A designer who writes.
I have blogged intermittently since the mid 90s. Thankfully, much of the early teenage angst is lost to time. This collects my writings from this site, an earlier personal website, and some newsletter projects over the years, in mostly chronological order. I also publish new writing here. I publish somewhat more formal writing about content strategy and design careers at Content Career Accelerator.
This is such a desperate look. If an ex-boyfriend did this you’d be embarrassed for them. If I haven’t used your app in over a year the next email I want to get is about how you’re proactively initiating a process of deleting my account and purging all data in order to protect my privacy … continue
After finding myself exhausted with the “I read an article the other day” culture of forgotten references, I made a resolution to somehow keep track of the tangled mess.
I was at my parents’ place all week last week. My iPad was the only computer I brought with. I did a lot of work on personal projects —mostly writing, editing, and planning — and kept up on email, Slack, and a few small tasks for work. It was the most intense use I’ve made … continue
More or less, anyway. I passed the lists from Des Moines Content Nerds on to Quentin for Experiencing UX. He invited me back to keynote World IA Day Des Moines in February. The Kristina Halvorson invited herself to present to our meetup group when it was still Content Nerds, and now I work for her. … continue
I’m not good at going to bed. It got really bad a couple of months back. I’d sit on my couch scrolling social media on my phone or watching dumb stuff on Hulu right on through 11pm, midnight, 1am. It’s not like I have to get my nonexistent kids off to school at dawn or … continue
Chris Welch, writing for The Verge on iCloud storage limits: 5GB makes things way more difficult for those people than they should be. Fundamental tasks like backing up your device become cumbersome chores. If you never upgrade, you’re likely going to have a worse time using an iPhone. Full stop. It surprises me that Apple … continue
Been down in Arizona keeping my Mom company after a surgery. Went for a run this morning. It was just shy of 80 in Tucson. I don’t know anyone but family down here, and there’s hardly anyone around anyway, so I only wore my little running shorts. I wanted to feel as much sun on … continue
I used to do freelance videography for legal depositions. I’d set up a camera and microphones to record lawyers interviewing someone for a court case. One time, an old businessman was being deposed. The smug young lawyer hammered him with questions. Stuff about the history of the business and a partnership arrangement going back to … continue
Been trying to get better with Linea sketch. I much prefer the brushes available in Paper, but have found that app to be very glitchy and there’s not much in the way of workflow management. I used Paper to illustrate my deck for What Even is a Website and there was a lot of hoping … continue
I’m giving a workshop soon in Sioux Falls. It’s one I’ve done before, Build Your Digital Writing Toolbox. The most recent deck and materials, from Confab Higher Ed, were in pretty good shape. I cleaned up some typos and alignment issues, added presenter notes for things I was feeling rusty on, and — this is … continue
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