Pemaquid Communications

There’s no question that Internet Explorer 6 has replaced Netscape 4 as the most reviled browser known to Web development. Just do a quick real-time search to see how Web designers feel.

There’s a lot not to like. To name just a few short-comings:

• It doesn’t render the transparency of Portable Network Graphics (*.PNG files) properly, requiring a browser-specific filter
• It doesn’t render a lot of the latest CSS declarations

(I could go on and on, but why relive the agony?)

This means that Web designers need to invest extra time making sure IE6 renders their creations properly, and that makes us, um… cranky, and rightly so.

Some designers actually seem to be personally offended by people who use IE6, and want to force them to switch browsers by denying them access to their Web sites if they use IE6.

This approach is miguided and does not take into account the fact that many people cannot upgrade because they access the Web from corporate IT environments that only support IE6.

Other designers are bewildered that some people would continue to use IE6 when other options exist. The reason has to do with usability, and is best characterized by the phrase “if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it”. In other words, people who use IE6, many of whom are non-technical, get along just fine, thank you, sending email and surfing and purchasing with adequate security. These folks have no incentive to switch.

It’s hard to get angry with people for that.

Designer Andy Clarke recently considered the options regarding the IE6 question and proposed a Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS file as a solution. Basically, Clarke, says, serve up a plain jane style sheet that allows folks with IE6 to view a Web page’s content, but conveys the message that their browser is not up to par in terms of rendering its layout.

Some top flight designers have adopted this approach, as Jina Bolton did recently when she redesigned her personal site, Sushi and Robots. UIE6 has popped up on a couple of sites here in the Portland area as well.

So, has the time come to employ the Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS more routinely? The answer depends on the audience for your site as well as its content.

A quick spot check of W3Schools browser stats suggests that roughly 10% of all Internet users view it through IE6 (about 4% of the visitors to this site use IE6).

If your site caters to the general public and traffic analytics show one in ten visitors are using IE6, I’d say the time has not yet come for you to switch. You’re still better off employing progressive enhancement techniques in your CSS to serve up a design that still looks sharp, if not a pixel-perfect clone of what’s seen in other browsers.

If 4% or less are using IE6, and you’re not conducting any e-commerce, I’d say you’re safe giving UIE6 CSS a spin.

But if you do use UIE6 CSS, make sure you check to see that things are rendering properly. Sometimes goodies like jQuery, bereft of the CSS used in other browsers, leave the interface looking a little messy and content unreadable. Yep, I’ve seen that on at least one local site-that-shall-remain-nameless.

Remember, IE6 users are people too. They deserve a great (if not pixel-perfect) user experience like everybody else.

Next week we’ll be talking about Pemaquid’s current approach to handling CSS for IE6.

Have any of you out there used UIE6 CSS? Let us know how in the comments.

Last week, Pemaquid’s first intern, Jordan Warren, officially became Pemaquid’s new Creative Services Coordinator, and we are really jazzed about it.

Jordan’s responsible for managing all the “air traffic”: working closely with our Clients to make sure we’re meeting their needs and that they always understand the status of their project. She also works with the creative staff and subcontractors to make sure that your friendly neighborhood Webslingers understand what they need to do to get the job done right.

Have a question or concern about your Web site project? Jordan’s your gal.

Jordan and I met in April, when I gave a guest lecture to her e-commerce class at the University of Southern Maine. Afterwards, she asked if Pemaquid provided internships. She said she wanted to learn as much as she could about Web design and usability and didn’t care if she got paid.

Music to my ears (the part about learning all she could).

So I signed her up as our first intern, and the rest is recent history. Jordan has read the books, written the blog posts, set up the Delicious links for other aspiring Web designers (and learning in the process) and coded the HTML, CSS, PHP and SQL. She even set up Pemaquid’s Facebook fan page.

When her internship ended this past September, Jordan stayed on as a part-time designer. As she finished up her final semester, she has gotten to know many of our Clients quite well.

And the word, from at least one last week: “We like Jordan”.

That rocks. Jordan’s cheerful disposition, ingenuity and attention to detail are making a positive difference. That’s the kind of person we want to have around.

Please help us in congratulating Jordan on her new gig. We’re eagerly looking forward to great things from her in 2010!

The year 2010 will be to some extent about recasting Pemaquid, or at least my perspective. The Web has changed a lot I first went into business in 2002. Then, people used Dreamweaver to edit the Web and Netscape Navigator 4 to browse it. Now they use WordPress and… IE6 (if you know what I mean).

So this seems like a good time to rededicate this blog to two individuals who have been influential in bringing it into being.

The first is Jeffrey Zeldman. As the author of Designing with Web Standards, publisher of A List Apart and one of the most important voices on best practices in Web design, I’d been an admirer for some time. Then I had the opportunity to meet him at South By Southwest in March 2007. I mentioned how I felt my business was ’stuck in neutral’ and seemed to be adrift after some early success.

“Do you have a blog?” Zeldman asked me.

“No,” I replied, “I’m not sure I have anything original to say.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he told me. “Just say what you think needs to be said. And, after all, it’s searchable.”

So, I jumped on the blogging bandwagon, after arriving fairly late to the game, and though I’m usually skeptical of the intrinsic value of new trends like Twitter and Facebook, I’ve made a more concerted effort to be an early adopter and figure out how new Web technologies will affect how we interact.

My second rededication is for Zack Gaulkin. I worked with Zack at MaineToday.com back in the early naughties when sock puppets ruled the Earth and people still used the phrase “New Economy” to describe what was happening online. The Web was a creative free-for-all, and I would love to brainstorm with Zack, and we’d come up with all kinds of whacky ideas – and could try them out. The whole Web was our laboratory.

I’ve mentioned Zack before on this blog. He’s passed on, and I miss his creative energy and playful spirit.

In many ways, these are two people worth emulating. If I remember to ask myself “WWZD?” (”What Would Zack – or Zeldman – Do?”) I’ll probably be able to stay on the right track.

When it comes to 2009, one thing’s for sure – there was never a dull moment. In fact, it had more ups and downs than the SooperDooperLooper. I like excitement, but I’m hoping 2010 will be a year of steadier, more balanced growth.

The year started off with, shall we say, a “subdued” business climate. Then in January two long-time collaborators decided to go their own way and haven’t looked back. No calls, no emails, no coffee, no beer, no lunch. (I blame myself). For someone who went into business in part to try to build a better kind of workplace, that one still hurts bad. Real bad.

In February, with the commercial real estate market being what it was (at a low ebb, that is), it was time to head downtown and see if I could score some office space. I got very lucky and hit the jackpot with a top floor space at 28 Maple Street, formerly occupied by Lapchick Creative. I couldn’t rent the entire floor space, but worked out a deal w/our landlord, Portland Pie (Best. Landlord. Ever.) to rent part of it and then see if I could bring in like-minded creatives to fill it out as a coworking space.

I had heard about the idea of coworking, through Twitter of all places, and in April it became a trending topic in Portland, thanks in part to a great article in The Switch by Avery Yale Kamila. Then Space Gallery held a Jelly – a coworking open house of sorts – and we followed suit (we hosted Jellies on a monthly basis throughout most of 2009 and we intend to continue this year). Our space now has four full-time members, two part-time members and a funky name – Wycwah (you’ll have to ask a member how we came up with that one). You can follow Wycwah on Twitter, naturally.

In February, I decided to try a NoonHat lunch, organized by the folks at Portland Greendrinks. There, purely by chance, I ran into Sheila Reiser, a gal who was in-between jobs and to some extent was trying to find herself. Needing a Creative Services Coordinator, after the departure of an aforementioned collaborator, I decided to take a chance, and hired her.

Here’s the thing you need to understand about Sheila: she didn’t have a computer, a Facebook page or a Twitter account. Her mobile phone was an ancient model, and I don’t think she sent very many text messages outside of those we exchanged. Quite an unusual hire for a company that does Web design and development.

What Sheila did have, however, was a keen interest in typography and a can-do, supportive attitude. She was not in this game of life for the money (she had turned her back on her career as an officer in the Coast Guard – she graduated from the Academy), she actually wanted to help Pemaquid make a difference, and see if it was in any way fulfilling for her. She had a courteous, military bearing, but was not “professional”. Refreshing, just right for Pemaquid (courteous but not “professional”), and a very good fit as it turned out.

In March, I caught another break, bumping into Jordan Warren, while giving a presentation on e-commerce to her class at the University of Southern Maine. Jordan quickly became Pemaquid’s first summer intern, and the experience went so well that she has continued on as a part-time employee, and she’s doing a bang up job as my Humble Apprentice. When Sheila left in mid-December, Jordan assumed her role as Pemaquid’s new Creative Services Coordinator. You will be hearing much more about her soon enough.

In June, Pemaquid was nominated for one of the first-ever entreverge awards by a Client, Curtis Picard of the Maine Merchants Association. We were nominated for advancing the idea of coworking in Portland, and we were lucky enough to be one of five companies (out of 50+ nominees) to win. Winners have access to an Advisory Committee that includes former governor Angus King, Idexx founder David Shaw and David Swardlick of Swardlick Marketing Group. Happily, one of our Clients, Gabrielle Melchionda of Mad Gab’s is also an advisor. Over the coming weeks, I will be writing about my experience with entreverge advisors.

My entreverge has been wonderful, and has quite possibly saved my business. It’s mission – to celebrate and promote good, creative business ideas and innovation here in Maine – is something that should be supported year after year. Kudos to Johann Sabbath and the folks at Propel for bringing it to life.

I’ve met many wonderful folks through coworking, and many through social media connections. Portland has many wonderfully talented “digital creatives” and I’m hoping there will be many opportunities to collaborate in the coming year.

Like a lot of folks, I’m looking forward to a better 2010, but there’s definitely going to be a lot of very hard work to be done to be successful. The business of Web design continues to evolve, forcing those of us in the market to adapt quickly. The economy still isn’t exactly rainbows and unicorns like it was a few years ago, and competition for the best gigs will be tough.

But bring it on. I’m convinced you learn much more about what your business is made of during the tough times, because you’re forced to be more introspective about what you need to do to be successful.

You may have noticed that this blog has been particularly quiet the last several weeks. True, we’ve been busy at Pemaquid, but I’ve also been spending a lot of time, with the help of my entreverge advisors (which has been invaluable), trying to get really clear on what it is that I’m all about and how I can, in my own way, make a positive difference to employees, Clients, peers and the larger community.

I’ve been in this business for almost nine years, and so far, so good. I know that sometimes I can act like God’s gift to Web, but believe me the management consultants I’ve met with recently are having a field day.

The world doesn’t need another mediocre Web shop. If Pemaquid is going to set a good example, I’m going to have to do a lot better.

But I think we’re getting there. More soon. Stay tuned.

It’s getting easier and easier for designers to make use of a wide variety of fonts in their Web projects. This is due to advances in CSS3, including the @font-face declaration, which in turn has led to the development of Typekit, a font “broker” of sorts.

I’m giving short presentation on the subject tonight to the New Hampshire Usability Professionals Association. Here are some recent, relevant links on the topic:

• Jeffrey Zeldman on the latest advances in Web typography
• W3C – CSS Fonts Module Documentation
• CSS3.info – article on @font-face
• A List Apart – CSS at 10
• Issues with IE8 and Web font rendering
• Typekit

You may have noticed that after being very active during the course of the spring and summer, this blog has been pretty quiet for several weeks now. We’re doing some soul searching, refocusing and we’re asking a lot of questions of others and ourselves.

I feel it’s important to make sure that I have a voice that’s worth hearing, that what I say on this blog counts and makes a difference. I’m asking myself whether I’m really capable of doing that in some way.

I feel very fortunate to have won an entreverge award earlier this year. I have met with several of the advisors, including Gabrielel Melchionda of Mad Gab’s (and a Client of ours) and David Shaw, founder of Idexx. Several more are on my calendar for the upcoming weeks.

Lots of soul searching taking place…

CONTRACT WEB DEVELOPER

Pemaquid Communications seeks a Web developer to assist us with upcoming work on a project-by-project basis. Proficiency in Python and the Django framework is preferred, although expertise in Rails or PHP frameworks is also good. Experience architecting and building custom content management systems is desirable.

Please send a technical resume along with links to working Web sites we can review to:

work@pemaquid.com

Thanks for your help. Rock on….

Rob Landry
Founder/Principal/Chief Bottle Washer
Pemaquid Communications
W http://www.pemaquid.com
FB: http://www.facebook.com/pemaquid
T: http://twitter.com/pemaquid

We’ve been looking for ways to make use of our coworking space at 28 Maple that will advance the cause of digital creatives in our fair city, and tonight, from 6 – 8pm, we’ll host our first-ever evening mixer.

The event will feature a presentation by Kevin Silver on interaction design and agile development. Silver is a UX Designer at Tyler Technologies in Falmouth, Maine and he’s on the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) board of directors.

The gathering was organized by Benjamin Ho and Susan Doran, who have reorganized the local MaineUX interaction design group as the Portland, Maine chapter of IxDA (@maineixda).

Vittles will be provided free of charge by Portland Pie – and you’ll be able to wet your whistle with beer or wine. So slowly… slowly back away from the Facebook and the Twitter and come do some real life social networking with other like-minded creative types.

About Kevin Silver

Kevin is an empathetic champion of the end user and has been involved in designing the behavior of digital products since 1995. He has worked on a diverse range of projects for the government, software companies and many nationally recognized brands providing strategic direction and interaction design goodness. As a passionate advocate for Interaction Design, Kevin led the charge in forming an IxDA local group in New Mexico and is currently on the IxDA Global Board of Directors. In his role on the IxDA Board, Kevin oversees more than 80 IxDA local groups from around the world. Currently he is UX Designer at Tyler Technologies working to deliver the next generation of financial software for local governments and municipalities.

About IxDA

The IxDA Manifesto: We believe that the human condition is increasingly challenged by poor experiences. IxDA intends to improve the human condition by advancing the discipline of Interaction Design. To do this, we foster a community of people that choose to come together to support this intention. IxDA relies on individual initiative, contribution, sharing and self-organization as the primary means for us to achieve our goals.

Sheila Reiser is Pemaquid’s Creative Services Coordinator.

Her primary duty is to make sure all “air traffic” at Pemaquid is cruising along at a comfortable altitude and that no Client is experiencing any, um, “turbulence”.

Sheila works with Pemaquid’s Chief Bottle Washer (that’s me) in tracking receipt of content, making sure the project is on schedule and on budget and that your project fits within the overall scheme of things at Pemaquid.

Before coming to Pemaquid, Sheila was in the United States Coast Guard, where she graduated from the Academy. During her tour it was her responsibility to know every moving part and system on her ship. She’s doing the same for us.

She has managerial experience: while at sea a crew of six reported to her. If she can handle a half-dozen burly sailors and help maintain our homeland security, that’s good enough for us – and should be good enough for you on your project.

Our Jelly last week was so much fun we’ve decided to do it again.

Come down to 28 Maple Street and hang w/us from 10a-4p, next Tuesday, August 25.

Coffee, wi-fi and camaraderie will be plentiful. We should have a wireless printer and other clerical sundries by then as well.

(photo courtesy Dave Weinberg/cellphoneSketchpad: http://daveweinberg.com/daveBlog/)

Rob says: I’ve been giving Jordan some required reading during her internship. Here’s a book report.

The Design of Everyday Things sounds like a subject we shouldn’t need to read a book about. Especially the people who are trying to do the designing.

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman (also known as The Psychology of Everyday Things) talks about how poorly some things are designed.

Have you ever had trouble figuring out how to open a door? Or do you constantly turn on the wrong light switch even though you use it every day? Do you have a coffee maker, or stereo, or alarm clock that has so many buttons you don’t even know where to start? Maybe you’ve even… had trouble finding something on a Web site?

These are all failed attempts at usability.

The kicker: People usually blame themselves when they can’t figure out how to use somehting, but when things like this happen, it’s not because you’re stupid; it’s because the device or object was poorly designed.

In The Design of Everyday Things, Norman talks about all the things about human nature that aid or detract from the ability to come up with the perfect design. Everything from the user’s “conceptual map” in their head doesn’t match the physical layout, or the designer’s conceptual map, to the subtle signals we have become used to, such as, a door with a vertical handle is to be pulled out and a door with a horizontal handle is to be pushed.

As long as designers don’t ignore what people already know, and the amount they are capable of remembering they won’t have a problem. As the book goes on he goes on to explain how new technology is making some design problems, like buttons with too many functions, obsolete. He describes the various issues with everyday designs with real examples that he has come across, making it an interesting and funny read.

To anyone who is interested in learning more about Usability and Design in a book that isn’t painful to read, like a lot of the informational books out there, pick up a copy.

On Tuesday our coworking gang at 28 Maple Street held our first-ever Jelly and it was a huge success! The place was abuzz with activity – and more importantly, creativity. At any given time, about a dozen coworkers were collaborating in the conference room or lounging on the sofas.

Below is a rundown on the people who made our Jelly “Jell”:

Nick Hall (@tripdragon) – showed how he creates custom brushes and textures in Photoshop.

Our new coworking partner, Sarah Robbins (@brightworkllc) showed us how she uses Protoshare to make quick mockups for her projects.

Big, big thank you to Casey Rosenthal (@caseyrosenthal), for getting a more powerful wifi broadcaster in place to handle all the traffic. Internet service was screaming and flawless throughout the day. Casey also arranged to make sure we had plenty of coffee from our friends at Bard Coffee (@bardcoffee, @bardtogo).

Dave Weinberg (@daveweinberg, @AIGAMaine) created one of his patented cellphoneSketchpads. Dave and I also compared notes on working with local ad agencies with Web designer Katie Benedict (nope, not on Twitter… yet).

Progmatica members Justin Henry (@jhenry) and Russ Jones (@codeofficer) swooped in. Among other things, we hacked around the inner workings of the Django framework SQL. You guys are super geeks! (and I say that with admiration).

Arielle Walrath (@ariellebw) and her husband came by and, I think, got a little Web design work in.

Jason Thaxter (@thaxter) was wrangling with Flash action scripting for some online videos he’s working on for WGBH.

Good news! It looks like Jason, Tiffany Rad (@tiffanyrad) and Keith Sirois (@sirois) will be joining us on a more regular basis, starting in August.

Suddenly realizing it’s strange that Casey, and not Pemaquid’s intern Jordan Warren (@jmwarren19) who fetched the coffee for our event. We kept Jordan out of trouble by having her browser-test two new site launches.

While we’re on the subject of coffee (it happens a lot), I want to thank: Bard Coffee for being a friend and cutting us a break on the java; our landlord Portland Pie (@portlandpie) for the wicked good pizza they provided for lunch (Dave Weinberg is right; you must try the Nor-easter); our neighbors at Blush (@blushimagery) who provided an extra table as more people started to arrive, and Steve Darnley (@stevedarnley) of Tugboat Creative (@tugboatcreative) for offering his conference room for overflow.

And finally, thanks to Pemaquid’s Creative Services Coordinator Sheila Reiser (nah, not Twittering) for organizing the recycling of trash and generally ensuring our carbon footprint is minimal.

We missed you: Jeff Norris (@thumbtech – hope you’re enjoying your vacation) Mikey Hougland (@lamikey), Alex Steed (@alexsteed), Fred Abaroa (@costavidafred), Sarah Wallace (@sarah_wallace – glad you’re feeling bettah!) and Frank McMahon (@franklinmcmahon).

Things went so extraodinarily well that we’ll probably do this on a monthly basis on the third Tuesday of each month. At last word, Space Gallery (@space538) is planning on continuing their Jelly every first Tuesday, so hopefully we’ll make Portland a two-Jelly town! Amazing for a city this size, which tells me there’s a lot going on here under the hood.

How was your Maple Jelly? Let us know in the comments.

I’m very excited to announce that we have a new coworking partner at the 28 Maple Street mashup.

Sarah Robbins is a Web designer who operates as Brightwork LLC. Currently Sarah is managing improvements to Yacht.com.

Her faithful companion is Alibi the besenji. They’ve both settled right in and are a great fit with the rest of us mad hatters.

You can meet Sarah and Alibi at the coworking Jelly we’re hosting tomorrow.

Follow Sarah on Twitter: twitter.com/brightworkllc

www.facebook.com/pemaquid

113 fans and counting!

Since we’re having so much fun with it, we’ve decided to host a Jelly at our coworking space at 28 Maple Street.

It’ll happen Tuesday, July 21, from 10am – 4pm.

We’ve been working with the folks who brought Jelly to town, Chelsea Baker, Nat May and our friends at the Space Gallery (congrats on the new Web site, guys!), to try to hold Jellies bi-monthly. For now, we’re aiming for a Jelly @ Space on the first Tuesday of the month and one at our place on the third Tuesday.

So come on down! There’s plenty of bandwidth to share and we’ll keep the coffee hot.

We have a new Delicious account – delicious.com/pemaquid – that we created to compile helpful links for beginning Web designers, programmers and whoever else might be interested. There is all kinds of sites included and I did my very best to label them in an understandable way.

For the uninitiated, Delicious is a social bookmarking tool – it allows you to access links from anywhere and share them with anyone. You can also see which bookmarks are the most popular.

We’ll be adding to these links over time and because Delicious is a social bookmarking tool, feel free to add them to your Below are some of the links that caught my eye, either because they seemed really helpful, or because they seemed really cool.

If you know of any sites that you think would help out the friends of Pemaquid let us know and we will check them out and add them to our Delicious account.

http://www.w3schools.com/sitemap/sitemap_tutorials.asp – This one may be my favorite. It is tutorials for html, css, javascript, xml, ajax and a bunch of other things. It was the perfect place to start for someone who knew barely anything about the code.

http://www.useit.com/ – This is Jacob Neilson’s website, and anyone who knows anything about usability should know about him. He was the author of the textbook, Usability Engineering, we used in my GUI Design class at USM.

http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/ – This site lets you upload a picture and create a color palette from the colors in the picture. Do you really like how the colors in a painting, or the view as you look out your window look together? This site will give you the colors to use on a website.

http://www.1001freefonts.com/ – Looking for that perfect font for a logo or headings for a funky website? Here’s the place to look. 1001 fonts and they’re all free. Fun idea: write your next note to the office in one of the funnier ones.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/01/19/53-css-techniques-you-couldnt-live-without/ – 53 CSS techniques you couldn’t live without! I think the title is self explanatory.

And there are many, many more (247 more to be exact). These are the ones that stuck out to me, being an html novice and easily amused by colors and fonts. I’m sure we have something that will help or amuse you too.

A Jelly coworking session was held yesterday at the Space Gallery between 10:00am and 4:00pm. There were roughly 15 people there at any time.

There was a lot happening:

Sarah Wallace (@sarah_wallace) and I brainstormed to develop the social media strategy of a Pemaquid Client.

Casey Rosenthal (@caseyrosenthal), one of our coworking partners at the 28 Maple Street space, helped me determine that Shopify was probably the best e-commerce option for a small business Client.

Alex Steed (@alexsteed) and I discussed ways to work together to develop the tech community in Portland, and we batted around an idea for an iPhone app.

Jordan Warren (@jmwarren19), Pemaquid’s intern, helped set up Google Apps for one of our Clients. She and I also learned an important lesson on spelling errors (but that’s another story).

I met videographer and prolific twitterer Chris Cavallari (@chriscavs) IRL.

Chelsea Baker (@charmquark) filled me in on her new job at Grace, Portland’s newest restaurant.

I got to know Mikey Hougland (@lamikey – photo below) a Web designer from Providence, Rhode Island who is looking to relocate to Portland. Like me, she uses Coda. We’re glad to have you, Mikey!

I have been able to play around with some fun things while at Pemaquid. I’ve been spending some time last week sprucing up the Pemaquid Fan Page on Facebook.

We are still playing around with is, learning all that it has to offer. I wish there was a better way to write in a description of the company, but there are other cool features, including discussion boards, the Wall, and video that will help us keep you all updated about what’s happening round the office at 28 Maple Street.

We have 73 fans as of today. We need to break 100 in order to get a vanity page URL (”http://facebook.com/pemaquid”). Like what you read here? Become a fan and help put us over the top!

We know the value of social networking for a business we wanted to keep up with the trends. There is also an ad manager but I haven’t even looked at the capabilities of that yet.

The other thing I have been playing around with is Google docs (http://docs.google.com). I never knew such a thing existed and it might be the best thing ever. Every student should know about this! You can create word processing documents, spreadsheets, even forms.

It’s all wicked easy to use and then you can email it to others, and let whoever you want have access to view it or edit it. You can make surveys and send it to people and Google docs automatically makes a spreadsheet and records the responses for you. In addition to all that, because it’s linked to your google account you can access it wherever you can access the internet.

No need to worry about having your own computer, or your flashdrive, or emailing it to yourself (which I think every college student has done at least once), it’s just there, whenever you need it. For someone like me, who is crazy about having everything organized this is the best thing ever.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed in life, it’s that digital creatives, like most people, tend to sell themselves short. When complimented, they’ll say something like “…it was nothing, really…” or “…there are some things I could have done better…”

And some of these people are doing amazing things. I mean, they really rawk! So why don’t they realize it?

I have a theory. I call it my Theory of (creative) Relativity.

In Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, your perception of the laws of physics depend on your orientation in the universe. If you’re a passenger on a starship hurtling through deep space and look out the window you’ll think you’re not moving at all – even though you’re streaking along at the speed of light – because you don’t have a frame of reference.

So it is with our perception of our talents. We live with our talents every day, so after a while they start to seem ordinary, commonplace, mundane.

it’s sometimes easy to feel that we as persons are commonplace, mundane or – on a really bad day – worthless.

Don’t fall into this trap!

Everyone has a special talent – a “superpower”, if you will. Don’t brag, but be proud of what you can do, keep getting better and share it with others.

And when someone pays you a compliment, don’t brush it aside; mark it down. It means you’re on the right track.