Joining the Conversation

This has been a long time coming. I’ve always followed the conversation. I read every site. I scoured the web for content as an increasingly voracious consumer. I stuffed more and more of everything into my brain and I couldn’t get enough.

Then I got the agency job. One that had me slaving 14-18 hours most days to produce slick high-quality standards-compliant accessible websites, usually for government departments. I never installed a feed reader on my new machine. I never had time.

Work was my life until Web Essentials in 2005. Everybody there was talking about Flickr, telling me it was a revolution. A new kind of application. A new form of online community. A new paradigm!

I scoffed at them like any other sensible person does when faced with such fervent reverence. But, after the conference, I looked at the photos and I wanted to comment… Trapped! Once I had an account, it seemed almost churlish not to post at least one photo. This started a long term obsession with photography, mostly self-involved.

More importantly, it started an attitude of experimentation, a willingness to sign up for any and every app that comes along. To subscribe to every feed, for at least a little while. It also meant that, after a while, I was actually giving back. Producing content and contributing in some small measure to both sides of the signal/noise ratio.

And then there was Twitter…

I’ve been writing small blips of bollocks there since October sometime (actually it was 10:53 AM October 27, 2006). And, for some reason, I can’t stop.

I love putting ideas out there. I love discussion and interaction. I love sharing my thoughts, then watching my thoughts and your thoughts grow and commingle.

In 2005, Molly Holzschlag told me I needed a blog, so I asked her what I should write. Being the woman she is, Molly said: “Everything!” Since that time, others have suggested it occasionally and I’ve always asked the same question. Their answers vary dramatically and that was my excuse for not building this site. I never knew what I would write about, and I still don’t. But I am going to write.

My hand has been forced by one of my favourite evil geniuses, Andrew Krespanis. The sneaky bugger slaved away for weeks to give me LachStock as a gift. Aided and abetted by a secret squirrel pact, he left me totally overwhelmed.

I still don’t know how to say thank you for that gift. I’m not even sure that is possible. The only appropriate response is to do this, and do it right. So, after 6 years of living, breathing and talking web, I’m finally making some web of my own. I’m joining the conversation I’ve followed for so long. I don’t know what I’ll be writing or where it will take us, but, fuck, I reckon it’ll be fun!