May 16, 2008
Now and then I post on Pure Visibility’s internet marketing blog - typically posts about our culture, our process, our clients, and events. Recently, the GetDowntown blog featured profiles of folks who, like me, love walking to work. I’m included in the group. But I’m particularly proud of my “Curb Your Car Month Citizen Blog” [...]
April 6, 2008
We had a wonderful conference. The Internet User Experience photo pool on Flickr has lots of action shots of sessions, presentations, and networking.
March 30, 2008
This week is the Internet User Experience conference, a conference spotlighting methods for dramatically improving today’s web site user experience. I attended the conference last year and gained a lot from listening to my colleagues in other usability, web design, and human factors companies locally and globally. I was grateful for the things I learned [...]
January 14, 2008
So, last week I hit the wall. After standup on Thursday, I paced around the office, feeling my face get red, feeling angry, frustrated, and near tears. I didn’t want anyone to notice this, so I grabbed my coat and stormed around the streets of downtown Ann Arbor until the cold air, the exercise, and [...]
December 31, 2007
Nerf darts pepper a whiteboard, originally uploaded by Own Page One.
So my work laptop’s hard drive died last week, on Thursday, my first day back after the holiday. I had dropped it in June and it was predicted the hard drive would go as a result, so I had tried to be mindful about what [...]
December 30, 2007
These things and people gave me a good 2007.
My mom’s health.
Stephen for teaching me an awful lot about the web and making some cool sites.
Kraig for making things happen.
Chris W. for all his help.
Andy and Brent and Mark for cheery heart.
Dan for the big picture.
Chris G. for his insight and clarity.
Helene for inspiration.
Daniel and JP [...]
October 31, 2007
So, a bunch of us at work took the PersonalDNA online personality test. They seem to do it right, not asking for personal information up front, providing an interesting experience (not too many questions, not totally superficial, sliders, multi-way sliders, 2-D charts).
The results were interesting, grouping us differently than I might have predicted. Surprisingly, I [...]
October 4, 2007
So, I did it again. I have spent much of the last two days trying to edit a technical document into something that I can understand and that exceeds my standards for clear and informative writing. I’ve been line editing, I’ve been working on organization, I’ve been pinging subject matter experts for examples and to clarify points that do not come across well to me, I’ve been excising passive voice. Essentially, I’ve been a tech writer again. And I’m struggling. The document is due, I’m not happy with it, and I don’t think I can line edit my way to nirvana.
I came home tonight frustrated, needing a break from the document, but fretting about the looming deadline. And then, sitting on my yoga mat starting my practice, I realized that I was trying to grope my way through this document towards the perfect document. And, I realized I was wasting energy beating myself up for not knowing which thread to pull or which angle to pursue to get there.
June 30, 2007
At a small place, one cool thing is that individual positions can be tailored to the innate talents of the staff. A downside is that jobs that are built around an individual are not readily handed off to others. People have different skills, this is a good thing. It does interfere with interchangability, though.
It was [...]
June 17, 2007
It’s been a strange week.
I’ve learned of several deaths in friends’ and colleagues’ families. Two of my favorite yoga teachers in town are moving to Chicago. My yoga studio ripped out a wall of equipment.
DTE decided to tear up my front garden again, this time to insert plastic pipes, 6 months after tearing up the [...]
not particularly objective musings on odds and ends - Dunrie Greiling, Ann Arbor, MI 48103