Category Archives: Business

On leaving Cinnamon

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Last Thursday, 30 september 2010, was my last day at Cinnamon, the company I helped build and where I’ve worked for the past eight years.

Ten years ago, I left my career as art director in print design and joined the company that—two years later— would evolve into Cinnamon. I had been learning about and creating websites since 1995 and I welcomed the opportunity to work full-time on the Web.

As many baby-faced entrepreneurs, I knew nothing about running a business, and less about “doing” business. Hungry as I was for new opportunities, I didn’t stop to think about what running a business meant; I was on board to lead creation of the product.

Cough.

After some management Musical Chairs, I found myself in the position of having to get clients, keep those clients, and lead our team. Not to mention the usual financial responsibilities. I was schooled as a fine artist and graphic designer. The first time I sat across from a potential client, knowing I needed to get the business, was terrifying. I didn’t know this stuff, I just learned as I went.

It was hard at first, but I began to get the hang of it. We built a pretty stable team and decent focus. The main team has been, with one exception, the same since 2006. It’s kind of like family, and that makes it hard to step out and move on. So why?

I love the Web. I love what we do. I can imagine no better job for a creative person who always craves New Stuff. Making the Web means parsing information, giving it meaning, making it accessible, making it usable and (in my opinion) making it beautiful. There are new challenges every day, and with those challenges come new ways to meet them. And if those methods don’t suit you, you can come up with your own. There are rules, yet there are none. The Web, for me, is where my main interests—art and technology—meet, flirt and make babies.

When I started this adventure, I did it because I wanted to make cool stuff. Pretty stuff. Useful stuff. Through the years I ended up selling stuff and managing the People Who Make the Stuff (while periodically sneaking some art direction, design and production work in for myself). And we did do cool stuff. Cinnamon was one of the first companies to combine professional design with web accessibility. Lots of firms do that now, but in 2002, accessible almost always seemed to mean “looks better to blind people”.

But now it’s time for me to get back to why I got in the game. It’s time to focus by removing operational distractions. It’s time for me to create a more balanced work-world, which can allow me freedom to do what I love to do and enjoy my personal life as much as I can. I’ve learned a lot about clients, and as an independent contractor, I want to help them stop being their own worst enemy. I want to help developers do the same. I want to spend more time with the technologies which will allow designers to do more with the web (yes, that includes CSS3 layout). I want to focus on helping clients with what we now call the Mobile Web, which I believe will catalyze some new, platform-agnostic thinking about information, what we can do with it, where and how. And I’m always so full of ideas… it’s time to write and speak about these things more frequently.

I wish my colleagues at Cinnamon all the best. They’re all great and talented people and they’ve been incredible, and they will continue doing great work for some really exceptional clients. And they’re not rid of me completely; there are at least a few projects we’ll be doing together (do I hear profanity?). And next time we go for beers, I’ll be their peer and not their boss.

I’m pretty nervous about it, to be honest. It’s like bungee-jumping—I’ve never done that either. It’s too easy to look down and imagine what it will sound like when the cord snaps. But I’ve done a lot of good work. I’ve helped other people do good work. And I’m looking forward to doing that in the future—of my own design.

Are flashy HTML5/CSS3 “demos” helping?

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The lack of forward movement in front-end web development by government agencies may be our own fault, says Chris Heilmann. And I agree. Completely.

I’ve been increasingly biting in my reactions to many admittedly fun but practically useless “demos”, “experiments” and other assorted HTML5 and CSS3 nonsense like CSS3 icons. I always get flack for this, and I probably will now.

While these experiments are easily defended—“just wanted to see what was possible”—they are generally non-complex (though they can be tedious; take one look at a CSS3 icon or font). They are, put bluntly, simply a way to show off. And as long as that works, it will continue. But what are these experiments helping, aside from the reputations of those who make them(!)?

Please note that many of these experiments utilize a technique that I and many other art directors and designers have used for ages, which greatly enhances product appeal. It involves simply combining two things you wouldn’t ordinarily expect to be together: CSS and fonts. CSS and icons. HTML and games. Peanut butter and chocolate—Hershey/Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups have used this to their advantage for years. And so forth. The first person to build real beer from Javascript will be speaking at conferences for years to come.

I could say more, but Chris Heilmann said it so well, there is no need:

Right now, we are happily thinking we innovate and push the envelope where in reality we are making each other go “Oooohhhh” while a large chunk of the audience that could benefit from our knowledge is stuck with really poor experiences on the web.

If you haven’t, please take a moment to read his article.

What constitutes a good website?

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Dear readers, friends and fellow web creators, I need your help. I would like to ask for your suggestions in the form of comments to this post.

The problem is the stigma attached to the term “accessibility”. Now we know that web accessibility achieves more than simply facilitating access to web content. But a lot of government organizations and businesses don’t see the need to even try and conform to accessibility guidelines.

As part of a group of organizations (the advisory group for the Dutch Web Accessibility/Quality Guidelines) concerned with changing this way of thinking, several of us are trying to compile a list of themes/categories/factors which can be considered building blocks of really good websites, or less-obvious benefits of accessible websites. I’m aware of many, but lots of people in this industry are so incredibly smart; it would be such a pity not to ask.

So I’m asking! The idea is to create a list of things like “interoperable”, “search-engine friendly/findability”, “archivable” etc. to help convince government organizations and businesses that there are lots of non-obvious benefits in conforming to web accessibility guidelines. “Cuts down on bandwidth usage” is fine. I’ll parse the list and try to group like-minded suggestions together to come up with some high-level themes. I will post the results and link to any known follow-up usage or derivative of the resulting list.

Even if you can only think up one thing, please add it to the comments! Ask your friends (but don’t spam :) ). Don’t worry too much about accessibility, just quickly note whatever you think makes a great website.

Care to chip in? What constitutes a good website?