I’ve been thinking about this for a while now but I’m noticing that I’m getting deadlocked into rigidity in my pursuit of finding the perfect words. Therefore to avoid this and to keep my thoughts flowing, I’m just going to dump my thoughts out, no matter how messy or confusing they may seem.
A week or two ago the three words forming the subject of this post (connect, empower, inspire) flowed out of me. When I saw them, they felt right and I decided to change my site byline to them. I wasn’t sure why then but now I think I do. I’m realizing they’re sort of a mantra for the direction I’d like to go in with regards to my work. Let me try to explain what I mean by going over each word (and this is where I’m having the difficulty explaining things).
Connect
I want to help people connect with others. That’s what “connect” means to me at it’s simplest form. More specifically though, this really defines what I’ve been doing for years, that being building community sites on the web. That’s what communities are all about to me, people coming together, interacting, and connecting with one another.
Empower
I want to help empower people. I wasn’t sure at first how I could empower people but then it came to me. Simplicity. Today in this technological world, we are so overloaded with complex technology that it weighs down on us mentally, preventing us from doing the things we really want. However, when you find something (i.e. software, hardware, whatever) that’s been designed well, you really find it liberating and empowering. Therefore when I help people to connect, I want to be using simple enough things that they help empower these people instead of adding more complexity to their life.
Inspire
I want to help people inspire others. Inspired people do amazing things. They change the world. I want to start helping people who are doing emotionally meaningful things that are helping to change the world. While many of these things may be done only locally, it is often the small local actions that collectively change the world in a big way.
That’s enough for now. More to come later.