Nollind Whachell

In blogging off and on over the years, I would have to say that the one thing that I have still not been able to achieve is a good structure for my blog (compared to standard product sites which have always seemed easy for me to structure). With a good site structure everything just falls into place and seems well connected. With a bad site structure everything seems disconnected and out of place. That disconnection is my greatest problem that I would like to overcome because without that structure I feel like I’m travelling down a river without a map to guide me.

One reason I have stopped blogging repeatedly in the past (but then started up again) is because I have yet to find a good structure that can sustain me. As I’ve indicated before, I dislike the standard layout and structure of weblogs (i.e. content in the middle with a sidebar holding the latest posts, archives, and categories on the side) because of the lack of reference it gives to the content on the entire site. In effect, when you visit most blogs, all you see is the content they are talking about right now (i.e. the last 5 or 10 posts). Well, often that is quite inadequate because it doesn’t capture the entire persons thoughts and interests. Therefore, what I’m looking for is some way to show my current thoughts visually connected to my overall interests and goals.

The best example I can give again is using my river vision whereby the river is your flow of thoughts or conversations about something in particular. Well with the default setup of blogs, when you visit someone’s site all you see is a closeup of them on one point in the river. That’s it. It doesn’t give a reference as to where that person has been on the river or where they are headed. What I would like to see is that closeup still exist for the person, showing what they are involved with now on the “river” but I’d also like to see a sidemap that shows there previous journey path and their destination (or goal) of where they are headed.

Now what complicates things even more is that each river that a person travels upon is really a collection of different thought streams. Each stream may focus on a different subject but they all form together to create the encompassing river. Looking at my history, I was fascinated with fantasy stories and artwork as a kid. This interest and imagination exploded with the introduction of the personal computer which allowed me to enter these imaginary worlds and interact within them. With the advances in computing, this exploration moved online to allow exploring and interaction with other people with me eventually starting to explore communities and their cultures not only in gaming but on the Web itself (utilizing web development to do this). Over time, I found the boundaries of gaming to be limiting to my interest in culture and I started looking at how culture affects the entire world, especially with regards to how the Web itself is changing our culture. This has now pushed me to seeing how we can utilize the Web to help connect communities and to foster a better culture within them to make the entire world a better place.

Now what I’ve just explained above is many separate streams of interests such as fantasy, artwork, computers, technology, gaming, communities, culture, the Web, and finally the world. And yet what I’ve also done is show how each separate stream of thought is actually connected to one another and supports my overall interest in trying to better the world through culture and community (with the help of technology). That is exactly the same thing I would like to achieve within my site with regards to my structure. I want to not only be able to see where I’m going and where I’ve been with each separate stream of thoughts but also where I’ve been and where I’m going with the entire collection of thoughts (forming the river that I flow within). Showing the relationship and reference of my thoughts to one another and creating that structure to support them is what I am currently trying to achieve. Without that structure right now though, I feel like I’m lost on a river, not knowing where I’ve been and where I’m going.

I noticed on Whitespace a link to Clear:left, a new collaborative company effort by Andy Budd, Jeremy Keith and Richard Rutter. What I found interesting on their site was their Client Worksheet (near the bottom left) which they ask their potential clients to download, fill out, and return so that they can respond with a proposal for them.

First off, kudos to the guys for the attention to detail in the worksheet. You don’t see too many companies putting something like this up front and center (center left actually!) on their websites, informing their potential clients up front that they need to fill this out before they can assist them. Of course what this immediately does as well is weed out those clients who aren’t serious and committed about working with them. As I’ve said in the past, you can’t help someone who doesn’t truly want your help. They have to want your help before you can give it. I think the quote by Tom Cruise as Jerry Maguire is quite appropriate here. “Help me, help you.”

As a related side note, I’m actually surprised that someone hasn’t specialized in offering these services yet. What I am talking about? The discovery phase of a website.

In the work that I did in the past for large firms (i.e. Vivendi, Activision, Konami, etc), it was critical that the client fully understand the scope and direction of the project. If they didn’t then we implemented a discovery phase before even beginning to work on their site so that both of us (the client and ourselves) could fully understand the project scope and details.

For small projects and sites, this discovery phase was often included in the development cost because it was completed quite quickly. For larger projects and sites though, it was charged separately from the site development because of the work involved. I mean sometimes the discovery phase could be as detailed and as intensive as the site development itself.

Anyways, my point being is why hasn’t someone created a consulting service specifically for clients to help them determine their project scope. It would be quite interesting if the entire design community got together and collaborated on this (maybe with a wiki) to gather the best questions and then simplifying them so that this discovery phase was as effortless as possible for the client.

Hmmm, well so much for people being proactive about getting information online before Hurricane Rita hits this weekend. Haven’t seen one person talk about standardizing tags to use for Technorati or creating emergency banners for websites that link to missing persons databases and what not. Sure evacuations are underway and most people will be able to get out but who the hell knows what’s going to happen with a Category 5 Category 4 hurricane. I mean let’s put some of our thoughts into action this time.

Ok, this is has got to be one of my all time pet peeves relating to blogging. You constantly hear how blogging is so great and everything, yet of the sites that I visit, I would say that like 60 to 80% of them have authors who words very rarely grace their comments area to respond to their visitors. I mean there are people out their preaching about blogging and how it lets you connect with people, yet some of these people are guilty of not connecting with their own visitors. And yes I realize that site author’s can’t respond to every comment but I’m talking like maybe responding to like one or two people a day at least! And hell the problem doesn’t even end there, it occurs with the visitors as well. They don’t even communicate with each other. Instead what is achieved is something like a bunch of people all crowded into a room, talking out loud to the entire room, but not talking to anyone in particular. Geez, wake up people! Engage and interact with each other!

As for myself, I’ve almost come to the point that if I’ve commented on a site numerous times and haven’t heard nothing back from the author on my response or even others in the same conversations, then I pretty much see no point in commenting on the person’s site. I’ll look elsewhere for other conversations where people actually engage each other. Actually to give you a perfect example of this, I’d have to say the best weblog that I’ve been to in the past year, where the people within it got very engaged with each other and had great conversations, was The Game Chair which is a blog related to gaming. Here’s one post from a while back to show you the type of interaction I’d like to see on most blogs.