Dollarshort

Five Years with Anil Dash

I'd be remiss if I let the anniversary of Anil's five years [1] at Six Apart pass without a post here on Dollarshort. Especially since Valleywag already mentioned his dedication in their own special way. 

Whether you like Anil Dash or not, few can honestly doubt his passion for blogging and for our company. Even the fine folks who like to accidentally misspell his first name in comments will have to admit he has a zealousness to his craft of evangelism that very few in our industry possess. Even if he drives you crazy with his desire to play devil's advocate or his need for a little exaggeration here or there, Anil does so with such sincerity it's difficult to truly fault him. 

Anil is Six Apart -- as much so as Ben or I am. And it's been a pleasure to work with him and learn from him. We were friends before we were ever co-workers and this friendship began as a result of this pathetic post that Anil wrote in 2001. Even if Anil now takes pleasure in mocking his tendencies to bloviate, he is, deep down a person who can still be humbled by some praise or a sincere gesture by a friend. 

Since Anil isn't dead and I'm not writing his obituary, I should probably wrap this up. What better way to end a post about his commitment to blogging and Six Apart than with a photo that shows the dedication writ large?. Here is a photo from the week five years ago when he became an "official" employee. He's crashing on the couch in our office -- aka the spare bedroom in the Trott apartment -- after a long night of work. 

 

[1] Today is also the five-year anniversary of our first funding announcement and our intentions to launch TypePad.

More About Roots & Growth

The first few paragraphs of our news post about the launch of Six Apart Services and Six Apart Media do quite a nice job of connecting the work we did in the early years to the direction we're going in today. While Six Apart has come a long way since our core business model was all about "recently updated" keys[1] and installations by Ben, these new additional services are clearly evolved from those roots (plus the addition of tons of talented people -- a nice change from just the two of us).

We're incredibly happy to have the Apperceptive folks join Six Apart. You may not have heard about them prior to the announcement, but you most likely have seen and admired their work. A warm welcome to the entire team, especially co-founder David Jacobs. They're quite a talented team who understand what a good blog (and good blogging) is all about.

[1] In the early days -- from October 2001 to about January 2004 -- I sent out all the recently updated keys personally. There was a little script I'd run that would generate a random key after I entered the donor's email address (which I got from PayPal). Then, I would send an email to the person with the key(s). Even though I used a form letter, I'd always make sure to greet them by name -- which required me to check out their blog. This, of course, didn't scale well but I refused to automate it further -- I liked the personal connection to these folks. Even though the task became a bit overwhelming, I now look back at it with much fondness.

And, I still remember who the first donor was -- Dawn M (from a life uncommon). It's great to see she's an accomplished photographer and powers her site with Movable Type 4. And she had a daughter too!

A True Blogger is Born

Many magazines have been delivered to my mailbox in the last ten years -- hundreds have been read, stacked, boxed and then finally discarded when it's time to move to a new home. In the last eight years (and six moves), my Martha Stewart Living collection has always spared a trip to the recycling bin. In fact, in our home office, I have one shelf reserved for the back issues and each of their white spines reflects the perfect decorative and craft world I aspire to be a part of.

My fondness for the Martha Stewart aesthetic is partly why I'm very proud to have her blog hosted on TypePad.

Today, however, the pride I felt was not because of our association with the Martha Stewart brand of aesthetic perfection, but about our association with Martha Stewart, the blogger.

The post that inspired this pride? Sadly, it was about the passing of her precious Chow, Paw Paw. So much talk about blogging is about blogs with a capital "B," the blogs that are supposed to act as change-the-world media. When the punch line to many a joke about blogging happens to involve a reference to a dog or cat, it's hard to appreciate the impact a post like Martha's could make.

As someone who has written about losing a pet, I know how difficult sharing this sort of news can be. The tribute to Paw Paw's last day was, as a friend put it, "the sort of post that they wanted to write when their own dog passed away." My friends and fellow bloggers who read the Paw Paw post were touched by Martha's candid reflection on the animal that meant so much to her. A few of my friends were even moved to tears.

But the best part about Martha's post was its simplicity. It was a real blog post, not something manufactured for a glossy magazine. It was a chronology of Paw Paw's last day. The captions, as written by Paw Paw, were brief and so not about perfection and good things, but about a good life.

"I went out for one last pee" is a phrase I never imagined would be penned by Stewart's hand, but there it was.

And because this was a blog conversation, we were able to read the comments from well-wishers and see how her post affected them.

So, thank you, Martha Stewart, for demonstrating how a media mogul and household name can use blogging to show such a different side of a person, as well as take the best of media and personal communication and make it completely heartfelt

To Paw Paw, here's to a good life!

Rockwell's America

I’m an unabashed Norman Rockwell fan. My family had a couple books about Norman Rockwell in our home when I was growing up and I spent a good amount of time (probably more than the average kid in 1986 did) staring at Rockwell’s illustrations.

In my Ted Talk from 2006, I mentioned this fascination with Rockwell and how I viewed blogs as a sort of equivalent to his illustrations. Just as Norman Rockwell’s work is mocked for its sentimentality, commercial and pop culture appeal (and so not considered high art), blogs are often mocked for their mundaneness and far too personal touches. Especially when contrasted with pure journalism or published writings.

That’s why I was pretty excited to go and see Rockwell's America: Celebrating the Art of Norman Rockwell at Charlotte’s Discovery Place Museum. Even though it was created for children and their fun little imaginations, my parents and I (and Penelope) had way too much of a good time walking around within the recreations of 20th century living and Rockwell’s covers.

Custom CSS, TypePad and a Blogging Milestone

Greetings to all the folks coming from Web Creme and CSS Mania!

While I haven't written up a tutorial on how I used TypePad's Custom CSS to design this blog, the tutorials posted last week on Everything TypePad pretty much spell out the two fairly minor (but big impact) changes I made to the default CSS -- custom banner, blog background and the content background). I tweaked other values, as well, but you should be able to go along way with just those two customizations. The best thing about this design is that I'm using basic templates that didn't require me to touch any code other than the CSS.

For those who want to play along, check out the TypePad Design Assistant. Tip: I used the Asterisk Wide theme to get started.

Having my design spotlighted on these two sites makes me feel quite honored because after all these years at Six Apart doing a lot of different things and having a lot of different roles, I always can find my bliss pushing pixels in Photoshop.

And because everything in life comes full circle, today is the seven-year anniversary(!) of my launch of dollarshort.org.

The Original Bloggers

Back in college [1], when I should have (according to those with social lives) been drinking Popov out of Dixie cups, I instead spent an inordinate amount of time in the library's stacks. In particular, the magazine archive. Even more particular was that my research never had anything to do with my course work, but rather just my interest in the past.

So, imagine my glee when Kottke did a round-up of magazine archives online.

I spent some time on Friday exploring the Time archives and became immediately sucked into the Letters to the Editor. I like to think of blogs as the 21st Century version of Letters to a global, connected Editor, so it made sense that I would seek out the best example of authentic voice.

As you can imagine, there is a great deal of bigotry, chauvinism and small-mindedness in these letters. That's no surprise. What I find fascinating and most delightful to read are the exceptions. Those who question Time's articles (and the general consensus of the day) and assumption.

Here, for example, is one reader's response to Time's "helpful" 1942 article on "How to Tell Your Friends from the Japs."

Sirs: Your warning in TIME, Dec. 22, that the "few rules of thumb" listed for telling Chinese from Japanese are "not always reliable" is an unparalleled masterpiece of understatement. Such absurd generalities as "Japanese are nervous in conversation, laugh loudly at the wrong time," or "most Chinese avoid horn-rimmed spectacles" would have certainly made the eminent Dr. Samuel Johnson apoplectic. ... I feel the appropriateness of an admonishing Tsk! Tsk! ... MARTIN J. KATZ Philadelphia, Pa.

And then there are the little gems that, with a few words substituted could be written in today's Time. Take this letter from May 10th, 1943 that is a response to a story about high school graduates "who had forgotten, mislearned or never learned many details of U.S. history."

Sirs: . . . There are many reasons why students have failed so miserably in the past several years to maintain creditable scholastic standing and make sound academic records. . . . The present generation has been weaned on the comic strip. It has absorbed huge, indigestible amounts of outrageously inane (for the most part) Hollywood movie fare. It has been given cheap, miserably lean radio entertainment. In short, the younger generation hasn't been given half a chance to improve itself mentally. . . . PRIVATE J. A. FALLON Scott Field, III.

While the site navigation of the Time archive is lacking and it's difficult to browse, it's pretty easy to get completely sucked into a decade and its new stories and letters.

[1] Spending vast amounts of time reading old magazines actually started in high school. Magazines were my Internet and I spent hours browsing. Sadly, when I said I was going to the library (on a Saturday), I was indeed going to the library.

Proud to Be Me

I didn't win many awards as a kid. When I was seven, though, I awarded myself a homemade prize ribbon fashioned out of a raveling brown fabric remnant. And with my little white crayon, what did I scrawl on this ribbon? "Winner." That's it. Not "1st Place" or "Good Job!" Just "Winner." I guess I was trying to think of the exact opposite of the word loser, a word easily defined as a kid who has to make himself a award. Now, reward that inner loser in you! Welcome to dollarshort.org

That's how I began my very first blog, dollarshort.org, back in 2001. I was twenty-three at the time and figured that I wasn't going to be famous in the real world, so I might as well have a go at it online. Little did I know what I was getting into at the time.

Twenty-thee year-old Mena was a lot different than thirty year-old Mena, thankfully. I spent most of my twenties working on blogging software, reading blogs and helping run a blogging company. I went from being private, to public, to way too public and then to reclusive. Mind you, I was never the wearing-tissue-boxes-on-my-feet or collecting-my-urine-in-jars type of recluse -- just the type that focused on staying off the radar. But when some of the best experiences in my life have come from blogging -- as well as some of the worst -- it's hard to quit completely.

While I've been blogging consistently (and privately) for two years on my Vox blog, I missed doing the public blogging that introduced me into this crazy, often wonderful and sometimes cruel world.

Ultimately, the best experiences are why I'm back.

I'm, as the cliche goes, older and wiser, and amazingly I'm now a mother. My daughter, Penelope, is already growing up right before my eyes and, at five months-old, is such a joy. While the neurotic Mena of 2001 was coming to terms with a lifetime of a 'day late and a dollarshort' moments, the 2008 Mena is a lot more concerned with the day-to-day adventures of raising a daughter and working at Six Apart (after a six-month maternity leave, I now work from home or bring Penelope in with me).

So, here I am.

Welcome back to dollarshort!