Tag: eric meyer (page 1 of 1)

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September 15, 2015 / 0 Comments

XOXO Fest 2015: Quotes and Queries

“Was it worth your fam or worth all a the fame? Exchange your personal relationships for personal gains.”—Wale, The Glass Egg


“My desire to do it the way it is being done is.” – Heather Armstrong (Dooce)

What do you give up of yourself to make money (on the internet but, really, in any gig)?

Is it worth the trade?

“[W]hat we want to do is make a place where things that we couldn’t have imagined can grow.” – Alex Blumberg (Gimlet Media)

“It’s about culture clash on equal terms. Your adventure being someone else’s disaster.” – Spike Trotman (Iron Circus)

“We are not taking anything from you, because it was never yours to begin with.” – Spike Trotman (Iron Circus)

“Let’s all just take a minute and acknowledge that to a certain extent we are all just posturing when we come together in public to discuss our achievements.So don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re currently being too hard on yourself. And don’t pat yourself on the back either, if you’re super concerned with stacking up accolades. Death is coming for all of us.” – Mallory Ortberg (The Toast)

“We know a couple stories of mostly dudes who are promoted as being these brilliant founders and treated as if they worked alone. And that ain’t how the internet was made. What is best on the internet is what drives us to love technology, to be creative in these ways has very little to do with what makes start-ups really wealthy.” – Anil Dash (Your Internet Dad)

“Don’t be a snowflake in someone’s avalanche.” – Zoë Quinn (Quinnspiracy)

“Design is a value statement. What we build and how we build it says a great deal about what we value and who we are. What we make easy speaks to what we value and what we make difficult speaks to what we reject.” – Eric Meyer (Meyerweb)

Am I conscious of injecting my values of my work? Does my work reflect who I think I am?

“What would you regret? What are three things you’d regret?” – Amit Gupta (@superamit)

You used to be like Pusha T but you’re 40 now and have regrets. What are you going to do about that?

Find my answers and change my life.

Don’t believe me? Just watch.

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September 13, 2015 / 0 Comments

Nostalgia Vibez

“They are the waters of March, closing the summer and the promise of life and the joy in your heart.” – Bossacucanova, Aguas de Março (feat. Cris Delanno)

Aaron Hawkins and Brad Graham are looking at me from the stage. They’ve been gone from this world a while now and yet, here they are. Anil invokes them in his XOXO talk and while there are many folks in the audience who know nothing about them—that is Anil’s point and the problem his and Gina’s new project, Makerbase, is attempting to solve—I feel their presence in the room like the moving portraits of Harry Potter’s magical world.

A conversation on twitter about Six Feet Under had me going through my blog archives recently. It was time travel to a decade ago when I was processing the death of that Uppity-Negro and reflecting on the conversations we’d had. Aaron, more than anyone at the time, ignited my digital world. His words sparked my words. His comments section was where much of my online community formed. Many of my dearest friends today can be linked to connections and ideas and ways-of-being made then. With him. I miss him.

The very first thing I did at my first SXSW experience—also a decade ago—was Break Bread with Brad. It felt a lot like opening night here at XOXO 2015 actually (thank you, Andy and Andy) although there were far more people here awkwardly but openly chatting in the Park at Washington High then there were in Austin that night. Both spaces had the same vibe: Warm, welcoming, accepting, kind.

I got it.

Dooce’s excellent talk was a bit of a mirror. She asked herself and all of us, what had we given up of ourselves to make a living online?

Eric Meyer’s heartbreaking and heartwarming talk wondered what values we were investing into our work with the decisions and systems and processes we make? This may be the central thesis of this year’s event. It was a bit of Alex Blumberg’s thoughts for us and a lot of the point of Anita Sarkeesian’s work.

I got it.

The Suck not-panel and Anil’s talk have cemented my feelings of nostalgia for the internet in the wayback machine that I’ve been having all festival. Well, the ideas of the culture back then. What I’m realizing this weekend is that despite our short memories and the ephemeral nature of our digital selves (by the way, finding references to things from just 10 years ago online that still work is a reminder of this, so hard!), we haven’t lost that. It’s a state-of-mind. It’s a way-of-being (I wanted to put “online and off” here, but that’s showing my age even more, innit?). In 2015, everybody’s Internet so you feel smaller—I feel smaller—but that’s okay. It doesn’t change that I can create. I can write. I can make things and be proud of them.

It requires more discipline. It demands that from those of us who know better. Those of us who recognize the magic of the not-so-long ago.

The memories of those we loved and mattered and have gone from that time deserve that.

Let’s break bread. Let’s get uppity.