“So you have a lots of followers on Twitter and your blog—are you somebody?” Thus went one of the strangest questions I’ve ever received over Chick-fil-A nuggets. “Well, I post a lot of things online. I’ve been doing it for 7 years. That’s all I know to tell you.”

As usual, someone smarter than me articulates it better than me:

Is my soapbox [big]? Yes it is. But that’s fair, because I built this soapbox myself. It’s my firm belief that all websites eventually attract the attention and respect that they deserve. The hard work is in the “eventually” part.
—John Gruber, I’ll Tell You What’s Fair

Granted, Gruber’s soapbox is to my soapbox as the population of China is to the nice folks of Cleveland, but the question remains, am I somebody? I’d argue that we’re all somebody, it’s just a matter of scale. And if you want a bigger soapbox, you best get to building.

Being uncomfortable…means you’re aware of problems with your product and are motivated to fix them. Products that never see the light of day don’t make anyone uncomfortable.
—Rob Goodlatte, Be Uncomfortable

Rob works on a slightly bigger site than I do during the 9–5, so his advice carries weight and scales down to where the majority of us are making things work online. Spooner and I have been diligently working on a completely rebuilt NewSpring site for the past few months, leaving behind a wake of diligently finished todo lists, details, and plans—but it’s fast approaching time to launch, whether we’re fully* ready or not**.

*Fully ready is a myth in web world.

**But we’ll try to be mostly ready.

If you have talent, there will always be someone telling you how to use it. Talent is in short supply, and smart people always have a vision for how you should use yours. It’s not enough to be good at what you do—you need to know where you want to take it (and more importantly where you don’t want to go).

Don’t mindlessly offer up your talent on the altar of the wrong vision. Be intentional with your talent, or someone else will do it for you.

Allow me to tell you a little story…

Once upon a time, in a Chattanooga far, far away, a boy bought a domain because he saw a phrase in a dream that brought some measure of delight to his literary soul. Eventually the boy’s computer died in a fiery crash and with it went his swashbuckled copy of Corel Draw, his first app love/hate, the only vector graphics program he had ever known. Thus he began to wage war with that Adobian beast Illustrator, with the aforementioned domain serving as a battlefield. All manner of color, typography and wit was spilled in 200+ illustrative fist fights. And then he migrated the war over to Tumblr, to make it easier for you to follow along or RSS or favorite stuff. And everyone lived happily ever after. The end*.

So yeah, Prom Night Fist Fight is back. Here are a few personal favorites to hopefully whet your appetite: Hear!, Purple Explosion, Minimum Minded Meme, Dour Words for Cowards, Glory & Grace, The Art o’ Fist Fighting, Sum of Parts, this one, this one, Antoinette, Prog Rock, La Dolce Vita, Psalm 8, Thor!, Word, Booty, Speak Up, Mmm. Vector., this one, and Music to My Ears.

*OR IS IT?

[The '10 Boston Celtics are] a very unselfish team. They don’t care where their scoring comes from. Nobody seems the least bit bothered by that.
—Stan Van Gundy, Orlando Magic head coach

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
—Romans 12:10

Same thought from two very different sources, both of which give me lots to ponder about how I interact with my team and who gets the credit. Winning is better than self-promotion.

Tumblr makes it so easy to set-up new sites. The idea-to-implementation timeline on Haiku Pickup Lines was less than an hour. I’m also making use of the Google Font Directory, which is a handy addition to the internet. You should follow along on Tumblr or RSS.

I’m settled in to a hotel in Virginia Beach (yay for free wifi, Hilton Garden Inn! You get it!) for a week of vacation. I hope it’s well-earned, but I hope my team sees it that way, too.

I’ve been trying to shift my thinking over the last year—less about me, more about us—to find out how we can leverage the team best. I still think rest is massively important for both individual and team health, but I’m framing more and more through the lens of team lately.

As I put down roots (physically and mentally) and commit to moving forward with a group of like-minded folks to build something great, I’m acutely aware of how my personal lack has a blast radius beyond my task list(s) and projects. How do my shortfalls pull us down? Destroy our reputation internally? Affect the health of the organization? Am I making excuses or blame shifting? Where am I pulling my weight? Where am I just dead weight?

Here’s to resting… And to working damn hard not to be the weak link when you’re done resting.

You can learn more about Eric on his site or by watching other videos.

No one would have bought subprime loans if they were called non-credit worthy loans.
—David Rubenstein

Rubenstein’s quote sounds pithy in retrospect, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. When you call something what it is, it better enables on-the-spot decision making. If you dress it up with different clothes, clever names, and branding bell and whistles it’s still the thing—you’re just making it more difficult for people to know it on first pass. You can’t build long term trust by misleading people.

Quote, “They can’t print what we paint. They print in pixels.” Up There is a gorgeously shot (and told) short documentary on the dying industry of big city, big scale, hand painted “out of home” advertising. I especially love the bits about apprenticeship and the passing on knowledge.