How about Facebook? If you were forced to look at those pages in a moving vehicle, you’d vomit.

Recently I wrote about blandness in web design. I wanted to take this topic a little further because I think it stretches into how we talk to machines.

We each started off with the Internet and computers in general, like we were rough stones with pointed and sharp edges. Instead of using our sharp edges to carve these technological tools to shapes we wanted, we let them turn us into soft rolling shapes like stones you’d see in an old river bed.

Could it be that technology is shaping us and not the reverse?

How many times have you sat in front of your computer almost apologizing to it or feeling stupid because you did not know what to do? How often do you scratch your head like a monkey to come up with yet one more username and password?

I know we choose all these things we get involved with, but surely there must be a better way of designing the interfaces we work with.

The interfaces we use are clunky and ugly and we somehow think we are stuck with them. In fact, we don’t even think about them anymore; we just accept them (much as we accept Muzak as my friend Tom recently wrote about)

Google has great tools, but with the exception of their search page, look at their user interface! “Butt Ugly” comes to mind.

How about Facebook? If you were forced to look at those pages in a moving vehicle, you’d vomit. It’s like the time I saw the Blair Witch project in the third row and got motion sickness.

I know we want these tools to do more and more so companies build more and more, but surely, the experience can be improved, can’t it?

Apple does a pretty good job most of the time by simplifying, but really, I think we’re so far down the drain with all of this now that we don’t even think it could be different.

Solution?

Not only does looking at the rings of a tree tell you how old the tree is, but also what years had a lot of growth and what ones didn’t due to environmental factors such as the amount of rain or drought.

I thought our lives are like that too. Some years are tough while others are rich and we grow a lot.

I then came to a part of the forest with Douglas Firs of various ages and when I thought about how old each one was, I realized a correlation to my age and the age of various family members.

I admit this is a little abstract, but here is my little video showing trees and who they represent in my family.

View the video on YouTube

Command-Z (Control-Z on Windows)

I work in the graphic design field so I work with text and documents that involve lots of iterative work. Editing happens. A client of mine once remarked that life was an editing job too, and it struck me as particularly accurate.

I’ve been editing my life for years. I edited it when I went to college to study music, when I started my music career in 1985, when I learned bookkeeping at a dry time during my music career, when I started doing web and graphic design in the 1990s, when I stepped into a management role at an arts organization in 1998 and again in 2002, when I stepped back into design work after that and when I started administering arts grants a few years ago in addition to my design work.

All, edits to my work life that have allowed me great flexibility with my time.

To me, work and “non-work” have often been mixed. I grew up with a dad who was ahead of his time. He worked freelance, which, in the 1960s was rare. I think my mother’s father was a little unsettled when he found out his daughter was married to someone with such an “insecure” job (my grandfather was a company man as head of human resources at BC Hydro).

To me however, the self-employed model made sense. I observed my dad who did very well with his business, but like any freelancer, had busy times and quieter times. If he had a quiet afternoon, he’d slip down to the basement and put in an hour or so on a model airplane or edit an 8mm movie he was working on.

In the current lingo of the corporate world, he had “work-life balance” but he never thought of it that way. I’m sure it wasn’t always so well balanced, but in general, it worked for him.

Now, I’m editing my life again. My partner and I are going to move to a small island off the coast of western Canada to build a house and live and work in a different way.

Since spending summers on Hornby Island as a child, I’ve often wondered if I could ever live there. For years, I didn’t think it would be possible, but two things have happened that have changed that view. My work happens because of the Internet and the Internet certainly reaches there, and, I got older and developed a different perspective with different needs and wants.

To chronicle this journey, my partner and I have started a web site called Living Out Beyond as a way of documenting our shift from a downtown, urban landscape to a more rural one on an island that is six hours and three ferry rides from Vancouver.

We’re going to be editing as we go but hope this new site will be a place where others who may be considering such a move (not just to an island, but to any small community) can learn from our experience or offer advice to us on house building and more importantly the mind shift ahead of us.

Let the editing begin.

The range of how far one can take this is considerable. There are those who have reduced personal belongings to 50 items and can travel and work just about anywhere. (see Far Beyond the Stars and Zen Habits) For others, it’s about slowly reducing to a point that feels comfortable.

I’ve been trying to tackle the “too much stuff” issues for the last few months (see post). It’s very difficult in a world that only wants you to have more and more. By looking at my “stuff” I have realized a few things and I’ve started to change my relationship to it.

Physical Stuff

For physical things, I’ve done much cleaning out and giving things away as well as simply tossing items. It’s stunning how much there is. I have so many little cables for computer-related equipment, batteries for mice, chargers, adapters… the list goes on.

It’s easy for me to get rid of stuff. What’s tricky is just not buying it to begin with. I’m trying to reassess my way of buying things.

Mental Stuff

It’s not all just about physical items either, there’s also mental “stuff” and the theory is that by reducing the clutter in our brains we become clearer and more able to focus on what matters.

As with physical stuff, mental stuff is easy to “buy” as well. We get an idea for something, we start a new project or we do something as simple as adding a third email address but the next thing we know, we’re managing too many things which simply makes for days of scattered thoughts and no focus.

With the Internet and social media tools it’s even easier to get clogged up with mental clutter. Just keeping track of usernames and passwords can be huge not to mention all the incoming and outgoing communications through myriad channels.

When it gets to be too much, we start to lose our sense of control. Lack of control is what leads to anxiety and anxiety leads to stress and anxiety management techniques such as addictions (food, drugs, alcohol).

In de-cluttering our physical and mental spaces we are trying to bring order and control to our lives. Becoming obsessed with this path is probably just as unhealthy as having stuff taking up space. Finding a path that’s right is the key.

A central theme that runs through my thinking is that most of us don’t ever question our current situations and assumptions to even see if they make sense. We don’t even give a second thought to all our stuff, mental or physical.

How about you? Is your office, house and mind cluttered?

Have you ever noticed how your actions change when conditions change?

When you’re young, you may tend to dress better, groom more and try to be in shape because you’re searching for a partner (mating game). Everybody does this to a different degree, but it’s definitely done

When your business is young, you do all kinds of things to dress it up, groom it and make it look in shape because you are courting customers.

When you are with people who may pay you for what you do (or will continue to pay you) you act differently, you speak differently and you dress differently.

Maybe the reason we do all these things is that they are ingrained in us from evolution where mating or being in favour with the tribal leader meant a better chance of survival.

In many ways, we do all these things because we want something from someone else.

What if we were all naked? There’d be nothing to hide us and obscure our differences and similarities.

Young people would probably strive even harder to “look good” but the upside is, at least the truth would be out there and not covered up by clothes and perfume and expensive jewelry.

Businesses starting out wouldn’t have fancy logos, buy ads telling people how their teams of customer support (one person) will handle your every question.

Individuals would only be hired based on what they do and are known for, not on hype or clever show

There is much talk in the social media world about transparency. We show this when we discuss things more openly (strategy, personal thoughts) but I still think we still live in a world of dress-up.

Let’s get naked! What would your business look like?

One of my favourite places is Helliwell Park on Hornby Island on the coast of British Columbia. About 15 years ago, there was a fire in one area of the park that is very dry and exposed along a bluff above the ocean. It burned a swath of pine trees that grew in the water-starved region of the park. It was devastating and disheartening to see what one careless person could do by throwing a cigarette butt on the dry grass beneath the pines.

This beautiful stretch along the bluffs where the trees grew would never be the same again! The pine trees had been there a long time but there had been no new growth in years. Many of the trees weren’t even that healthy.

It turns out that the pine cones from these trees are only shocked into action by fire. Simply dropping to the ground as they’d done for years did not bring on any new growth. If you walk there today, there is a small little forest of healthy, vibrant and new trees growing up very well, thank you very much.

Like the little pine forest, the arts community also operates under rather severe growing conditions. Our political leaders have carelessly thrown a match on it.

In British Columbia where I live, the cuts have been considerably brutal. It’s quite possible that with recent announcements, the total will be in the 50–70% range. I am starting to see the impacts of this in the areas I am involved in. For example, performing arts presenters are scaling back or cancelling entire seasons because they can’t afford to take the risk. One client has reduced a newsletter that I do the design for, from three times per year to one.

This all started with the financial crisis in 2008 and though there are signs of recovery, there are also troubling stories of Europe and its debt problems. I just read that the U.K. is discussing cutting support for the arts. Can other countries be far behind when they have to make the dramatic cuts to their deficits?

Then there are the neighbours south of me. The United States has huge deficit issues and the time to pay for the financial packages and stimulus programs is coming soon. Will arts funding survive?

It may not. If we haven’t started to plan for the worst, maybe it’s time to. My approach is to expect there to be little to no funding soon.

Is it all doom and gloom? I don’t think so.

The benefit of this wiping of public funding for the arts is that it will clean house in a big way. It’s not that arts programs or the arts organizations that are funded are particularly wasteful with the money (they spend it very well and make it go a long way), but rather, the nature of many grants programs make organizations start to jump through crazy hoops. Projects get started because they’ll be funded, then the program that supported it gets dropped, so the project gets morphed into something else to “sort of” fit some other program. Before long you have a hodge-podge projects with no focus.

So, not wanting to sound like Chancy Gardener in the movie Being There, I would suggest that the massive fire that has ripped and will continue to rip through the public funding of the arts could, in the long run, end up being a very good thing. It will surely involve casualties and a lot of destruction of what once was.

I’m looking forward to seeing what resourceful, creative and clever artists do because of this. Getting rid of some deadwood may be the best thing that ever happened. That probably includes some of my projects!

May 26, 1985 - Vancouver East Cultural Centre - l-r Blaine Dunaway, Dale Diduck, Rob Marr, John McLachlan, Robert (Bobby) Cornejo

Half my life ago, 25 years today, May 26,1985 to be exact, marked the beginning of a whole new journey that would take me places I’d have never gone, let me meet people I’d have never met, and generally shaped my life in ways I could never have imagined.

In 1984 I was attending a concert at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre with my best friend, Bruce McMillan. At intermission we were chatting and I was telling him how much I would love to perform at the “Cultch” as it was known, but that it was a silly notion because “how could I ever sell enough tickets to fill the 300 seat hall?” He said, “sure you can, just do it.”

Well, I did book it and I put my band together from fellow students and an instructor from Capilano College where I was enrolled in the Commercial Music program. Drums: Dale Diduck, violin: Blaine Dunaway, lead guitar: Robert (Bobby) Cornejo, a guest appearance from friend Melanie Johnson to sing some duets, and my longest-running musician mate, Rob Marr on bass.

I didn’t know a thing about marketing. I remember the publicist at the theatre blasted me and my sister-in-law, Patricia Crowe, who was helping me with publicity, for not knowing how to write a press release. Wendy Newman who ran the theatre then, probably thought it would be a tiny little turnout for some “unknown.” I got my brother to take photos of me for the poster and my dad made the posters.

In short, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was scared s#&^less about what I’d undertaken. How could I pull it off without losing my shirt?

All my friends, and friends of friends and friends of the band got behind it. A few newspapers ran a short blurb, tickets started to sell and I began to think I may just be able to pull this off.

After much rehearsing of my original songs as well as some more well-known pieces, the night arrived.

The theatre had to add seats. No more people could fit. There was a buzz in the air. When we walked out on stage it was a feeling I will never forget. It was like a dream come true, a dream I’d had since I attended my first Gordon Lightfoot concert in 1972 and knew then that I wanted to do that too.

Here is a one-minute, very grainy video of us walking on stage for the first time and starting our first song.

I felt like I’d stepped off into another world. It was like being enveloped in a warm blanket. The two sets flew by and I felt like the Universe was mine. It was like being in love. It was like feeling “one” with it all.

The evening was a huge success and even though I knew most people there in some way, the real accomplishment was that I had pulled it off. I’d taken the plunge on the challenge from my friend, and did it.

I was rough around the edges then. I got better and always enjoyed the performance side of the music career, and even though I never reached a very high level of fame, I’m still very proud of that night and what it led to.

It led to making music for another ten years and to working with lots of wonderful people, especially Rob Marr. It took me to places like tiny First Nations towns on the West Coast of Vancouver Island all the way to Bogota, Colombia.

I also got to meet so many amazing people on my tours and those at home who supported me (my parents of course) and Olga Jones who became my agent because she believed in me.

I guess, it just showed me that when you do something that is meaningful and worthwhile, it brings out the best in everyone around you.

There have been many roads travelled since then, both literally and figuratively, musically and in other ways, but that night in May, 1985 still stands out as the best.

Bandit's Roost by Jacob Riis - New York 1888

There is a big discussion going on about the “open web” and “open source” and whether it’s fading with new services coming along such as Apple’s App store for the iPhone and iPad. This article in the New York Times equates this to when people were lured to walled communities in the suburbs to avoid having to deal with all the messiness of the rest of the world.

Does this analogy of walled communities hold up? I don’t think so. To me, it’s like saying that people used to live in tenement houses, crowded together, sharing outhouses and much more such as the easy spread of viruses. When the opportunity came to move to a better neighbourhood and have more of their own space, did they balk and say, “no, we like living in close quarters with our neighbours. We want to stay mired in poverty”?

I’m willing to pay for a better experience.

It’s one of the reasons why I use a Mac. I pay more for it, I’ve yet to have a virus, I prefer the look and feel and build of its hardware and software. It’s why I like the iPad and the App store so much. To me, it’s simpler and tidier in a world filling with more than enough complexity.

I think the problem is that the people writing about this are generally “techies” to begin with so they see it through their eyes. The majority of the world does not even worry about these things.

We hear about the open web issues because the people who write about them are deeply involved so the assumption they make is that everyone thinks about it and stresses about it. It gives greater importance to the issue than it deserves. It’s the same reason we see so many stories about “the aging population”: it’s because baby boomers are the ones writing the news stories now.

I understand why people don’t like the thought of having a corporation (even one they like) telling them what way to experience the web by controlling what they see or do, but I don’t think we’re at the point, or even close.

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember the party line service (see Wikipedia) you had with your telephone. Others (your neighbours) shared your phone line. Should we all go back to that? It was an “open community.” Remember how “hoitty toitty” you thought neighbours were who first got private lines and opted out of the party line?

Call me hoity toity but I don’t mind paying for a better experience.

Oh my GAAAWWWWD. Can you imagine? What’s going to happen? Will the world stop? Apple wasn’t mentioned and to make matters worse, Adobe was there and Adobe hates Apple too and they didn’t mention Apple. This is BIG. This really matters to each and every one of us!

NOT!

Now, I like Louis. He led a session at SXSW 2010 that I attended and he’s the nicest guy. I’m not picking on him, but rather the way we all tend to get into our own little worlds and issues and assume that the rest of the world cares much. It doesn’t.

The people in this technology “war of the titans” forget that most people just want a device to work and improve their lives. They don’t care if the big kids on the block are fighting because they don’t even live near the big kids and never really see them.

I’m as guilty as any about this, but I am tiring of the huge discussion around tech issues. I know, I know, I don’t have to read about it, but the coverage seems so prevalent or perhaps I’m just looking for it.

But what’s this got to do with anything else? Lots. We all get caught up in our own little issues and tend to turn them into life and death scenes without realizing that hardly anyone cares.

My issues include being adamant and passionate about public funding support for the Arts and many of my own little circle feel the same way (I even helped set up an organization called ArtsAdvocacyBC), but to the outside world, our cause is seen as meaningless and virtually non-existent.

Solution? Say less but do more and stop thinking our causes are so important. Maybe we’d get more accomplished this way.