24/03/06
Big ideas, and then ... no time
Every time I go to a conference, I come away with big ideas, opinions, and definitive actions for when I get home. I going to do X! I’m going to demand that X starts using Y! I’m going to change the world by doing Z etc. Once I’m home, other pressures take hold (running a business, running a family), and these big ideas never happen. They are quickly forgotten.
One example. Last year’s SXSW was my first encounter with Microformats in Tantek’s presentation. Almost scary in their simplicity, I was excited at the possibilities they presented*. When I got back, I would start looking at how I could implement this into my work.
A year went by. This year at SXSW, Gordon Montgomery on the “Design and Social Responsibility” panel urged people to start small. Even a small change was better than no change at all. These words stuck with me, and gave me hope for this years inevitable come home… then not do anything cycle.
So, its taken me a year to get around to such a chuffing simple task, but I’ve reformatted my contact details to use the hCard microformat. Its funny how a few extra class names can give you satisfaction.
Now I repeat to myself as a mantra. Small changes. Start small…
Tags: ideas, microformats, sxsw
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Rob Weychert said 785 days ago:
That’s a valuable lesson, to be sure. Only when you figure out that you can’t conquer the world will you be on your way to conquering the world.
Kenneth Himschoot said 785 days ago:
After a week being home, I’m stuck with EXACTLY the same feeling, buddy. I’m trying to make that big change with small steps too.
If you need some more convincing, I bought the book from 37 signals called “getting real” and read it in one piece. You can find it at
https://gettingreal.37signals.com/
I’ll keep this next to my desk to look back to everytime I’m lost in piles of work or doing 20 things at a time.
Tim Beadle said 785 days ago:
Look at it this way: your new hcard addition was the first use I’ve got out of the Tails FFx extension since I installed it. It’s sweet.
Baby steps, baby steps.
Nathan Pitman said 785 days ago:
Just a heads up, I think that some of your website URL references in the hcard have a leading ’\’ in front of the ’:’.
Jon Hicks said 785 days ago:
eerrr.. no?!
Ben said 784 days ago:
Nathan: I’ve found that problem when loading vCards from Apple’s Address Book into the Windows Address Book.
I’m not sure which one is doing it right and which is wrong, but I’m fairly sure it’s a software issue rather than Jon.
Nathan Pitman said 784 days ago:
Yup, I was loading into Moz Thunderbird on Win.
Patrick Haney said 779 days ago:
I know exactly how you feel, though I’ve been pretty sick since I returned from SXSW, so I’m going to blame my lack of productivity with “cool new ideas” strictly on that. For now.
Starting small seems logical, and I’m glad you pointed out your small step towards world domination. I had completely forgot about microformats once again, and after reading the wiki, I realized it would take me all of 15 minutes to update my own contact info in hCard format, something I meant to do after last year’s SXSW. Why haven’t I done this before?
Thanks for the motivation Jon.