Blogging and all that Malarkey

I know very few people who curate better conference line-ups than Marc Thiele and I was proud to speak at his first event in Berlin last year. It’s great that he’s written up how he thinks about conference schedules so that hopefully others can learn from him.

It’s amazing to think that John Allsopp’s oft-quoted article, A Dao of Web Design was published fifteen years ago today. A List Apart asked me what John’s article means to me now, but rather than focus on Dao’s flexible design principles, I wanted to talk about a passage that never seems to get a mention.

I’ve been enjoying—and a little jealous of how he can write every day— Jeremy Keith’s 100 words series. Today he wrote about A List Apart’s 15 Years of Dao and I could not agree more with what he said here: I fear that today we run the risk of treating web development no different to other kinds of software development, ignoring the strengths of the web that John highlighted for us. Flexibility, ubiquity, and uncertainty: don’t fight them as bugs; embrace them as features. Substitute ‘software development’ with ‘digital product design’ and you have what Dan and Jeffrey were talking about on Unfinished Business this week. Also, as I said in 2006 at John’s Web Directions conference, “the web is not a power drill.”

I‘ve been looking forward to publishing this episode of Unfinished Business for over a month and I looked forward to recording it for even longer, because I got to talk about art direction and creativity on the web with two of the creative people that I respect most, Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman.

The best podcasts listen to interesting people having interesting conversations about work, and life and for episode 104 of Unfinished Business I’m joined by two fascinating folk. Trent Walton and Stephen Hay.

Back for episode 103 of Unfinished Business is my favourite comedy duo, ‘Pipe and Pyjamas,’ Paul Boag and Jon Hicks.

A little later than advertised (and by “a little” I actually mean a week) I’m joined on Unfinished Business. Episode 102 by Rachel Andrew and Zoe Mickley Gillenwater.

We’re back. Back in business. Unfinished Business. Episode 101. For this, the first episode of 2015, I’m joined by two of the best well-known writers about how to implement CSS on a large scale Harry Roberts and Jonathan Snook.

If you’re a fan of my Unfinished Business podcast, you’ve only a few more weeks to wait until the next episode. It will be back (with episode 101) on the ninth of February and when it does, things will be a little different.

I have more than a soft spot for Australia. It’s where I’d live if that were possible and where I can see myself retiring to in, you know, twenty or so years. Luckily, I’m going back to Australia long before that, this March in fact, to speak at the fabulous Respond conference and to take my CSS For Responsive Web Design workshop on the road to Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, as well as Sydney itself.