Obligatory New Year Post

Ought Four is no more, Ought Five is alive. This is the time when everyone makes lists. I won’t be doing a year-in-review this time around, but here’s my list of pseudo-resolutions, a few things I intend to do in the near future, some of which I may even follow through with.

1. A major redesign. I’m planning to merge the blog into the main website, forming one cohesive whole. I’m also hoping to have an actual design portfolio in the new site. I don’t yet know what it’ll look like, but I have a noted tendency towards blue and gray.
2. Expand my portfolio. Since I’ll be showcasing my work in the new site, I’d like to have some more work to showcase. I’ve designed maybe 30 or so sites in my career, but many of those were in the early years and are now offline either through companies going defunct or redesigns by later developers. Perhaps this year I’ll find a worthy non-profit and do some pro-bono design work, both for the portfolio piece and also to do a little something nice for the world.
3. A Zen Garden design. This is for the portfolio too. I’ve been wanting to do one for a long time now, just need a seed to get me started.
4. Attend SXSW. The list of speakers is impressive and a large portion of my daily reads will be in attendance. I’d love the chance to meet and schmooze some of these folks, if I can get over my whole social awkwardness thing. Speaking of which…
5. Expand my social circle. I’m generally “not good with people,” but I’d like to get better. I get self conscious and awkward, I say the wrong things. When I’m being myself I come across surly and standoffish, when I’m making an effort to be polite I just come off as mocking and obnoxious. So I usually avoid the offense and embarassment by simply not talking to people.

   If I can loosen up a little I’d love to make contact with my fellow web geeks and get to know some folks in the standards/design/blogging community. Going to SXSW is my attempt to force myself out of my own shell. There are plenty of folks local to the Bay Area I want to meet too, including MJ, Doug, Andrei, Tantek, and now Matt. All of these and more will be at SXSW, so maybe that’ll give me a pretext to just walk up and say hi (and hopefully not piss anybody off).

Happy new year to my three loyal readers. Have a good one.