Back to work after Mother’s Day, it hit me. Does Google = Mom?

You decide for yourself. Choose the most appropriate response for each question below:

1. Establishes and subtly enforces — to keep things in order — a system of reward and discipline for a set of known rules:

a) Google
b) Mom

2. Establishes and subtly enforces a second system of reward and discipline, this one for which the rules are not disclosed:

a) Google
b) Mom

3. Encourages — through a complex strategy of intermittent delayed reward for compliant behavior — the habit of always trying to do everything right to be sure she’s happy:

a) Google
b) Mom

4. Occasionally must take away everyone’s privileges when actually only a few have been bad:

a) Google
b) Mom

5.Works tirelessly to survey, decode, categorize, store, and retrieve stuff — on demand and usually in under two seconds — so most of the time we can get what we need or something pretty darn close:

a) Google
b) Mom

6. Has earned the cultural endorsement of having a noun that names them be also used as a verb:

a) Google
b) Mother

7. Fill in the blank: “If ___________ ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

a) Google
b) Momma

Am I on to something here?

We all need inspiration and vision. Companies coming up with mission statements and doing corporate retreats to get people excited used to confuse me. What’s there to get excited about? It turns out that there’s a lot, even when you’re just a little guy in the trenches. We all contribute an important and necessary piece of the solution. But sometimes, after the conference or the approval of that brilliant idea you had, you find yourself wondering what happened to all of that energy and enthusiasm.

It’s like when you throw a great party, have fun until the wee hours and stumble off to bed some time before first light. You did all that planning and preparation, then people showed up and got into it. It was exciting and fun, but now there are cups everywhere and you have to do all the work to complete the thing. If you’ve thrown a party, you know the worst part is the cleaning up afterwards. Keeping the enthusiasm and enjoyment you had for the good and worthwhile party is hard to do when you’re left handling the actual costs of all the fun. Do you drag around your trash bag and vacuum swearing you’ll never throw another party? Or do you think about how much fun you and your friends had and how great it was?

For actual parties, I’m often the former, but wish I could be the latter. I keep entertaining. The inspiration and enthusiasm comes back over and over. An occasion comes up, or we start talking about getting together for drinks: my mind starts putting together menus and music instantly. Because I lack a brain-to-mouth filter, I always volunteer, then I wind up having a great time doing the thing. The work party is harder. You can’t spend your time conference-hopping–you have to take what you learn and turn it into something good.

You need something to help you get through–something that motivates you at a core level. Whiteboard. Put together a bookmarks file of the sites that got you excited about developing that new thing. Take a cue from visual designers and make an inspiration board with ideas on sticky notes and quotes and pictures or sketches. I have lots of these–it’s a little bit like A Beautiful Mind when I’m brainstorming. Sometimes it feels like it’s easier to be inspired in visual design, but that’s probably just me. For those of us who don’t get to push through by cranking The Smiths and visiting the agency beer cart, might I refer you to inspireUX? These are quotes that make you think, from people who have great things to say about user experience. Most of us are involved in creating and supporting a good user experience aren’t we? As someone who creates a lot of content, I like this one:

Find one you love love love? Print it out. Stick it on your inspiration board. Share it. Then you can crank up The Smiths on your headphones and get back to doing good, fulfilling work. That’s what I’m doing today.

Enough about the search engines’ market share, already! It is spring in Austin, and it’s a great time to get out of the office. It’s good for the soul to remember that, in a non-virtual, totally offline life, “twitter” and “tweet” are words that anchor you to life, and are not trendy at all.

This Flickr “badge” is a widget–a little bit of code that does something interesting–to show you how easy it is to incorporate your photos into your social networking. If you click on a picture, you’ll go to Flickr and get an enlargement, and from there you can view the entire photo set as a slide show. Very yummy pictures of nature, wildflowers, waterfalls, etc., if I do say so myself. Good motivation to get you up and OUTSIDE. ;>)

Each man is the architect of his own fortune.

There was a link to this great little interview with Ward Schumaker on Illustration Fridays in my inbox this morning. It needs to be shared. Not just because IF is one of my favorite sites. Not just because you need to see art–though you really do: it’s like vegetables for the soul, or maybe chocolate… mmm chocolate-covered metaphysical broccoli. You need to read this because it’s inspiring in an achievable way.

What do I mean by that?

You read stories of people who are heap big at whatever they do. They have inevitably made it there through perseverance, determination, hard work. Half the time they have a debilitating setback that would have caused lesser mortals (read: you and I) to crumble. One-legged marathon runners are inspiring. But I’m just a normal person. Ward is a normal person, too.

His story is a good example of finding fulfilling work through the normal channels and opportunities. Over time. Without being grabbed by the collar and thrust into the limelight where we could all recognize his awesomeness. Fulfilling work is different for everyone. For some it’s a very specific job, for others it’s criteria like being your own boss and knowing you’re doing some good in the world. Both kinds are good dreams to have, and sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that the way to them is slow and meandering.