“The topic of confidence is too often neglected by serious people: we spend so much time acquiring technical skills, and so little time practicing the one virtue that will make those skills effective in the world.”
– The School of Life, Confidence – The Battle Against Timidity
I have been thinking of making a few modifications to my current Internet infrastructure to allow the platform to grow in the years to come. Before going into detail, I think it’s important to share my perspective on the site as a whole:
What’s Working:
What’s Not:
While there will always be opportunities to explore, I would like to focus my time on a select few. The best way to prioritize is to first revisit my objectives for my online presence:
Ultimately, this online presence is to support my personal and professional goals in a way that is self-fulfilling; one idea leads to another, essentially cross-pollinating between sites and into new online and offline endeavors.
Going a step further, I hope I can help others see things in a different way and encourage them to push themselves into new territories. In a best case scenario, the site can connect me with other individuals with similar goals and interests for potential collaboration.
In short, I want the site to be an extension of myself.
Given this context, what needs to be done now? Actually, quite a bit! Here’s the list:
Fortunately, a fair number of these tasks have already begun.
The concept of an operating framework is to organize your time and effort into specific areas of focus. In theory, and with appropriate discipline, an operating framework can accelerate one’s development in one or multiple areas. The very nature of writing down one’s goals (or visually representing them) can plant these ideas and objectives into one’s subconscious, and this becomes a very powerful motivator even if you aren’t explicitly thinking of the framework on a daily basis (you shouldn’t be).
For example, here is an example of a partial framework from 2007 (Plane 6 – “Foundation”):
(Click on the image to enlarge)
While I listed electronics and software development within this framework, I didn’t end up spending a lot of time in these specific areas. And that’s where the evolution of an operating framework becomes relevant; where are you focusing your energy? And if you aren’t spending your time in certain areas, is this necessarily a problem?
In the Immersion (Plane 10) framework shown below, there is now a clear separation of what I’ve focused on in the past and what I ultimately need to focus on in the future. This is a radical shift given that I’ve typically had to justify and take on multiple, parallel tracks that had little relationship to one another – other than the fact that one path was for survival, and the other more aspirational. By logically separating these skills from the “core”, they will eventually become dormant and by default, the skills that I want to develop will have developed due to this increased focus (i.e. a self-fulfilling prophecy).
(Click on the image to enlarge)
Layered above these “dormant” skills are multiple layers of activity – all leading to a radically advanced portfolio along with an increased level of interaction weighted more heavily in the real-world than in the digital realm. What’s truly important here is that this increased interaction ultimately stems from a broader range of experiences. Not surprisingly, this has a dual purpose; the greater one’s experiences, the greater one’s ability to learn, identify challenges and design solutions to those challenges. Experiences represent a designer’s playground.
Finally, one concept that perhaps serves as the basis for this framework is John Maeda’s concept of “post digital”:
[Post Digital] is a term that I created as a way to acknowledge a distinction between those that are passed their fascination with computers, and are now driven by the ideas instead of the technology. […] the “post digital” generation refers to the growing few that have already been digital, and are now more interested in Being Human.
Ultimately, this is exactly what Immersion is all about – I’m less interested in the technology for technology’s sake. Rather I am interested in using technology to increase idea generation to make people’s lives better.
January 1, 2011 marks the beginning of the tenth chapter (“Plane”) in the Planescape saga – a chapter I call “Immersion.” While the details are still being mapped out, I am becoming enthusiastic about what this new framework entails.
In advance of sharing more details about Immersion, I think it’s worth sharing a few things that I’ve learned over the past year – particularly over the past sixty days – all of which will be incorporated into my larger advancement strategy.
As you may already be aware, this blog is one of several projects that I have been working on over the past several years. The underlying goal has centered around building a foundation onto which I can layer in new creative projects and pursuits. This is why I’ve branded my main web site and bundled these projects within a title I call “Supercharged Creative Exploration.”
The original home page design launched earlier this year showcased the three original projects – Incubator, Microcosms and Pixeldust. Since that time, I’ve also included a few other projects to the list – including Ink.
Not surprisingly, one of my goals has involved designing a new home page that provides visitors with a complete inventory of these projects along with a modular format that is easy to update.
With this goal in mind, I’ve formulated a few graphic designs that do just this. While the current design solves the current objective and is easy to update, I consider it an early version and will eventually be replaced. Over the next several months, I plan on eventually migrating to one of the site designs show below: (or some derivation thereof)
If you visit the new site, you’ll also notice a new link – something that I call “The Visual Journey.” This is a design that encapsulates who I am, what I am interested in, and some more information about the history of my professional career and my interests. I think it will help people understand what motivates me and what I am passionate about.
Due to the nature of the design and purpose, I’ve left it in a PDF format. It’s best read using the official Adobe Acrobat reader but aside from a few minor graphic inconsistencies on the title page, the Preview application available in Mac OS X should also work well.
The combination of this new design along with the Visual Journey supplement symbolizes the next chapter in my creative and intellectual journey – it’s a chapter I call “Immersion.”
As promised, the latest addition to the creative family is live. Digital illustrations of people, objects and environments: http://ink.adriandaniels.com