While there’s a lot to be said about online community and how much value it creates in the web industry, I’d like to focus on offline community for a second.

A great deal of time and money has been spent on building online communities and connecting people from one nation to another, but lately the web as a whole is becoming more ‘local’. People want to know who’s been where we are, what our real friends think, and connect on a daily basis and are using the internet to do this. Then once they’ve checked in on their mobile phone, sent out a twit about tonight’s BBQ, or uploaded the photos from last night’s drunken bash, they go back offline to continue those interactions. The internet is now bringing people together locally quicker than any networking event could have. It’s creating a depth to our online interactions that was previously overlooked, and it’s powerful.

Offline community is often overlooked as just “friends hanging out”, but honestly it’s more than that. Through offline interactions you can build respect, work together quickly, share great ideas on a whiteboard, and also enjoy a good laugh or two. Over the past few months I’ve seen a few new offline communities spring up due to online interactions and I’m loveing what they’re bringing together. I’ve been able to learn more, do more, help others find more business, and make great friends with people I really enjoy.

A few years ago I was at the first meeting of Refresh Phoenix, a local group that wanted to bring the web community together to start working together and make a name for Phoenix as a technology center in the United States.  From Refresh Phoenix sprung some offshoot commuities such as Refocus Phoenix (a local photographic community), Refactor Phoenix (local software developers), and Tiny Army (local illustrators).

Earlier this year I started using Twitter, but really didn’t get addicted to it until SXSW, when several Refresh Phoenix community members started using it as our primary device to stay connected during the conference. Once we got back, I started attending local TweetUps, meet ups of twitter users in Phoenix. Many of us were into social media, but just didn’t know of eachother because we were just different *enough* not to meet up through other means. Once I tapped into the social media crowd I found out about Social Media Club in Phoenix, which is a meetup of people who enjoy discussing social media, how it effects our lives, and how technology is becoming more ingrained in regular social activities.

Over the last year I’ve become part of Drawbackwards, which is one of the companies that Integrum Technologies shares it’s offices with, that includes the likes of Forty Agency and obuweb. Intergrum has since opened up the offices as a co-working space called GangPlank, where anyone can come and work. GangPlank has open house events as well, one of them being Hackmania every Wednesday night where you can come and connect with other webbies to create great applications and work on other side work that you may not have a chance to focus on normally during the week. This time has allowed new ideas to spring up all over the Phoenix valley, and I’ll be sure to show case some of them here in the future.

I’m really enjoying all the friends and real connections I’ve made through the past few years, and it’s always getting better. I really hope that you can connect with you own local community and build a niche for you to grow in within your own backyard.  Bringing people together can help the comunity as a whole and really bring strength to your ideas and interests. Good luck!

I’ve been speaking to several colleagues lately within the web design community, and I’ve come to a harsh realization. I think that as a whole, our industry creates it’s own self-inflicted pressure with deadlines and customer relations.

Granted, some customers can come into the relationship wanting the impossible, but often, with a little enlightenment, customers can grasp how Rome cannot be built within a week. But I feel often, instead of investing in this conversation, we instead push ourselves to build things quicker, faster, and cheaper.

Sometimes we can just have a simple conversation with our clients, and often they’ll be totally accepting of our need for more time to create the desired product. Many times when I talk to a client, they themselves are not prepared for the product to be finished, they don’t have the content ready yet, they still need to gather all their product photos, etc.

Why do we tend to forgo these honest conversations that can strengthen our client relations and really give us a better working relationship in the long run? Is it our need for deadlines? Perhaps our procrastinative nature drives us to seek this adrenaline rush that is the last-minute push? Maybe a way to curb our creative natures that drive us to constantly expand the scope of possibilities for the project?

This issue has always frustrated me, why push ourselves to slam something out when there’s always more time to work? Sure, things have to get done, but does the quality of work have to suffer? We quit trying to achieve the best possible, and start undercutting to hit some date that really isn’t anything more than a spec of time in the span of the universe.

So I thought I’d toss it out there and see what you guys thought, why do we do this to ourselves?

Doing what you love is the key to career happiness, and when I mean doing what you love, I mean the WHOLE package, not just the industry, not just who you work for, the place you work at etc. You can love who you work for, but not the exact tasks you do for the company. You can love the tasks you do, but not the environment you work in. But there are some tell tale signs that you’re working a job vs. doing what you love, here are some of them from my perspective…

A job pays you to be somewhere for 8 hours and feels like you’re at the dentist.

Doing what you love pays you to do what you’d normally be doing anyways for 8 hours.

If you get off of your 9-5, and you feel relieved or excited for the pure sake of getting off of work, and I mean on a routine basis, not just every once in a while when something horrible blows up, then you’re working a job. If you’re doing what you love to do, sure there are those days where fire drills happen and you save the lives of millions with your super human powers of greatness, but chances are you’re happy about the things you accomplish every day at that thing we call work. If you feel your employer should pay you for “time served” chances are you’re working a job, and not doing what you love.  If you get your paycheck every week and you remember, “oh yea! I get paid for this too!” you’re probably doing what you love.

A job puts you in awkward situations for which you feel unprepared for and doing things you dread to do.

Doing what you love lets you explore avenues that you have always wanted to travel and gives you life lessons you can use later.

There are times a work where we can’t know all the answers, where we have to “work” to really get some where, sometimes we even have to do those tasks which we find mundane or boring. However, if you’re working at a job these moments in time are going to be significantly harder on you. If you don’t consider that rough patch just a challenge or a bump in the road to the next big span of fun, chances are, you’re at a job instead of doing what you love.  When you’re doing what you love, you’re interest in taking on a challenge and learning something new about what you love to do is significantly increased. You step up to the plate instead of sinking back into the crowd. Sure, working means there’s always some part of it that would be described as “work”, but when you’re doing what you love, those periods in time are fun and interesting instead of dreadful and scary.

A job feels like a foreign environment.

Doing what you love feels natural and comfortable.

If you get off work, walk out the door, and feel like you can be “you” again, you’re working at a job instead of doing what you love. When you do what you love, you’re simply changing locations for 8 to 10 hours, not changing mental states or forcing yourself to be someone or something you’re not. Sure, sometimes growing pains are hard, it’s natural to feel a strain every now and then when you’re trying something new or traveling down an unworn path. But, when you feel like you completely metamorphize when you leave the office or a meeting, you’re not being your true self and after a while that can really wear you out just keeping up the facade instead of using that extra bit of energy to really do what you love. I know lots of people who LIKE to wear a suit because of how it makes them feel, when the right person is doing what they love to do and wearing that costume, it DOES something for them and they ENJOY it.

Remember, just because you don’t love something about your current job, doesn’t mean you can’t change it just a smidgen and turn it into something you love to do! Maybe it’s small, like the changing your schedule up two hours to get rid of the two hour commute, maybe it big like starting you own company, or maybe it’s you for not making the leap already into that situation you KNOW you’ll enjoy. What ever it is, remember you’re in control of what you do and how much you enjoy doing it as a career, you’re never stuck.

So how do you know you’re doing what you love?

I was in a meeting with one of my co-workers today when she mentioned that as a child she would lay on her back with her feet up in the air, as if she could walk on the ceiling. It brought me back to that time in my life, remembering how life would be if you had to step through door ways and your head would bump on bookcases and chairs hanging from the ceiling.

Remember playing that the floor was lava? Jumping from one piece of furniture to the next, trying not to scald your feet on the red hot bubbles below? Your mom screaming at you to get off the entertainment center or the refrigerator?

The days in life, where you could make rabbits and dragons out of clouds, where ants crawling on the ground still made you point and stare.  Those days when rain drops and bubbles made you laugh and when that soft blanket made the worlds troubles go away.

Stop when the 9 to 5 starts to grind on you, when your love life seems not so lovely, or when you have to rush groceries in between the post office and the vet. Then remember, laying on your back, pretending that you’re walking on the ceiling and smile.

Sorry I’ve been in hiatus the past three weeks or so… I was all on track to get some serious blogging done over the break and instead found myself in a mess of personal life crisis that made me wonder if Doctor Phil needs me to fill in some days.

In the last three weeks I’ve hatched an awesome Christmas plot to give Kaleb an HD TV, purposed to, had my dad visit from Kansas, took my father to San Diego to meet Kaleb’s parents, built a website for my father’s dream, landscaped my backyard with dad, drove straight through to Kansas to say good bye to my grandmother on her death bed, kicked out my brother’s girlfriend and some of her friends who were living off my dad in his house, enrolled my brother in college, realized how much my grandmother sacrificed her entire life to provide for her family in the time of her death, held confession for past love and realized crossroads in my life, flew back to Arizona the same day as my grandmother’s funeral, found good in restructuring our department for the second time in the past year, sent home from work for poorly executed light-hearted comment, became unsure of my employment for twelve hours, went back to work, met with co-worker to find our friendship completely intact, had life realization.

I touch so many lives, trying to right wrongs, trying to make life easier for people to cope with. Sometimes people need to see it for themselves, sometimes people will never be able to see through the haze, regardless, I need to realize that I cannot force people to see at all. As much as I want to open the eyes of the world to have people see what’s really important, they slam shut. I need to learn to open my own and remember the gift that has been given, free will.

I am not perfect. No one is. We all make mistakes, but the beauty of life to to realize those mistakes and become better for them. Don’t waste time wishing you had said this or done that. It’s done, it’s over, look at what’s next. What will tomorrow bring?

Sometimes we get so caught up in the daily grind that we forget there’s a higher purpose for us all. Realize your purpose and live through it every day.

Don’t be scared of change, the ebb and flow of life seldom is stagnate for long. Sometimes you’re at its mercy, but after the storm, you may find yourself washed up on a better shore than the one you left.