Dream Big, Start Small

Lately, I’ve been talking to a lot of dreamers. People with big ideas, and that’s great — but I find myself advocating for a just-get-started approach. Have big dreams? Keep ’em alive, and keep building on them. This country is built on people willing to dream. But start small. On the Web, you don’t...

Three Things That Matter

Long ago, I heard a profound quote about projects, which went something like this: There are three things that matter: quality, speed, and price. You can have any two of the three, but not all three. Which do you want? Quality and speed? OK. It’ll cost more… Quality and a low price? OK —...

TGIF

So, it’s Friday at 4:25 and I’m getting ready to go home. Which reminds me of the gap between the 24×7 expectations of the Web and most people’s 40-ish hour work week. IT folks have long struggled with extended hours (as have 911 operators, emergency personnel, etc.), and some of them wear their pagers/cell...

Getting to "Done"

The Web is great: I can publish content whenever I want, and it’s instantly available to my audience all around the world. The Web sucks: I can’t keep up with all the changes I have to make. New Web publishers, especially those that are used to traditional print cycles, are sometimes stymied by the...

You are the weakest link.

This morning, I’m reminded that the weakest link of a multi-publisher Web site is… people. I’m restoring a site because another publisher accidentally overwrote the site’s Home Page, which orphaned the entire site. Of course, this happens when all your main pages for subfolders are named the same (typically index.html or default.htm) and the...