One morning, between coffee, getting kids ready for school and kindergarten, I was doing my usual I stroll around in social media and my RSS feeds round, I stumbled over dina Amin’s Instagram account and followed her. I liked her work. A lot.
Later then I was checking her website and other sources to see, if she ever spoke at any events. I have seen that she gives workshops and thought, I simply ask her, if she wants to join my first beyond tellerrand event in Munich. Not only did this turn out into a great fit – topic wise and from being a wonderful human being – but it also created so many memorable moments. For her, me, the attendees and many of the other speakers (I could write a lot about this … wonderful memories).
dina on stage in Munich – photo by Stefan Nitzsche
She gave a great talk about her work, about her work and being from Egypt, about her work and being from Egypt and being a woman. It turned out to be much more than what I thought of.
I love that she now is showing up at other events to talk about her work and herself. On February 27th she is guest on Smashing TV and I can highly recommend joining this live session. She has a great story to tell and if you are, by any means interested in stop motion and tinkering with the things you have or being excited to do and create something – drop in. Her actual topic on Smashing TV is ”The State Of (Web) Design In Egypt”.
And here comes a handy tip: as you can see on the screenshot above it is $49 to join for the day and dina’s session on Smashing TV. Do this: simply join the Smashing family and become a Smashing Member. For $5 you get access to all the Smashing TV episodes as well as many other things (not to forget that ads disappear from Smashing Magazine). And even if you cancel after a while, the $49 to attend this one episode at Smashing TV with dina mean 10 months of access to much more. But I see, I sound like I am selling it to you. ;)
What I really want to say: go and see what dina has to say (and – if you like – become a Smashing Member). And if you want to see dina live again, you can do this at the upcoming beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf.
When I moved out of my mother’s house, about 23 or 24 years ago, my mum asked me, if I would like to take my old school stuff or drawings I made when I was a child. I said I don’t need this stuff anymore, but today, I am happy and glad she did not listen to me.
When my mother died a little more than a month ago, I knew that the days where coming, when we had to empty and clear her flat. Since our two brothers are already gone it is mainly the job of my sister and me. And even though it was is very sad, to – in some way – erase someones life, someones trails off this earth, by having to throw away a lot of stuff, there are moments of laughter and lovely memories, I share with my sister. Today was one of the days, where we started to empty our mother’s cupboards and had to decide what to keep and what to give away. It was a long day and I have a very strange feeling after this day is over. I can’t really describe it, but it feels heavy aas if someone put a rock on both of my shoulders.
Of course there was a lot of stuff, where we asked us Why the hell did she keep this? For which case?, but there was one moment amongst a few today, where I though, that I was glad, that she did not listen to me and kept something.
When I was a kid, some of my friends and I started drawing picture of knights and armies and ships and castles and so forth, that we decided to glue together piece by piece, so that it became a gigantic, big scroll with a lot of drawings. A continuous story, which we started about 1984 or 1983 and where one of the last drawings is dated to 1987. Short before I moved out of my mother’s house, we had a pipe burst in the cellar and the paper roll got wet. Not soaked, but wet enough, that I thought I ave to throw it away, which I told my mum to do, when I moved out. She never told me anything and from time to time I was thinking back to this long-time project of my friends and me, thinking, that it is sad that this personal piece of history was lost for me. I mean, I know that this might not mean anything to anyone, but for me this was a huge project as at leat 5 of my friends and me, we were working on it.
Today, after we decided to call it a day for today, we quickly checked our mother’s garage to see, what is left to do here and there it was: my roll of drawings. She did not listen to me and just kept this bloody thing – which I love her for. I guess, neither my kids not my wife really understand, what this means to me, but for me this is pure gold. This is my childhood and plain, unfiltered memories to so many wonderful days, I had when I was a little boy.
Next Saturday, numerous workshops around the world are held to help people becoming more experienced in public speaking. I was getting notice of these events way too late, as I woiuld have loved to organise one. But if you are around Berlin, you might want to check what Stefan Judis is organising.
I just backed the iA Writer for Windows version on Kickstarter with a Premium Supporter package. I don't even use Windows. But you know, I am constantly using Writer on my Mac. I think it is the most used tool on my computer – right after Apple's Mail program. So, I thought I support iA with a few bucks to get a good version for Windows kicked off and I say thanks with that.
Question: If I’d work for a delivery service and someone is not at home, would I then throw a package with things someone ordered over their fence into the garden, to let it lie in the rain for the whole day?
Yesterday, when I cam home around 10pm, a parcel was lying on the wet lawn, totally soaked. I was completely speechless and wondered: Who the fuck would really think “Hmm … no one at home. I wonder if it is a good idea to throw the shipping into the dirt while it is raining heavily?” I mean, come one, that is something that does not fit into my head. How damn stupid must someone be?!
So please, I am sure the one who did it will never read this, but if you work for Amazon Logistics and ever think of doing this: Please don’t! There might be things in that parcel, that can’t stand rain and might be damaged after being thrown into my garden. Thank you!
I know Joshua Davis since 2001, when I met him the first time at Flash Forward in Amsterdam. I am always happy, when he comes back to my event and gives a talk. In Berlin he was back with some of his latest projects. One of the messages he transports through his talks is something like
The work you put out there, is the work that people hire you for. So, if you put out shit, people hire you to do shit.
Tobi Lessnow, aka Baldower joined the beyond tellerrand family 2013, when he suggest doing Sketchnotes in Music and it has grown into being part of beyond tellerrand at every event. His latest track, “Weird Shit”, which he made from what Josh said in his talk in Berlin, proves, that he not only plays a bit of music and samples random quote into it to use it as kind of lyrics. I think Tobi completely got this message out of the talk by Josh and also made a great song out of it. Crazy, yes, but if you know Joshua, than you see that it perfectly fits ;)
Arrived back from Melbourne yesterday, where I took photos at A Day with Shopify in Melbourne. I had a fabulous week in Australia and a great time meeting people I know and I got to know. A great end to a great year with wonderful people all around.
Smashing Magazine launched their completely new design, having worked on it for more than 18 months
When I met Vitaly Friedman for the first time really, I was on a road trip with him to the New Adventures Conference in Nottingham. I can’t remember if we met before, or if that was really the first time, but this definitely was a time, where we got to know each other, being locked into a car for two or three days with five people. We had very intense discussions and I remember, that we chatted a lot about ideas we had and much, much more.
Later in 2011, I ran my very first beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf and Vitaly was a speaker. That lead to Vitaly and me starting Smashing Conference in 2012 and me being the chair of the Smashing Magazine supervisory board nowadays. So yes, there is a strong connection and I admire Vitaly’s passion for what he does – though it can be difficult sometimes to be passionated as he is :D
Smashing Magazine Redesign and Relaunch
Though I haven’t been part of the whole redesign process, I have been at a couple of meetings, where we worked on it, sat down with Markus and Vitaly quite some time to brain storm many things and come up with new ideas or suggestions. I have seen how much attention to detail the whole process was having and how many times things have been changed to improve things or the user. Not only when it came to design or usability decisions, but also when it came to responsibilities for certain tasks after the relaunch or content-decisions concerning new features of the website. Andy Clark started working on the redesign and later Dan Mall took over. Many other people where were involved and the whole site is not yet finished, but very usable already. A lot of people criticised the usage of red as main color, so Smashing listened and added an option to switch to white for example. There are many hidden features, little details and cats to be found. Play around with the new website and report bugs or suggest new things on GitHub or via email.
Memberships
Smashing Magazine always was a place, were content had the main focus. But a Magazine like Smashing needs to also earn some money to be sustainable. Up until now ads were one thing to do this, even though people behind Smashing Magazine never were huge fans of ads at all. Of course, there are books and the Smashing Library and when starting Smashing Conference, another source of income was established, but certainly – as you ever ran an event – none that is anything like a money making machine. So, how could a Magazine make money to pay their authors, their team and everybody involved, but move aways from showing ads to their readers?
Many meetings, emptying brains over paper and digital note taking apps, finally Smashing Membership is here. I remember sitting at a coffee shop (it was a cocktail bar actually) with Markus and Vitaly, brain storming about which tiers should be created for members, how they could be packaged to be attractive and how to make it a no-brainer to become a Smashing Member. Discussing all this, the main subject we always came back to was, to get the existing Smashing community to actually become a real community with real benefits of being a member and feeling like being part of Smashing more than just paying for the content. It is hard to explain, but I am sure, and I actually know, that Vitaly and the rest of Smashing Magazine are working hard on making this happening. Creating a membership experience within the whole Smashing ecosystem.
The new design – Ugly? Good? Bad? Unusable? Great Usability?
Surely like with everything that is new and were people, for years, are used to a way something is, a new design of the website you always read and loved to visit is something crazy. You first impression is either Wow … great! or the complete opposite with Fucking hell! What is this?!. And I certainly understand this. But what if, instead of puking a quickly written ”That sucks” into the comments or on Twitter, you give it some time, let it rest, and then make a constructive about it? Make way more sense and might even change something into a direction you like. Right?
Don’t forget also, that this is just a start of a new website and it is not printed or set in stone, which means, things change over time. This new website certainly is far from being perfect and reading preferences are always a matter of taste. As is the reception of design. People responsible for this website worked damn hard on this and they want to make it a good experience and joyful. And with constructive critics you can actually help improving, what is not perfect yet. I myself have to say I do like the approach of it, I like the courage in trying something different and not do yet another standard website, where everybody is complaining about the website, looking all the same with no fun and joy anymore.
Therefore, I’ll give it a try. I use it, make notes of what I think is not good or what I personally don’t like and give these to Smashing. I am sure they gonna listen and check every single suggestion and comment of you.
