“Social Media! Social Media!” they all cry. It’s everything. It’s all-important. It’s capitalized. If you don’t have a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, WhateverIsNextThatYouHaven’tHeardOfYet account for your company or organization or clambakesale, you can’t possibly function or be successful, right? And if you don’t have someone that understands all of it, you can’t possibly pull it off by yourself—you need a Social Media Strategist/Guru/Mahatma to run point and decipher the turbo-complicated, multi-leveled world of the big, wide web.

Only you don’t.

You don’t need those sites and you don’t need that guy on your team. You need to find The Mission and do everything in your power to ignore the voices that compromise it. If social media can help support The Mission and drive it forward and reach more people (which it typically can), then by all means, use it. But it will only help if you already have something truly remarkable going on. If you don’t, your social media strategy isn’t any different from a 13 year old girl posting on her BFF’s Facebook wall. Only it’s way more embarrassing.

And the guru? Maybe they are indispensable. Just be wary if their only strategy is “if you blog it, they will come.” Quantify the strategy. Set measurable goals and hold people accountable to hitting them. Otherwise you’re paying someone to play on Facebook and Twitter all day, and no matter what they say, that just ain’t business.

1. You can make it pretty as pretty can be, but if it doesn’t work or people can’t use it, you lose.
2. Don’t hire until it hurts; you can do more than you think you can.
3. Don’t overdo it; dedicated time for fun-having makes work time better.
4. Hard seasons separate the hirelings from the People Who Get It.
5. Working out consistently is amazing, and well worth the sleep and money traded for it.

In no particular order:

Derek Nelson taught me how to use Photoshop layer styles for good, not evil. And how that last 10% of finishing touches can elevate any design into something worth putting your name on.

Mat Turner taught me to how important color and simple texture are for creating depth. And how my first pass at designing something is rarely my best.

Ryan Sims taught me to sweat the user interface details. And how much can be done with two or three close shades of the same color.

Jeremy Cowart (who probably hasn’t considered himself a ‘designer’ in quite some time) taught me to leave the computer for inspiration. And, consequently, how much better my designs can be when I return to the computer.

Aaron Martin taught me that balance is far more important and interesting than symmetry. And how important paying attention to typography kerning is.

None of these guys probably know they taught me. It happened in short conversations, long IM chats, in moments and over years, in relationship, without realizing what was going on. These five gentlemen did more to shape my design sensibilities and aesthetic than anyone else. So, Derek, Mat, Simmy, Jeremy, and Aaron, thank you. I appreciate it/you.

You learn something new everyday if you pay attention.

Dear IE6 is a site devoted to people venting about Internet Explorer 6.

As web designers/developers, most of us are trying our best make sure everyone who visits a site has the best experience. IE6 makes that harder. It’s is close to seven years old and doesn’t fully support a number of standards established as far back as 1996 for web development. Developing for it sucks; it requires more work, effort, troubleshooting, frustration, etc. I wish everyone would download a modern browser like Firefox, IE7 or Safari.

But they don’t. They haven’t. IE6 is still widely used. It’s still 15% of NewSpring‘s traffic, and while I wish we didn’t have to spend the extra time to develop for it, that 15% equals HUNDREDS of people a day. For some folks (Apple’s MobileMe and 37signals come to mind) they think the tradeoffs are worth it. That’s their prerogative. But for us, for a church whose main web strategy is “get content into the hands of as many people as possible,” ignoring 15% of them because we’re too lazy to do the work is a halfass strategy at best. It essentially says “we don’t care about you because we think you’re stupid.”

You’re a web developer—know your audience and learn how to make your website work for them, even if they’re behind the curve.

P.S. if our Web Campus launches with full IE6 support, it’ll be a miracle. But I’m working on it.

I’m starting to realize any of the clothing/fashion strides I’ve made in the last two years (e.g. getting clothes tailored to fit my body, choosing simple plain items I can wear in a multi-use ways, buying clothes that actually fit decently in the first place, investing in longer lasting items like good leather shoes, etc.) are all pointing towards something like this guy or this guy.

In short, right before I turn 30, I think like I’m finally developing a “personal style.” It’s fun, and it feels like a natural progression of treating most things in my life with the same creativity, care, and—in the truest sense of the word—design that I treat my work. In other words, how I dress is beginning to reflect what I value, at least aesthetically-speaking. I suppose it’s inevitable.

A simple dichotomy I threw out on Twitter to tap into the Hive Mind:

“Job titles are meaningless. Job titles are important. Discuss.” — @blankenship

A few choice responses:

“job titles are meaningless! They give false power and often stand in the way of real leadership and progress…influence is what matters…” — @howardfrist

“useful if they help teams and partners understand roles” — @jimalexander

“Perhaps a middle ground…not always meaningless, and not necessarily important. But sometimes, at least, useful.” — @ploafmaster

“important for resume and coworker expectations” — @jessephillips

A friend on Facebook responded with “I was Events Coordinator…now I am Events Manager and have found a new level of respect.” For doing the same job, with no change to the structure of the organization. Another says “important: in [my husband's field] there is about a $15k difference between coordinator and manager.” Obviously in their cases, a job title is important.

A few months back, I was doing some business cards for the 5 or 6 of our staff that actually use/need them, and realized one of our guys had a title that didn’t reflect what he did. Obviously in his case, a job title is meaningless. (We changed it. No one noticed.)

Job titles are tools. Some of them are dull, some of them are valuable.

The naming of things is important, but don’t view the result as the boundary. The world doesn’t have to work that way anymore.