would be hard-pressed to discover something more gratifying and fruitful, but because I can go nowhere else. The power behind creating a business and independently generating wealth and prosperity lies not just in the sheer amount and quality of its benefits, but it has one additional critical factor that may be frequently overlooked: it is open.

Allow me to demonstrate a life experience which has been in development over the past six months. In April of this year, after being dumped by a gorgeous girlfriend for reasons unbeknownst to me to this day, I was hired as a part-time Web Specialist at my college campus, LSC-Montgomery. My supervisor, Elisa, whom I am still acutely fond of, had been keen on teaching me the ins and outs of her job since day one. From the beginning, my technical background made the transfer of her knowledge and experience into my hands very swift and smooth. Within about a month, I had mastered the majority of the part-time job I was hired for, plus a great deal of the work she did on a regular basis.

I won’t go into the details concerning whether or not her teaching me so much was intentional or for another purpose. Those suggestions are not mine to make. The point here is that I learned Elisa was looking for another position within the college about three, perhaps four months after I’d been hired. She was applying for a technical training job on the same campus. In addition, she applied for a job at University of Houston as well, but evidently she did not expect to get the job, since she barely qualified for the position (or something like that).

Not long after, my supervisor ended up getting the job at UH. I was very excited for her (because she’s a great worker and deserves it, if not better). She mentioned that it was possible when her position became available, I may be eligible to apply.

Several months passed during which I had been doing both my part-time and Elisa’s full-time jobs in my part-time hours. A recent district-wide incentive to merge the infrastructure of the colleges in our college system brought on confusion and possibility of the removal, reorganization, or change of various positions, including the position I was hoping to apply for — the Program Coordinator, Web Content & Design position (that’s the official title). After this period, perhaps two months ago, the position was finally posted. When I saw it, I was excited that they had removed an associates degree requirement (since I had not the privilege of being born a few years earlier, as I am working on, but do not currently have, an associates degree). This made me eligible to apply for the position.

As a hard working and highly capable individual, I’ve managed to more than surpass the highest expectations. I have done a lot of work, and although I may sound like I am bragging, I have put a lot of work into efficiently completing all of the innumerable tasks that come my way. I have filled in some very large shoes while still wearing my own, and although part of the reason is simply because I am a hard worker, I had hoped that my display of capabilities and eagerness to exceed expectations would be a testament of how great a candidate I was. Surely this would provide a great advantage when the interviews began.

To review, my qualifications are quite important. First, I know what the job entails and how to do it. Second, I have proven that I am capable of doing it (and more) in less than half the time than my predecessors. Third, I am working on getting my associates degree, although I do not already have it (it does take a couple years); I have a GPA that has gotten me Phi Theta Kappa invites and assorted college letters with congratulations to my academic achievements. I have never gotten a grade lower than an A on a written paper in my entire academic lifetime. Fourth, I have years of experience in the field of Web design, content, development, programming, technical skills, graphics design, editing, journalism, and so on. I have written code that has been published in a book. I have spent six months providing that I can quickly and thoroughly learn anything that comes my way. I picked up a manual on the Lasso programming language and started writing programs for my supervisor in the same day. Fifth, I had glowing recommendations from my ex-bosses from past jobs, clients I have done work for, and of course Elisa herself (a huge factor). And sixth, according to both the dean of our department and the president of our college campus, my performance in the two interviews for the position was outstanding.

So what is all of this ranting about? I got the position right?

Wrong. After six months of work and meeting all the qualifications, I did not get the job. “Yeah, he’s got everything we need, but — aw, no letters behind his name.” The degree is not a requirement, but it is the only reason I did not get the position. So who got it? They “want to keep searching.” That means they probably won’t have anyone in that position until sometime next year, since everything moves as a crawling pace in such a huge bureaucracy. And considering the current situation that the college system is in with respect to the college Web sites (I won’t reveal the details), even if they hired someone today, that person would have to go through so much training that they would be useless until after all the work they should be doing was already done. To make a long story short, I’m the person they need; no one else can do it at this point, because you are not going to find a person who has the knowledge of the current systems like I do (and that is needed to develop the new systems we are moving to).

So let’s see what this all boils down to. As I mentioned before, I’ve got a lot going for me. The only thing I don’t have is an associates degree. We’re not talking bachelors or masters, just associates, which I’m about 1/3 (maybe 1/2) completed with at this point. I would already be done, but I was born in 1989 and didn’t know about dual-credit classes until after I became a college student. So essentially, I am eligible but not hirable because I was born a year late. Yes, I just randomly got shafted.

What’s the reason behind this? Well, the dean of our department put it to me something like this (paraphrased). “I think it’s because they want to show the importance of having a degree.” Yeah, so we’re going to punish those who work hard and are more capable (and have more experience) than those who have degrees purely for the purpose of demonstrating how important it is to have a degree.

And this brings me back to my opening statements. I love entrepreneurship. It’s not just the potential to become filthy rich working for yourself (since you can never become rich by working for someone else). It’s not the fact that I can work from home and sleep in every day. It’s just because entrepreneurship is open. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have a degree. I can show you my work, and show you how capable I am. The problem with getting a degree and obsessing over mere letters behind your name? By the time you get the degree, everything you have learned is obsolete. This is how people at a higher education institute think, and it is exactly the reason why I see so much waste of resources (both human and monetary) across the entire system. I won’t go into the details, as I needn’t bash higher education institutions or their constituents further — I think my argument can be plainly seen.

To conclude my thoughts on this subject, for those of you who are attending college (and for some reason reading my blog), please remember that everything you learn will be expired, old, and useless by the time you get out of college. We live in a fast-paced information age, and what you learn today may be useless tomorrow. Keep in mind that if you are going for a web design degree, you should change your major to something that will be useful in the future (something like agriculture so you can feed yourself and your family when we go into another Great Depression due to financial institutions’ circumvention of regulatory requirements). It doesn’t matter what your degree is in. If you plan on working for someone else (and living a cozy, comfortable 9-5 job for the rest of your life, then retiring on social security that won’t be there by the time you’re 60), then you need letters behind your name.

Now, to address those of you who are smart, consider entrepreneurship. We need you. The market needs you. The economy needs you. Every single American — no, every single person on this planet needs you. You are the core of the wealth creation process, and it is from you that prosperity grows. If you are willing to put your heart and soul into creating and managing a business despite not knowing where your next paycheck will come from, then join us. The future awaits, and it is only darkened by increased taxes, lavish government spending, and unregulated economic exchanges.

That’s all for now, folks. I promise to resume blogging more normally, particularly now that I expect to be spending more time working from home now than ever (seeing as I am unsure how long my job at the college will last — I don’t want to leave them hanging without the support of an on-campus Web professional, although the vengeful side of me really would like to). Feel free to post comments on just how much you sympathize with my situation, and if you’re a perpetual college student or president of a college who has spent half of your life getting letters behind your name for bragging rights, please don’t bother commenting on anything, as I am really uninterested in hearing your defense. Only in a court of law can injustice be defended, not on my blog.

During this summer, I took a college U.S. history course. The course itself was nothing special — I’d heard it all before — but the instructor, an adjunct named Tracy Derks, incorporated interesting, curious information into his lectures. Of this information, one particular suggestion he made correlated 1950s comics and the video games of today.

Allow me to explain. During the 1950s, Americans began leaning toward righteousness and spiritual purity. Seemingly everyone was ardently conservative. Commonly, the ideal family was well-behaved and father always knew best. In fact, a TV show called “Father Knows Best” was quite popular during this time, as well as shows such as Leave It to Beaver and I Love Lucy. The ’50s also saw the rise of suburban communities, which further isolated families from cities and societies; this strengthened the influence of the nuclear (immediate) family drastically.

After World War II, young veterans returning home became enticed by the sexual and violent appeal lent by comic books. These books also found favor among young adults who had not been deeply involved in the War, more solidly establishing their prevalence. Particularly, comic books themed with horror, science fiction, romance, and to a lesser extent, westerns, saw a vast increase in popularity.

However, the conservative adults of the 1950s found comic books appalling and dangerous. Public outcry blamed comics for juvenile delinquency. Dr. Frederic Wertham wrote a book entitled, “Seduction of the Innocent,” which hit home for anti-comic book interest groups.

As a consequence, the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency held hearings concerning comic book violence and provocation. Furthermore, the immense public disapproval that resulted from such negative media coverage essentially forced the comic book companies to adopt what is known as the Comics Code Authority (CCA). This code was created by comic companies, as a form of self-censorship (or regulation).

After this policy was instituted, comics rapidly saw a decline in explicitness. Women, almost always depicted a voluptuous and stimulating, were scarcely distinguishable from men (save the hair), and a rapid decline in violent drawings ceased the appearance of blood altogether. (Additional aspects were included, but for the specifics of the code, there’s Wikipedia and Google.) The CCA continues, even today, as a regulatory system to provide considerably more wholesome yet still entertaining material.

Now you may well be wondering how this could be correlated to video games. If you are, once again, allow me to expound. In the same way that comics received public disapproval and became the subject of conservative activists’ primary concern, video games have, for some time now, achieved similarly mixed results. On one hand, teens and young adults today buy into video games and their twisted, gory, explicit visuals. This has produced success for the growing mature audience-only video game market. On the other hand, many adults and right-wing conservatives advocate the regulation, censorship, or in some cases banning, of video games due to the nature of their mature content. We can quickly see that, because no regulatory agency exists (although the ESRB does provide content ratings but not content regulations), the video game industry is essentially free to produce whatever content they want, whether it is pornographic, horrific, or inexplicably violent. Hence, the correlation becomes “Video games today, like the comics of the ’50s, are popular among young adults and shunned by the conservatives due to the explicit material they portray.”

Where does the correlation break down? Well, in the 1950s, public disapproval of comic books was surmised and elaborated in a book written by Dr. Frederic Wertham. This book was critical in the eventual outcome, the CCA. In our era, we too have a far right-wing conservative, who routinely files lawsuits and tries to ride on the existing contempt for video game violence and sexuality. This man’s name is Jack Thomson. However, unlike Dr. Wertham in the ’50s, Mr. Thomson, a lawyer, has not yet written a book. Unfortunately for Mr. Thomson — and all conservatives who are advocates of video game regulation — it seems, furthermore, that he has managed to draw more public outcry and negative media coverage towards himself with his extremist tactics.

Now, to clarify my perspective on this issue, this blog entry was not written to take sides or opine the beliefs of its author. The correlation was brought to my attention by a professor, and I have taken an interest in analyzing his suggestion. My analysis, however, does not yield a conclusion. Simply put, this entry was to elaborate on my professor’s brief suggestion that video games and comics are correlated. I investigated and have published the results of my findings here, for anyone who might be interested to read, digest, and discuss the correlation.

Note: that said, if you’re interested in hearing my opinion or relentless ramblings with respect to video game regulation, feel free to ask. I am not afraid to voice my opinion — it’s my blog, after all.

October 26th, 2006. Today is the second time I have been to this Excel class. It is boring, and so I have decided to take some notes on how boring it is.

I look across the room and see unexcited faces with shallow tones. I’m searching for some kind of life, but there is none to be found. The students sluggishly follow the teacher’s instructions. I sit at the desk, unimpressed. As the teacher essentially quotes the textbook verbatim, I move on ahead in the book. I’m about four pages ahead right now and have stopped working since I began writing on this piece of paper. [Editor's note: I write slowly, so time passes very quickly as I write.]

She continues teaching and cites what she considers an “ironic” story. A colleague of hers called her on the phone today asking how to insert a row in Excel. She said her friend admitted that it was a “silly question.” Silly, indeed!

This woman may have the experience to teach (in our first session, she mentioned she had at or near 10 years of experience teaching public school), but in no way has she indicated that she has the knowledge to do so. She constantly references the textbook because she doesn’t know what to do next.

I feel that I’m being somewhat unfair. Thus far, I’ve mainly bashed the instructor, who has yet to catch up to where I left off in the book.

The computers suddenly shut down while we are working. They appear to be restarting. Everyone comes alive when their faces aren’t glued to the screens that stare back at them in disgust. They seem relieved and begin to smile and laugh as the instructor takes this opportunity to prove a point — that one should save documents often to avoid loss of data.

An IT representative of the college visited the classroom, apologizing for the minor interruption. To my surprise, a student with a sense of humor suggested that the representative should purchase everyone a soda in reconciliation. My jaw drops in astonishment; there is movement in the room and the strong tension over everyone’s lips is temporarily alleviated.

The teacher has finally caught up to where I left off in the book, and I am now following steps as I write this report. It seems that I will have wasted another four hours by the time this class concludes.

As we slowly trot along, I find things to write about in short supply, but my left hand is thankful for that! [Editor's note: I am left handed.] I will continue to write, however, as I feel it is more entertaining than listening to my iPod instead of my teacher. In fact, I think I have spent more time documenting this long and boring lecture than I have in following the steps the instructor reads from the book.

I spent some time before the instructor arrived (about ten minutes late, I might add) and did some Visual BASIC programming. I had to rely on the visual IDE and help/reference manuals to get anything accomplished because I only know a little VB code, but I managed to create a form with two radio options and a button, and perform an alert message box depending on which radio option was selected. It is very simple, but it works and has a lot more potential use than learning something I already know, such as how to copy and paste data cells in Excel.

The knuckle on my pinky finger is almost completely secreted in black ink, and I know I should stop writing now. I tell myself this is worth it, and since I’ve no place to go, I might as well continue writing regardless of my hand’s awkward discoloration.

Tired as I am, if you could see the paper I am writing on, you’d know by the various doodles that writing alone doesn’t seem to consume all of my free time — the time when I’m not completing a step that the instructor articulates.

Since I’m out of things to write about, I have decided to begin describing the class, starting with the teacher. The instructor looks nearly 60, though I could be mistaken, and is wearing the same outfit she wore Tuesday. It’s a sea-green colored shirt with large buttons and a V-shaped collar and black slacks.

There are two rows in front of me, but the foremost one is empty. On my side of the room, in the row ahead of me, is a blonde-haired woman in a white sweater and gray slacks. She seems to get confused often and does things incorrectly. She usually catches up eventually without asking questions, though. So far today, she’s only asked one question because she couldn’t find the file that the instructor said to open — and let’s not forget that the instructor performed the requested action on a projector in front of this student’s face.

In the second row on the right-hand side of the room are two women. One wears a plain blue T-shirt and black sweatpants. I would refer to them as “running pants,” but it has become painfully obvious to me that this woman participates in no such activity. The woman to her right, barely visible behind the large woman that I just described, looks very much like the actor who plays the role of President on the Battlestar Galactica TV series. She is wearing a sleeveless sky blue shirt and blue jeans. Her hair is red, she is more slender than anyone else in the class, and she wears small glasses. By my estimate, she is around 45 to 50 years of age.

It’s now almost 8pm, which gives me an hour and 45 minutes to describe the remaining 6 students, excluding myself and my brother, who sits to my left on the third row.

Just across the room on my right are two more students who sit on the third row. The first, a blonde woman wearing a jean jacket, glasses, and black slacks, appears to be the most intelligent student. On several occasions she has pointed out solutions to problems that had the instructor puzzled. She looks to be no older than 40, perhaps 45, but she is well kept. To her right is a man who appears to be of hispanic descent. I cannot guess his age simply by looking at him, but he wears a pastel green short-sleeve collared shirt with palm trees on it and jeans which barely reach the ankles of his tennis shoes.

Behind me on the fourth and final row are a man and a woman. The man is a large blond with a very short goatee. He wears a baseball cap and probably consumes an unhealthy amount of beer on the weekends. Hopefully he can’t read this and doesn’t suspect I am making jest at his expense. He wears a dark blue T-shirt and I think jeans. I glanced behind me to gather this information while concealing my true intentions under actions like scratching my back or looking out the window behind us. However, the desk before this man obscures my view, and looking beneath the desk to see what pants he is wearing would probably arise suspicion in him, and that is something that I am not comfortable with. The woman two seats to his right is blonde and wears a maroon sweater. Her hair is short and it does not look good on her. She is in the near-retirement age, much like the rest of the class appears to be.

In the back right-hand side of the room are two women. The one on the left is the youngest in the class. I can tell because she brought her 5-year-old daughter to class with her. (After class concluded, it also occurred to me that her daughter brought crayons and M&M’s, which I observed on the floor as I exited.) This woman has glasses and wears a dark blue shirt with long sleeves and jeans. The woman to her right wears glasses and may possibly be the mother of the woman with a child. She wears a black sweater and I think jeans.

I am quickly concluding my class description because the teacher dismissed a few students who need to leave early due to the weather. It has been raining since the afternoon, and by now I’m sure many of the students will have complications reaching their homes. Naturally, the entire class has decided that it’s time to go as well, and so it appears we’ll be leaving soon. It is not yet 8:30pm, though the class is scheduled to conclude at 9:45pm.

I briefly ventured to the closest restroom where I relieved my urinary bladder and deliberately used the same screeching faucet that I had used on Tuesday. On my way back to the classroom, I peeked through a nearby window to observe the pouring rain. We will be soaked. We were smart to bring an umbrella, but at this point I feel it is practically useless.

The teacher has gone now as well as the rest of the students, and I am wrapping this paper up. My brother has developed a growing curiosity in the contents of my constant writing during this class period, and so I feel obliged to share it with him following my conclusion on this document. With that said, it is time to go now and I am heading off into the rain. Good night, may the weather be better in your town than in Texas.