I spent most of the night fretting over a meeting I had today with a real estate company about their website. IT said they could handle the “graphics” in a previous meeting and were questioning our involvement. It got me flustered. I had every intention, if there were any hard feelings at the meeting, to go off on a rant:
I didn’t go to school for “graphics.” I have a bachelor of science degree, not an art degree. We learned a process oriented approach to design, yes, but we also consider human factors, semantics and usability…
I don’t like the idea of sitting in meeting and being berated about value, almost as much as I hate puttin’ a label on what I do. I do this work for a reason… I inherently believe in the concept of a global community. It can be good or bad. We have to make a choice.
If information is ubiquitous, if we communicate, share, and organize, then we can change our world. Our communities. We can solve problems. We can accomplish lots of things. Maybe one day if we collect data properly, we can cure cancer. The only way to do that is if we play nice.
The first step to getting there is to make it easier. To make it easier we have to bring the scientists and the artists and heck, even the marketers together. Magic happens when diverse groups work as a team.
I don’t need this job. I can walk out and down the street and find some nice lady in antique store, work on a site for her hometown to unite businesses and get a homemade meal and a place to sleep.
Life’s too short.
Fast forward to today. I had concepts to share with the team and was tired from the long night and long drive. For some odd reason, with all the various heads of departments in attendance, along with the president of the company – everyone was agreeable. In fact, jovial.
One particularly fantastic lady, who I’d never met before, was there representing her company. She said, “This can be fun.” and I said Amen.
She eventually warmed up further and gave me the moniker Farmer Glass, I suppose my flannel and suspenders surrounded by suits made it appropriate.
With a common vision to plow forward as a team, my qualms were unnecessary. I spent all the time furrowing my brow, working on the presentation til the wee hours for no reason. Wasted a good two hours in fact, wondering about the whole job/career.
The ride home was like a sigh of relief, and I note this because I need to not worry about things out of my control. I need to not fret about things that haven’t happened yet.
It was a nice drive home from Columbus. I pulled off at a rest area to get a candy bar to reward myself and went to the overlook to soak in the budding trees and breathe. Of course, there were two minivans and a truck there, with suspicious characters looking longingly for a wink or nod i guess. But I had my camera, and cameras scare folks that are up to somethin. I took my picture in lieu of finding some interesting fauna, and headed home.
