Option 1: A topic-focused, highly reputable conversation platform, which is a complete time-suck, requiring you to sacrifice other work or stay up late moderating content to guarantee everything remains civil.

Option 2: A maintenance-free, lively discussion place that protects the anonymity of your members, which nobody wants to visit because the useful conversation is degraded by poorly moderated inflammatory comments.

The idea persists that online networks are either functional and time consuming or low-maintenance and low-quality. Unfortunately many nonprofit organizations, without the budget to manage the conversation and unwilling to invite unmoderated conversation, avoid having a strong online presence for exactly this reason.

Good news: now online communities can be hassle- and flame-free. Well-designed communities hand off most of the moderation work to someone else–your users.

Responsibility Buttons

Users will do more than contribute to your content: they will control it as well. Allowing users to recommend content they like builds a sense of ownership: imagine your pride when a post that you recommended makes it to the top of a highest-rated list, or one of your updates appears in the site’s featured content section.

Also, if you’re not allowing users to flag abusive or inflammatory content, you’ve skipped one of the easiest things you can do to make your community function smoothly.

Anonymous Coward

The stigma against anonymous posting exists for a good reason. If you have an axe to grind but fear public retribution, there’s no better place to do it than one of the internet’s many message boards. For this reason many communities do not allow anonymous users to post content. On the other hand, requiring users to contribute personal information treads upon personal security. There is a comfort in anonymity knowing that if your post is ill-received, nobody can track you down and attack you personally.

There is a way to walk the line, though, and it’s called reputation building. Required registration with minimal demands for information is ideal: a valid email address is enough to build accountability while protecting your user’s identity. Ultimately, this connects all of your user’s content with his username, so that instead of drifting off into space, his posts now form a record from which we can gauge his reputation. Having a lot of posts–or a high level of participation–would look really good on your reputation. Creating content that gets highly recommended by other users can’t hurt either.

People who want to protect their reputations will only publish content they are proud of, and want to have associated with their identity. As for the others, don’t worry–if they go through the trouble of signing up in the first place, they’ll get flagged down by responsible users after an update or two.

Will Work For Modules

Superusers are integral to the long-term health of your community. When a few users emerge from the conversation as the most engaged, dedicated, and invested, you may elevate them to the status of superuser. Call them moderators, administrators, or super bad-ass 12ers, they will work for free and keep your conversation focused for the pleasure of participating. Of course, it helps if you give them some shiny badges: check out the Superman insiginia used by DontStayIn.

How much power you give to your superusers is up to you, but whatever perks or badges you offer in return, take good care of them.

Regardless of the platform you choose to build in, there are lots of options available for creating user responsibility. The magical formula is creating enough ambiguity to let anonymous-leaning users feel safe while encouraging them to create online identity and reputations. Off-the-cuff journalism site Mother Jones allows users to display badges beneath their avatars that track things like print subscriptions, or donor status. Features like this encourage a user to express herself and build her reputation while keeping her identity safe.

If you need more guidance, harness the wisdom of the crowd. Finding out what features users prefer is as simple as checking out a list of popular modules, or putting a poll on your website. Creating a great online community that only takes a few minutes of work per day is possible. Just remember: it’s your conversation too, so respond to what’s being said.

In that spirit, we have launched Hope Foundry. Hope Foundry provides new opportunities to small businesses and future developers by offering reduced-cost websites and free job training. We are accepting sponsors who will receive a powerful website package in one month for a (significantly) reduced rate while providing free education for the next generation of developers.

How does it work?

A sponsor pays a flat rate of $3,000. In return, they receive:

• Strategic web consultation
• Usability features
• Custom appearance
• Content management tools
• Online community add-ons

Want to know more about what you can get? The full feature set is available here.

Ten students enrolled in Hope Foundry’s Drupal training program spend one month constructing the website, guided and supervised by Quiddities senior developers. This way, sponsors save thousands of dollars on web development without cutting corners while providing free job training to the community. There are also opportunities to hire a Hope Foundry graduate to perform routine maintenance and updates to the new Drupal site.

Want to purchase a Hope Foundry website and provide free job training? Want to enroll in our free training program for Drupal developers? You can apply at hopefoundry.com. Help us make improvements locally to the global community.

We looked to RadioEngage with a mixture of fear and apprehension. Picture four over-caffeinated women sitting in an office surrounded by statues of Buddhas, framed photos of family members, enormous potted plants, and the endlessly filtering-in coworking babble, clutching our mugs and saying, “Are we on track? Where are the station protocols? Are we prepared for the board meeting? Who’s working on the wireframe? Have you done the install yet?” Paying no heed to the coffee we spilled on our pants as we twitched with anxiety. Yeah. It was kind of like that.

A big sigh of relief came when we realized we had made it over the public radio hill. Work still remains to be done, but there’s something comforting about giving the new KUSP.org a face. With the media components finalized, and the website themed, all that remains is for the content to be transfered. The site is about to be a fully interactive community radio portal with content on-demand! For a more detailed update, check out Margaret’s interview with Kristen Taylor from the Knight Foundation.

I Spot Compassion has been a messaging and marketing beast. How does a nonprofit create a viral campaign to raise awareness and money for an unpopular subject? Furthermore, how does it happen when the nonprofit is Children’s Hospice: an organization that advocates for the rights of terminally ill children, a topic which most people would rather not think about? Some meetings it seemed like we were forever going to be standing around the monster, hitting it with sticks in hope that it might retreat into its cage.

The solution lay in empowering people to do something about it themselves. Somehow, Lori and Devon of Hospice teamed up with the Quids to come up with this psycho idea to stop people on the street in Downtown Santa Cruz, make them stand on giant purple spots, give them signs to hold that say “Where Do You Spot Compassion?” and videotape them sharing moving stories of social accountability. It was amazingly successful. We interviewed over fifty people by stopping them on the street.

Yesterday’s visit to Pacific Collegiate, a local charter school (and alma mater of yours truly), also marked a turning point for I Spot’s community engagement strategy. Juniors and seniors were eager to help discover ways the I Spot campaign can avail itself of the enthusiasm and creativity of students, without forcing them into situations they’re not comfortable with. Hopefully we’ll continue to work with the students to make the project a global success.

So, thank you, to everyone who has reached back to us this month. No great feat is possible without the support of others. We are stronger together than apart. Remember to have compassion, and faith in the compassion of others: people will do remarkable things if you ask them the right way.

The I Spot Compassion Girls

Yesterday, the MLK National Day of Service, was a big exciting experiment in the name of research for our Children’s Hospice project - I Spot Compassion. We were out on the streets of Santa Cruz asking folks to tell us where they last spotted compassion. We had adorable kids holding I Spot signs, handmade purple spot carpets and thick skinned video-camera-toting interviewers putting themselves out there, interacting with the general public in a way that can sometimes make you feel foolish and self-conscious.

When looking at the day in context to the paradigm shift that’s going on in our country, our results were quite interesting. A lot of people said they don’t spot compassion anywhere. What’s up with that? No compassion? Anywhere? We have our work cut out for us. Because, ultimately, what we are trying to do with Children’s Hospice is seed a revolution of compassion. That seems overwhelming to some, but it doesn’t have to be. There are so many small, easy acts of kindness we can do throughout the day, but when added together with the other masses of humanity and their small acts, really add up.

It seems so simplistic, but I think we just might need to remind eachother. I was driving across town this afternoon, late as usual, and I had to really, really think about letting other drivers merge in front of me. When did that happen, this silo-sighted view of my relationship with traffic (me, me, me!)? Fresh off the compassion imprint from yesterday, I did slow down and let others go in front of me. Some may not call that compassion, but if I was letting another harried mom go first, I think compassion is what it was.

There is so much more to think about in starting this project, particularly after today - inauguration day, where Obama over and over called us to service. Service is compassion’s cool big sister, you know, the one you look up to and hope to be like one day. I think we can start small and work our way up. Try it, it’s really not that hard and once you start, maybe it will become one of those good for you habits like flossing, or eating your vegetables.

You’re probably hearing about things like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr in the mainstream media. I don’t know how many of you are using it, but social media is growing exponentially, and it’s a tool we can use to encourage compassion.

Last week my friend Iris tweeted (for those of you who aren’t familiar, that’s Twitter-speak for wrote) “slickiris Intends to make at least one random act of kindness today” I happened to see her statement and it reminded me to do an act of kindness myself that day, which I did. I really believe that’s all it takes, a gentle reminder, so that’s what I’m doing here. Reminding you to do an act of compassion, and today, when you do it I want you to think about a boy named Nick Snow who testified in Washington and Sacramento, even though he was gravely ill, to get legislation passed to help families of children dealing with life-threatening illnesses. You can read Nick’s touching story on the CHPCC website.

And finally, I also encourage you to go to iSpotcompassion and donate a 5spot to CHPCC in Nick’s honor. That’s all we’re asking (although, of course, giving more is just fine too!). Remember how Obama raised so much money asking for a little from a lot of us? It adds up quick when a lot of us donate. And there’s no finer organization then Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition, I’ve witnessed firsthand how effective this organization is.

Whatever you do, think about compassion: spot it, do it, live it. We can change the world with our little acts of kindness and compassion.

I love informative books, and since I’m cheap, there’s nothing better than reading them for free. Naturally I hijacked Margaret’s copy of Social Corp: Social Media Goes Corporate, by Joel Postman, which just came out and promises to be the first of many life preservers we’ve been groping for as we try to stay afloat in the sea of social media marketing.

Maybe you’ve picked up from my tone that I haven’t read the book yet. Okay, so I can’t vouch for it a hundred per cent–but its about time that new media lackeys like myself had a handbook.

We used to get our understanding of social media marketing two ways: via our direct experience using social media, which would probably be supplemented by reading some kind of commentary–on a blog or marketing website, for instance. Either way, getting a comprehensive knowledge of the social media marketing world is pretty hard. Plus, if you’re reading about social media marketing online, chances are you’re pausing to update Twitter, check your Facebook messages, and peruse your RSS reader.

Having a book by no means elevates the social media marketing commentary from the realm of opinion–but now the beast is between two covers. Joel Postman has done our industry a service by publishing a handbook on the SocialCorp (”a company that has adopted social media strategy intelligently and effectively”), taking it a step further than a cumbersome list of social media terms.

Before I sing any more praises I should get to reading.

We’re weeks away from getting KUSP fitted with a brand spankin’ new website, chock full o’ the shiniest social media bells and whistles. Fans will be able to share photos, articles, micro-blogs, make suggestions for improving the station, and have conversations with each other–all from the station’s website.

If it works, it will add new dimensions to the public radio experience. Two new information pathways will open. In addition to the movement of information from the station to the listeners, now listeners will be able to send information back to the station…and to each other.

It’s the last information pathway that worries me as I sit here, trying to type up station protocols for KUSP’s new social media tools. It would be super-easy to say that nobody can use the word “jerk” or post pictures of people making mean faces on my website…if I was running a small business. But nobody owns the public radio station–except, maybe, the public. What user-generated content gets allowed? What gets denied? Why is it appropriate to do so and can we possibly arrive at a shaky consensus?

Can the  community be trusted to use social media tools in the context of public radio with the collective well-being in mind?

Yes, but it’s going to take a thought upgrade. Social media allows us to share experiences in ways we never before imagined, and that’s dandy–but some experiences are less than pleasant. The old school way to keep out uncomfy experiences was to lay down strict guidelines: “no nudity,” for instance. But if it’s artistic nudity, then your helpful guideline might change into controversial censorship. If you change your guideline to allow artistic nudity, you are confronted with another problem: how can you tell when nudity is artistic?

The rules that used to put limitations on online shared experience are breaking down. Hack at it enough with a logical argument, and it will fall over. This is a good thing. It means we’re getting closer to a solution that is better than rules: a sensible solution that takes personal accountability as its mantle instead of careful moderation.

In order to arrive at that solution, it goes without saying that we all need to look at ourselves a little more closely, and think before we act. Ideally, we must all moderate our own content, putting it in its appropriate place the best way we can. That’s easy.

More difficult will be the task of increasing our tolerance for experiences we fear. Radio Engage will give locals the meeting hall they never had, and for all the good it will do, I suspect there will also be plenty of disagreeable information rising to the surface that we never got to see before. When something happens that we don’t like, we’re all going to have to suck it up. But that’s the nice thing about Radio Engage: if it works, it will let us–the users and listeners–take a more active role in our community. We will get a real, tangible opportunity to make important changes. But it’s only going to happen if we all remember to share.

Congratulations to Mindi for launching four UC Berkeley websites last week! Thanks to lots of hard work, nights at the keyboard, naps in the NextSpace library, and “high maintenance” cups full of coffee, she made the friendly folks at UCB very happy. We look forward to launching more great sites for Berkeley in the future.

The last bells and whistles are going on the BoomBoom! Revolution site–a place to share your random acts of kindness (and the only place to pick up your awesome revolutionary BoomBoom! Cards). Ever pick up a piece of litter? Smile at a stranger? Leave an anonymous note of encouragement? Well, now you can track those little bits of fuzzy goodness (complete with pictures and video!) while encouraging others to do the same. You can even watch your BoomBoom travel across the country…or the world!

But the best thing about this Christmas is getting the time to work on RadioEngage! Thanks to your feedback, and the dedicated team at KUSP (especially Steve, who is keeping us company today), we are completing the development phase this week and begin doing the Drupal install in January. In a few days, we’ll start working with public radio volunteers, teaching them to use social media tools to start conversations with their listeners online and in real life. It’s a social media/public media experiment, so there’s no guarantee it will go over without any kinks or bumps. But if we keep getting the enthusiasm we have experienced this far, KUSP’s social media platform will be  a resounding success. (Check out the photos from PublicMediaCamp.) One step closer to creating a platform for all public radio stations to engage their listeners!

Whether you’re going to celebrate anything or not, now is a great time to support your public radio station. Their teams work hard to deliver the best stories, keeping us all abreast of things the corporate networks may have missed. What’s more important than getting the stories?

It’s also a great time to join the BoomBoom! Revolution. You don’t have to do much, but your small act of kindness will earn compound interest when you share it with others, and a lot of good will be done along the way.

Happy Winter,

Des

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
-Albert Einstein.

This blog entry is for anybody who still feels squeamish about social media.

As RadioEngage moves forward, we are met with more reluctance. We didn’t know why at first. Public radio stations are eager for better ways to manage their websites, but many people are averse to using social media. The reluctance stems from some common myths: that social media is a useless pastime for high schoolers, that it’s a time-suck, or that it puts your copyrighted material in danger, for example.

Social media can be abused–just like any tool. But it can to positively transform your business and personal life. For many people it already has. But there’s still a long way to go. The power of these programs is still being discovered. And in a time of moral and economic poverty, new solutions are exactly what we need.

Here is a list of the most common social media myths I hear and their corresponding truths. Hopefully, this will help clarify how social media can be used to create a positive impact in problematic times.

Myth: “Social media is just showcasing, it has no practical use.”
Truth: Social media is for sharing.
Sharing pictures, videos, ideas, stories, laughs, tears, and anything else you can think of. When you use social media, it may feel like showcasing, but really you are contributing to a pool of shared knowledge. Shouldn’t information be shared?

Myth: “People will find out sensitive personal information about me if I use social media.”
Truth: People will find out sensitive personal information about you if you are careless.
Social media sites allow you to choose what information you share. If I run a business out of my garage, of course I want to put my address on my social media site–that way customers can find me. But, if I don’t want somebody to know where I live, I don’t have to include any contact information–just a valid email address.

Myth: “Social media will take up too much of my time.”
Truth: Social media takes only the time you choose to give it.
One of the best things about social media is its capacity to do complicated things quickly. We can upload a hundred photos in five minutes, or complete and publish articles in under an hour. Just remember: if you go online with a purpose in mind (like finding out up-to-the-minute opinions on the IMF, or getting some pictures of great latte art), you’ll get what you want faster than ever before. It is equally possible for you to look at funny pictures of cats for hours. (I can vouch for both.)

Myth: “People used to go outside and talk to each other. Because of social media, people go online instead of connecting in real life.”
Truth: Social media enhances our face-to-face interactions.
Nothing will replace sitting down with a friend or family member over a meal, or the pleasure of meeting someone new upon a chance encounter. But we can’t always be together. When your loved ones are distant, you can share photos or videos instantly, instead of sending them through the mail. We can also learn more about our friends from what they choose to share online.

Myth: “I’m too old for social media. It’s for young people.”
Truth: Social media needs everybody, and everybody can use social media.
This one really gets me. Not only is social media for everybody–its usefulness is dependent upon a diverse network of users. It is especially important for people who did not grow up with computers to participate in sharing information: the more wisdom to impart! And don’t worry about getting lost: there’s already an active community of self-described “baby boomers” and “greying computer users” to help if you get stuck.

I felt really weird. I was going to eat more than my fair share of the free food and I sure as hell wasn’t going to donate.

I don’t donate to anything and never have. It’s not because I don’t care about the public media, or the homeless, or starving amputee whale babies. My caring just gets lost somewhere in the Land of My Cash Makes No Difference. It’s somewhere in Nonprofits Are Often Corrupt Valley, which sits at the foot of I Need To Buy Groceries Mountain.

Jokes aside, I’ll sum it up: I don’t see how the benefit of my donation will outweigh the cost. Write a check for a bajillion dollars–throwing money at a problem doesn’t make it go away.

After navigating the streets of San Francisco we found our way into the church and entered the main room just as someone was tapping a fork against a glass. Margaret and I sidled in behind the snack bar. The host introduced Michael Stoll, who walked up to the podium and said the following:

“I want to thank you all for coming. I think your presence here is a testament to the passionate belief of journalists and supporters of good journalism that a vibrant and independent press is essential to keeping our democratic system healthy.”

Oh. Right.

When I was young I remember a strong sentiment that only the newspapers could be trusted: the Internet was too unregulated to be a viable source of trustworthy information and the news networks (who opted to air Bill O’Reilly and Nancy Grace’s insightful commentary on Janet Jackson’s nipple and whether it had actually appeared alongside Justin Timberlake at the Superbowl in 2004 instead of broadcasting anything that actually happened) were long abandoned as a source of democratically-geared commentary.

Studying political theory in college, we hunkered under the fear that the USA would never have a truly functioning democracy in which everyone could participate. We are different from our international democratic brothers and sisters. To oversimplify: instead of going out to vote, we stay at home and watch Bill O’Reilly. How do you get democracy out of over-worked, under-paid citizens to take time out of their day and vote, when the network news sees fit only to provide coverage on nipples? (Pun not intended.)

Michael clearly had not anticipated the rowdy applause following his opening statement. I pulled out my cell phone and texted Margaret.

Me: This guy is talking to my inner voice.
Margaret: What is he telling you?
Me: To give him my money for democracy.

“So,” Michael was saying. I tuned back in. “…in the last year or two a lot of creative thinkers have proposed turning the whole business model on its head. That’s why we’re here. Philanthropy and audience support have worked well for public broadcasting for decades. Now is the time to experiment with these new business models.”

And they should be successful, if you alert people that the health of their democracy could rest on their donation. Hell, it worked on me.

I walked up to the two women who were tabling by the door. “Hi,” I said, somewhat overcaffeinated. “Can I give you my money here?”
“Sure,” said a young woman who was startled by my enthusiasm. “Just fill this out.” She handed me a donation form. I looked at it strangely.
“Um, okay. I’m going to fill it out here.” I set my orange soda down in front of her and began aggressively hunting through my purse for a pen.

I donated twenty five bucks to start. I say “to start” because while independent news organizations need money, they also need people with hands and brains. Er, volunteers. Volunteers who get to do some kind of awesome work.

The Truthiness Project, for instance, is an interactive fact-checking experience for the 2008 election powered by Flickr and Spot.us. Not only does it provide a central location for voters to understand the array of propositions on the ballot–it allows them to instantly fact-check, or test the validity and relevance, of said propositions. Plus, it’s fun to use. And its pretty.

So, since I don’t have any more money, its time to start giving mad props. Newsdesk and the Public Press have anticipated the next viable business model for truth-based news media. If you would like to participate in a public news project in the name of democracy, contact the Public Press or Newsdesk. Currently they need help with

• editing
• reporting
• photography
• Web production (in Drupal)
• business planning
• finance
• office management
• volunteer coordination
• databases
• social-media marketing
• fundraising
• print design

And I’m sure they won’t say no to your donation.

Read Michael Stoll’s comments from Wednesday night, in their entirety, here.

With PublicMediaCamp2008 approaching, I was determined to avoid this. Bound and determined to enjoy the BarCamp I did a couple of things differently. (Like avoiding alcohol the night before. And taking a shower after getting out of bed.)

Squeaky clean and sober, I showed up, effortlessly arranging the muffins and setting up the coffee from Lulu Carpenter’s. The signs were hung. The registration table arranged. People began to file in, butter their bagels and blink sleepily over paper cups of coffee.

In the immortal words of Everlast, I was diggin’ the mix and feelin’ the vibe. There is a vast sprawl of people who live in the place where social and public media cross paths, and we had gotten a good diverse chunk of them to come to our little coworking space. (All one hundred or so fit inside comfortably, albeit cozily.) People looked up from their conversations, closed their laptops, pocketed their iPhones and tucked away their notebooks as soon as we started doing introductions.

Some people were more tech-savvy than others. This was clear from the outset and turned out to be a boon instead of a burden. Many of the guests were able to help their less-wired comerades sign up for Twitter, or show them how to subscribe to RSS feeds. The learning curve didn’t slow us down a bit, and I believe it went a long way toward helping the campers get to know each other better.

My favorite guest was an older gentleman who was at the BarCamp as well as the dinner at Johnny’s the night before. He was a local and zealously interested in the internet, public media, and local politics, but seems to have been left behind at the same time that Instant Messaging got really popular. This didn’t intimidate him one bit. Not only did he get a crash course in new web technology–he was among the most vocal and joyful participants we had.

Now, I’m not singling the fellow out for his lack of information. That would be hypocritical, since I spend most of my time being educated about the internet by women who have kids my age. I’m singling him out because he had an exemplary desire to learn, because he didn’t care what the other campers thought about him, because he wasn’t scared to be himself and because he was persistently happy. Getting one outstandingly stoked person like that at a BarCamp is a gift.

RadioEngage had a workshop, too. I sat cross-legged in a plush purple cafe chair updating the wiki on Amie’s laptop while Margaret headed up the central meeting area, armed with a colorful selection of expo pens and a whiteboard on wheels. Some people had taken up in chairs. Many spread out comfortably on the floor. Others leaned casually against walls or shelves. Margaret managed to probe the crowd for suggestions: if we built this platform for you, what would it have? (Everyone seemed to be waiting for Margaret to answer that question herself.)

I was reminded of that scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, in which Brian escapes from the Peoples’ Front of Judea Headquarters through the back window and ends up standing before a crowd next to a bunch of prophets. Except it was different, because Margaret knew what she was talking about, and nobody was heckling her, and she wasn’t running from the Romans (to my knowledge). On an unrelated note, if you haven’t seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian, you should rent it.

This time I even got to have my own workshop. I didn’t really expect anyone to join the conversation called Blogging: For Fun and Profit. (What can I say? I can’t run your radio station and I don’t know PHP. But I can blog.) I was not as successful in terms of educating the people who weren’t so tech-savvy.

“If you make a mistake, it’s fodder for your blog,” I explained confidently. “I do a lot of stuff wrong. I’m clumsy. I send out piles of letters and forget to stamp them. I mix up emails. When I make mistakes, I just blog about it on our company website. And people really enjoy reading it, because it makes them laugh, so they’re more likely to visit Quiddities.com.”

A white-haired man who had taken up the only desk in the room raised his hand. “So, if you looked up the word ‘failure’ in the dictionary, is there a picture of you next to it?”

(I can’t be too mad about this comment, because it falls under the category of mistakes/embarassing moments, and therefore is fodder for my blog.)

Not everybody is eager to jump on the internet bandwagon. Especially if they didn’t grow up with a keyboard under their hands 20% of the time, like kids my age. But if you can’t remember a time before the internet (because you hadn’t been born yet), you’re not very likely to go places that aren’t online. And if you belong to the even larger group of people who not only want to see your online presence, but want to participate in it, you’re not very likely to spend very much time at a static, non-interactive website with little information.

Getting online can be intimidating, especially if you’ve never done it before. And it’s scary trying something new. I remember the cold sweat that broke out on my skin when I signed up for Twitter. That’s why PublicMediaCamp2008 was important: whatever lessons people took home, now they’re networked–they’re not alone, and they know it.

My genuinely grateful and super-enthusiastic Thank You goes out to the following vendors, who are completely awesome.

Andrea C. Waters of Lifestyle Culinary Arts, for aiding me in the schlepping of boxes, crafting mouth-watering culinary creations, being generally cool, and most of all, her sponsorship! She has a great new location in Scotts Valley, and offers classes in addition to catering.

Manthri Srinath and Joe Carlson of Lulu Carpenters, for providing some super killer brew, plus accoutrements. People are rarely so busy and so polite at the same time.

Sunkist Naturals and Denis Hiller, for finding me, being an awesome start-up, having a great contemporary approach to publicity and being supportive throughout the planning and execution of the BarCamp.

NextSpace and Jeremy Neuner, for executing a business plan that revolves around being awesome, and for making us comfortable in the space.

Also to the rest of our sponsors with whom I did not work directly–and most of all, the <love>Q Mamas.</love>

I’ve been doing this “internet” thing for awhile now. And I’ve arrived at one ultimate conclusion.

If you have a commerical website and you don’t have a blog, you need a time machine.

Here’s why. Part of my job–and personal pasttimes–is to link relevant content on the web. We make pages. We make sites. We make forums and communities. We share photos, stories, information and programs. And we want to link all this stuff to you. That’s right. We think your enterprise (whatever it may be) is so interesting, the people who land on our site need to see it.

But if you don’t have a blog to tell us why it’s interesting, it ends up not seeming very interesting.

Sure, you could have a whole page to tell me why I need to use your site. But if its not dynamic, I don’t care. You probably just hired a contractor to write it, somebody who doesn’t even know your company. I assure you, it won’t be fuzzy and heart-wrenching and intimate and compelling. Plus, I have a hunch that page is never going to chage, so when I visit it next week, I’m going to read the same thing again.

I want to know that your company is changing. And growing. And following the times, and cutting-edge, and hip with the kids.

I want to hear about how you spilled coffee on your crotch on your way to work, how you barely made the bus, how you came up with the idea for a brilliant new t-shirt design by spacing out on a popsicle stick.

I want to know that I’m investing in real people who are like me, because sometimes they get mixed up between saying “how’s it going” and “how are you” and end up saying “how you going,” or sometimes they get called by collection agencies at inappropriate times, or sometimes they spend a whole day trying to get their computer to work and finally fix it and have to stay up until 1:00AM the next day to finish their job and end up getting bad diner coffee in the middle of the night which gives them indigestion but they do it all anyway.

I want you to blog.

But if you don’t have time to blog, don’t worry; I’ll just visit and link to people who do.

If I said things weren’t stressful, I’d be lying. There are no more boxes to schlep or kitchen appliances to unpack. We’re still hunting the mess of one-way downtown streets every morning for a spot we can parallel-park into and fishing quarters out of our pockets. And if we cannot take advantage of the cheaper blue meters, we are forced to park at the orange ones, availing ourselves of the twent-five-cents-buys-you-thirty-minutes premium rate. Or dodge the meter maids.

While our suites in the Sash Mill were our domain, this is not so at NextSpace. We have our own office (which is pretty lush) in a fishbowl-format: open ceiling, walls of windows. Everybody can see and hear what everybody else is doing. This is true especially in the cafe area: an assimilation of sink-into chairs and sofas, attractive coffee tables replete with magazines, plenty of places to plug in your laptop…and it’s all right next to the kitchen, where us Nexters are constantly filing in and out to replenish our coffee mugs.

Since everything is shared, we end up running into each other a lot. Our friends at Santa Cruz Design and Innovation Center are right next door. 12seconds is down the hall. You can meet up with your buddies in your room, then go to the common area to kick it, or head further down for snacks.

It’s like a geeky frat house.

(On that note, there’s even a stash of grown-up drinks hidden away in the kitchen. Naturally, this is just in case the Nexters need to cut loose and party. After work, of course.)

Lulu’s at the Octagon is right across the street. This makes for a pleasant diversion–which is excellent, especially if you find yourself stuck doing work at NextSpace until the wee hours. Whatever you’re in the mood to eat at lunch, it’s probably not more than three blocks away. And though sometimes you can hear the residentially challenged Santa Cruzians hollering at each other from the street, usually, its the tunes of the musicians that float up through the windows.

Leaving the Sash Mill meant sacrificing a lot. Parking, privacy, total control over our domain, for instance. Now that the nerve-wracking move is over and we’re starting to get grooves in our chairs again, I think we can all agree that we sacrificed something to get something better. It’s scary at first to be so exposed, and we’re definitely not accustomed to being interrupted in our office because we have to chat with the people we haven’t met yet. That sort of stuff we reserved for the Geek Dinners or the BarCamps or the other various networking events. We waited ’till then to bounce our ideas off each other and went back to our offices at the end of the day to mull things over.

The more comfortable we get here, the more pervasive that fuzzy networking feeling gets. It will get easier as we learn to mix socializing with working–a skill that most of the Nexters already posess. Listen in on a few conversations and you’ll get an idea of how dynamic the activity is. (You don’t really have a choice; you eavesdrop whether you like it or not.) Perhaps it’s best that we all got packed into a second-story coworking space Downtown. Personally, I like it better already.

“So–” she blinks. “There’s this Women In Business Conference on Wednesday.”

“Are you going?”

“Yes. I think you should come. Do you want to go?”

Conferences will always be precious to me. I love them. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the bad drip coffee. The pre-printed nametags that always fall apart. Perhaps the wads of business cards warming my pockets and purse. Or the notoriously recurring microphone problems. Who knows? Nevertheless, they are special. I think of them as adventurous paths only the brave can tread to total fulfillment.

(My very first conference experience was sponsored by the Hartwick College Student Senate. They paid for me to represent our school at “Get Fired Up!” a student leadership conference held at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in early 2007. For two nights, we stayed in a hotel down the street, where drunken college debauchery ensued: this including not-so-secret trysts, poorly executed practical jokes, and a verbal-turned-violent argument over whether Jesus supported the death penalty when he wrote the Bible. I found it to be groundbreaking.)

I consented to come along. My hope was to make relevant observations in the background while Margaret did the networking. We met at Fins Coffee at 8:00 in the foggy morning, keen on avoiding the conference coffee.

We arrived. The Cocoanut Grove was curiously devoid of dudes. Our nametags were printed on stickers and we stood in line with high-heeled, suited women, who were all talking and laughing loudly in spite of the fact that the sun was barely up. I awkwardly affixed my sticker to my blazer. We took seats in the main room. Somebody got up to present the first speaker. Margaret opened her laptop and began to simultaneously respond to multiple emails, chat with developers in the office, and twitter the conference events. Guess I had better take some notes.

Laura Lowell spoke on marketing. She impressed us immediately with her ability to identify the more obvious truths about marketing which we sometimes miss. For instance, “Recognize that you have two types of people in your office. You have planners, and you have doers. If you are both, you may feel schizophrenic.” She also urged conference-goers to take an ethical approach with mistakes — don’t sweep them under the rug, because correcting them can improve the quality of your service and become a preventative measure against similar embarrassments in the future.

“Say No to Jargon” was a piece that made Margaret erupt in giggles among the otherwise silent guests. We knew exactly what she was talking about. When you work with websites, you read a lot about “industry-leading solutions” that take your “whatever” to “the next level”. Nobody knows what the solutions are, why they’re industry leading, where the next level is or who the heck lives there. However, based on how often jargon appears in marketing literature, you’d think it was all pretty special stuff. Too bad it means absolutely nothing.

I had exhausted my coffee so I went to see what the Cocoanut Grove had to offer. Drip coffee, regular and decaf, with corresponding black and orange handles, was available in four pots. This impressed me, but I was stunned by a woman who exclaimed with alarm that the hot coffee was melting the wax on the outside of her paper cup. I doubled them up, got my joe and helped myself to half-and-half, though I took issue with the cream being stored in un-chilled, un-covered carafes. Whatever. My standards aren’t that high. I hurried back to the conference room to catch the next speaker.

Karen Orton boasts no secret knowledge of online communities, but she does have an uncommon passion for them. Her presentation fishtailed nicely with the marketing presentation that came before it. She managed to reveal the marketing capacity of online communities, like Facebook. The charmingly simplistic Twitter was another example: its main feature allows you to answer the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less.

Awkwardness ensued when Karen endeavored to describe Twitter. After you log in, “you answer the question, ‘What are you doing?’ with a brief sentence. People are always sending out updates on what they’re doing. You can find other people on Twitter, and follow them. Yes, question.” A young shorthaired woman got the mic. She asked in exasperation, “Follow you where?” Women laughed sympathetically. Maybe we won’t get the whole room Tweeting before the day’s end.

Lunch was served none too early. Chinese chicken salads were served piled high on platters and after a moment, the servers swept the tables with handfuls of saran-wrapped snicker doodles. We were entertained by a final speaker while we digested.

Kirsten Mangers was dressed in an immaculate suit that did not betray the rawness of her character. She is blunt, sarcastic, and controversial, but most of all, she’s just plain fun: her jokes had the audience rolling. “We’re women, let’s face it: we’re smarter than anybody, of any other gender, out there, anywhere”. Her talk on advertising was insightful, though not directly relevant to Quiddities. She was my favorite speaker of the day regardless, because her talk was so totally in the spirit of the WIB Conference. She spoke as a businesswoman: who, like the rest of us, persevered even though she wasn’t always taken seriously. Like us, when old tactics stopped working, she tapped her creative strength to solve enduring problems. She did so without compromising her character or abandoning her femininity. It’s easy to see why some people may not like Kirsten. She is amicable with a dash of threatening mixed in. However, she certainly showed us that you don’t have to sacrifice who you are in order to succeed — you simply need to harness it.

Networking hour arrived. Immediately I noticed something strange. Conferences oftentimes engender competition: I have sat through many a workshop, watching two participants vying for control of the group’s loyalty, each trying to say their opinion louder than the other. This was different. Without restraint, I saw people enthusiastically reach out to each other. An exchange of cards blossomed into a conversational clique. For some weird reason, everyone was being supportive. How weird. A couple people even came up to me.

“I’m very interested to know, what is your company? I can’t see your nametag!”

“Um, I just work for Margaret,” I replied. (This turned out to be sufficient explanation; everybody at the conference knew who Margaret was.)

Cash bar was announced and we gathered our things, sure to grab a pair of sponsor goodie bags on the way out. As Margaret took me back to my car I decided the most important thing I took home from WIB was this: no longer does the corporate world need be all coldness and quotas. Now, we live in a world where everyone participates. The last edifices of the old conservative white guys in suits are crumbling. Our customers can follow us on Twitter, be our friends on Facebook, moderate our online support groups and make or break us with an online review in an instant. It’s probably time to get a little more creative than a thirty-second TV spot, and a little more human than a mail-in titled “We’d Like To Hear From You!”

In an age where we can connect instantly and the consequences of our actions are just as imminent, our challenge is to develop new ways of connecting with our customers and fulfilling their needs. Among those exploring this new online landscape, you can be certain the girls will be there.

Grab-bag contents included a packet of SPF30 sunscreen, post-its, and numerous pens. See you all next year!

Anyway, one of the most important celebrations of geekery this side of the Watsonville border is the Geek Dinner, where the geeks gather with gusto to share food and ideas. Geek Dinner No. 7 is “Geeks on the Beach.” (”We usually have them at a geeky restaurant,” Margaret explained.)

The custom may sound casual or campy to some. Au contraire. Anyone who has attended a Geek Dinner can say from experience that they are veritable breeding grounds of brilliance. Petri dishes of discovery. You get the idea. Coworking, Freelance Camp, Public Media Camp, 12seconds.tv, Jelly, NextSpace–the seeds of these great enterprises lie in the fertile ritualistic Geek Dinner.

As a budding geek I am eagerly anticipating Geeks on the Beach, my very first Geek Dinner. Camera in tow, armed with flip-flops and a pair of barbeque tongs, I hope for my own brush with brilliance at the upcoming local geek gathering. Provided I can get my night shift covered–I’ll see you all there!

Geek Dinner No. 7, “Geeks on the Beach,” will be at Black Beach on September 4 at 6:30PM. You can click here for more on the haps.

Szeged, Hungary: our very own William Lawrence was on the other side of the world last week. DrupalCon ‘08 was the setting, a conference that attracts programmers from all over the world to meet and discuss Drupal, the popular open-source content management program.

William’s workshop on accessibility was selected for presentation. Quiddities maintains that website administrators are not just encouraged, but obligated, to make their content accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. William agrees:

“Accessibility should not be considered an option or an add-on. It is the responsibility of the entire team, from the designer, to the coder, to the writer, to the themer, and even to the business development team.”

I was looking for a receipt that reflected I had purchased $160 in bagels. Upon discovering it wasn’t on my dresser, in my pants pocket, or on my kitchen counter, I decided it must be in the office; naturally, just having given up on finding it after combing through a sea of paperwork I discovered its secret location–inside my purse, right where I had left it.

My car is an environmentally-friendly, gas-efficient Scion xA. It bears the signature cheese-wedge shape and the seats are designed to maneuver into different positions to create more storage space. Regardless, after packing inside three ten-gallon coffee carafes, twelve containers of cream cheese, five bags of bagels and a series of baskets I had borrowed from the caterer, it was snug.

Good thing I was going to the BarCamp. As soon as I parked my car and began unloading the carafes from the back, a man came running out of the museum and down the stairs.

“Somebody said there was a pretty girl with a lot of [stuff],” he said, enthusiastically lifting one of the carafes and schlepping it inside. By the time I had unloaded everything, there was nothing else to carry in. By the time I made it inside, volunteers had taken it upon themselves to set up the coffee, put out the plates and utensils, and lovingly arrange the pastries in the decorative baskets.

In retrospect, it’s difficult to imagine anything going wrong. I guess that’s what makes BarCamp so magical: whatever happens is the only thing that could have. At the buttcrack of dawn, even at that ungodly hour, guests were sipping coffee from eight ounce cups and eagerly assembling the conference. I watched them standing in line to sign-in and get the coveted Freelance Camp t-shirts, chatting and laughing–

“Des, where are the safety pins?” Mindi asked.

“I thought you had them. …I’ll be right back.”

Putting on my hoodie I began an exodus to Longs. (At the time, I did not know it would be the first of six.) I honestly felt a little embarrassed. It was my job to make sure that breakfast was assembled but our conference-goers had taken it upon themselves to help me. I settled for a feeling of gratitude. After waiting at the register for what seemed like twenty minutes while the gentleman in front of me counted out not-so-exact change in nickels and dimes for a Starbucks coffee beverage, and then engaged the clerk in a lively dispute as to the price, I returned, bearing assorted safety pins.

“Here you go.” I handed them to Tracy.

He looked confused. “I brought the safety pins from the office.”

“Oh. Thanks. Never mind.”

Morning ceremonies were winding down and I began to settle in. Freelance Camp was not short on diversity: there were comely older folks, trendy married couples, a gaggle of twenty-somethings, and one guy who I knew personally from high school. There were sandal-clad ladies with their hair down and serious-looking women in immaculate suits; men in slacks who kept stepping out to take calls on bluetooths and long-haired dudes that stroked their beards during conversation. Regardless of appearance they all had similar mannerisms. They toasted bagels, picked through the t-shirts looking for their size, and they kept running up to each other with open hands thrust out in front of them: “Hello, what is it that brings you here?”

We all entered the conference room to begin scheduling the day. I sat, bagel and coffee in tow. Again I was summoned to Longs. Despite deliberately putting my food in the seat of my chair, when I returned, the conference room was so clogged that I couldn’t get close enough to hear what was going on.

Ah, well. I was there to work anyway. A few more attempts were made on my part to sit in on workshops. Most were unsuccessful. Charged with the tasks of putting sodas on ice and arranging 150 lunch boxes in the foyer, I spent about twenty minutes of my morning dozing in the corner of a workshop before it was time to eat.

Of course, I had help with lunch. Tracy and Mindi (for some reason) were stalking the halls when I began to pack the coolers and take out the lunch boxes. Both were eager to lend a hand. (So eager, actually, that they became somewhat possessive of stacking the lunch boxes on the table, which was fine by me.) I had been downing coffee from my eight ounce cup like nobody’s business but was beginning to wonder if, by some accident of nature, it was decaf. I sat down on a 5′x5′ platform in the middle of the staircase to rest my eyes and woke up an hour later when a gang of people from the workshops upstairs started walking right by my face. Back to work.

As 5-o’-clock drew nearer, Jeremy came out of the woodwork. Jeremy is one of the proprietors of NextSpace, usually found wearing flip-flops and a bluetooth. He was enjoying the conference, I’m sure, but since NextSpace was to host the Freelance Camp after party, my next job was getting ice in the coolers to keep the free beer chilled. We got in my car to drive to (you guessed it) Longs. I turned on the Scion and we were greeted by the angry chauvinist beats of Eminem blasting from my speakers at full volume. Awkwardly I turned it down to spare Jeremy, who seemed to enjoy himself and bobbed his head animatedly.

“I never hear music like this,” he said. “I usually listen to a lot of Sesame Street.”

When we drove back, my Scion had dropped six inches due to the 120 pounds of ice in the back seat. I returned to a massive surplus of bagels, muffins, and lunch boxes. I wasn’t sure quite what to do with them. (Our office ‘fridge, at Quiddities, is home to a half-and-half carton, six cans of soda, four bottles of Guinness, some cream cheese, and a ball of leftovers sheathed in tin foil, and it’s completely full.) Luckily, the young man sitting at the museum’s front desk took advantage of the leftovers with gusto upon learning there was free food.

Everyone was finished with the workshops for the day. A handful of people had assembled before me.

“Desiree, how can we help?” They chimed, their eyes glittering.

“Uh,” I looked around. “Well, we need to get all this stuff across the street to NextSpace…”

The volunteers filled their arms with boxes and baskets. I moved over some potato chips and an extension cord. The party was about to start. Free pizza and beer is right up my alley, but somehow my nap on the staircase had proved less than restful. I decided to make my way home.

A dark-haired kid who had bummed a couple Camels from me throughout the day stopped me on my way to the car. We made eye contact.

“Hey, um, can I be a complete jerk and–”

“Sure,” I said, handing him my pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Hey, thanks.” He selected one, lit up, and handed me back my things.

“So, uh, what is it that you do?” I asked. It occurred to me that I had spent the whole day at Freelance Camp and I hadn’t actually participated in any of the workshops or met any new people. David explained that he, like Margaret, won a grant from the Knight Foundation. It was for Spot Us, which by my understanding is a site that will enable independent journalists to receive community funding for their stories, and generate an array of publishing opportunities. He handed me his card. We parted ways.

My experience was certainly different from many of the people at Freelance Camp. Nonetheless, it was great to lend a hand at the conference. Everyone seemed to massively enjoy themselves. There was no shortage of activity among the guests. Jeremy informs me that the after-party was a blast. Rumors of another BarCamp–Public Media Camp–have begun to circulate. If I get a chance to help I’ll certainly be doing some things differently: being more organized, sitting in on more of the workshops, and–most importantly–starting the day off with a double-shot of espresso so as to be sure I don’t pass out on the stairs again. David, I’ll most likely see you there.

To everyone who showed up at Freelance Camp and to all of our sponsors, a great big thank you is owed. The BarCamp would not have been the bustling hub of excitement without you. I would also personally like to thank Andrea of Lifestyle Culinary Arts Catering, Manthri of Lulu Carpenter’s, Jay and Wally of Pure Water, Eric Mendelson of Lighthouse Bank, Jeremy Neuner of NextSpace, and Shane Pearlman and Peter Chester of Shane & Peter, all of whom personally assisted me in my job. It has been a pleasure doing business with you.

“It’s I!”

“Uh, give me an I!”

During the BlogHer conference, Mindi had the opportunity to meet the newest member of the Sesame Street cast: Abby Cadabby. Abby is a three year old fairy-in-training (with floppy pink wings and a sparkly wand). She loves to cast magic spells, entertain children, and play with her friends Elmo and Zoe.

Abby interviewed Mindi about her two kids, Milli (age 12) and Margaux (age 21), as well as her two nieces, Madeline and Zsa Zsa, giving all of them an enthusiastic shout-out. “You know what Milli? Banana slugs are filled with Vitamin B!” She exclaimed, after learning that Mindi’s twelve year old had kissed one of the slugs. “So it’s a good thing she did that!”

Abby is the first new female Muppet to appear on the show in 13 years. She is intended to show the importance of diversity, and to share the unique experiences of people from different backgrounds.

I can’t believe how hard this concept is for me. I have always sketched, doodled, painted, knitted and generally fidgeted with my hands my whole life. And it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a TED podcast of Sir Ken Robinson, talking about how our educational system kills creativity did I finally understand what happened. Sir Ken spoke about Gillian Lynne, a famous choreographer who, as a child in the 1930’s was taken to a doctor to find out why she couldn’t sit still in school. After examining her, and hearing from her mother how Gillian was disruptive in class and a problem at school, the doctor pulled Gillian’s mother aside privately, leaving the girl in his office where a radio was playing. As soon as they left Gillian got up and started moving to the music. Able to see what was happening in his office the doctor said, “Your daughter’s not sick Mrs. Lynne, she’s a dancer.”

I think that’s what happened to me. As a child in Catholic schools I was constantly told to stop doodling and to pay attention, I even remember getting my knuckles wacked with a ruler for drawing on my work. No one recognized that I needed to doodle to pay attention. While I wasn’t a disruptive student in any way, there was no honoring the fact that I was an artist. So I hid it. I’ve hidden my work for years and have always felt a bit embarrassed by my drawn up client notes.

This is where Adaptive Path comes in, after being inspired by the wonderful folks at AP I am coming out of the creativity closet and hanging my head up on the wall. I’ve decided it really is ok to doodle all over everything and even sit in a corner at a party and draw people’s feet in my sketchbook if I want to (hence the drawing above, from the aforementioned party.) In fact I’m not going to stop until the whole white wall surrounding my desk is filled with a bulging capacity of color and line.

Take that Sister Mary Donata!

“Er,” I said.

“You just push down on the thing. So you can make coffee in the morning when you come in. The fish come on in the morning, too,” she said. She plugged in the cord laying on the floor and a shoebox-sized lamp on the table lit up, illuminating the scrolling image of otherwise motionless tropical fish.

I think I’m going to like working here.

I consider myself a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. My name is Desiree and I just turned 20 years old. At 17 I began a quick and dirty tryst with university life in upstate New York which, a year and a half later, my wallet could no longer support. With high hopes for a bachelor’s degree dashed for the time being, I returned to my birthplace: Santa Cruz, California. I took a sales position with a large, generally loathed financial institution which I will not name, except to say that it begins with a “W” and ends with “ells Fargo.” I have been an inventory manager, bank clerk, recreation program coordinator, barback, quality assurance consultant, waitress, and perhaps a few others I am forgetting.

My most recent misadventures take place in a local coffee shop. As the morning shift barista, I zone out over grinding coffee and pulling syrupy shots of espresso, delighting sleepy customers with delicate garnishes and exquisite milk foam art. My managers have wrought from my novice attitude a fierce appreciation and respect for the coffee bean. I eschew all that is Starbucks (Starschmucks is more like it!) and corporate mass-produced coffee, refusing to let touch my lips anything falling short of true caffe espresso. (Well, unless I happen to find one of my old Starbucks gift cards from my former manager lying around, and then I pretty much have to use it because, well, its free.)

As I settled into the Quiddities office on my first day, I sipped what I had poured from the french press into one of the earthenware mugs. The beans had been pre-ground. Upon detecting a hint of oxidization, my eyes narrowed in suspicion.

I wrote down on a post-it: pick up fresh coffee. Buy grinder for office.

My desk is nestled between a purple wall and an elegant privacy screen, tucked away with the other employees who bat on their keyboards and sip coffee or tea. Everyone has headphones plugged into at least one side of their head (this seems to increase productivity; I am anxious for my new pair to arrive in the mail) and leafy plants peek out from around corners to say hello. Happy, verdant foliage wiggles in the breeze from the air purifier. It’s a lot different from what I’m used to. There’s no stomach-turning smell of machine grease coming from a workshop, or curry from a kitchen; no hurried customers hovering around cash registers; no aprons, nametags, clattering dishes; professional dress codes to regulate one’s choice in high heels; suicidal managers losing it over a line that goes out the door.

“You should also turn on the fountain when you come in. Just plug it in. Oh, and you have to refill the water when it runs low.” Mindi looked at me. “You’ll know when it’s running low, it makes a noise that’s not quite as soothing as the sound of trickling water.”

From what I understand, I am to be a combination receptionist, gopher, personal assistant, office administrator, and laid-back friendly people person. The matriarchs of the office entrust me with various tasks and I do my best to complete them. (Today, it meant teaching myself how to file business property taxes. Before that, operating a french press.) I have had some help from my predecessor, Margaux, but for the most part, the knowledge that I’m going to have to wing it is looming overhead.

“Looming” isn’t a very good word to describe it. Without someone to watch over you the whole time a new job can be challenging. Personally, I would rather be peacefully adrift in the unfamiliar sea of office administration than locked in the prison of corporate sales quotas or stuck in the pit of customer service. I have always enjoyed being helpful to my coworkers and taking good care of my customers. Now I have a place where I can do all that without compromising who I am. No taking out the extra piercings in my ears, no covering up the visible tattoos, no censoring of the goofy jokes, no restrictions on sipping four-shot lattes. Rather than being programmed to handle a little responsibility someone else’s way, I now have much more to be accountable for–but I get to be myself.

So, Quiddities, I guess what I’m trying to say is thanks for having me. It is my sincere wish to be a cheerful, tattooed, quirky flower in your fragrant bouquet of workers so that we can all do glorious web design together. I look forward to working with each one of you.

And to Margaux: fare thee well in the big city, you bustling urbanite theater goddess. You shall always be my partner in crime.

Cheers.