Newsletter the Fourteenth

I've sat at that old desk for 25 years, but no more! "Sitting is the new smoking," someone said to me recently, and that was it: I bought a new desk — one of those electric types that lets you sit or stand at a touch of a button.

Now, I should say that I did try a standing desk a few years back, but it was a treadmill desk! I walked at 1 mph (that's a whopping 1.61 km/hr), bobbing and weaving while I typed and held Zoom calls (and hey, this was long before Zoom was cool). However, walking while I worked… um, didn't last long.

But I had to do something: There have been too many days that I push back from my computer, ready to head into the house for dinner, and realize (painfully) that I have not stood in over eight hours. Even I know that's not healthy!

So, today, standing is just a pushbutton away. It's… right… there… should I push it?

Look Up!

It seems as though space — that ultimate frontier — is unimaginably far away. But you need travel only 100 km (62 mi) up before you are no longer considered an aeronaut and are now an astronaut. Jetliners travel at about 1/10th that, around 10 km (6 miles) up.

In fact, the distance from the surface of Earth to the International Space Station is only about 370 km (230 mi) — shorter than the train ride from New York to Washington, D.C.

Avoiding NO

When I was about 12, I told my teacher that I wanted to learn calculus. No, I was not a math prodigy; I was just the kind of kid who'd read about something in a book and say, "that sounds cool, I want to learn about that," without having any real idea about what it meant.

The hero of this story is my teacher. I think a normal 6th grade teacher would say, "no, you can't do that." But my teacher was not normal: he smiled and said, "OK, sure! In order to learn calculus, you'll need to learn trigonometry; and before that, you should know geometry, and some algebra…" I remember him coming in the next day and handing me a small pile of textbooks to read.

Of course, he knew I wasn't ready do the work and that I'd lose interest quickly. But his real lesson reverberates with me to this day: He did not say no.

By saying, "yes, and" instead of "no", he helped set me up for a lifetime believing that I can do it. (Well, more accurately: I can do it if I stay interested in it long enough.)

Try to catch yourself when you feel like saying "no" — to yourself or to others. Is there a way to say "yes, and" instead?

Accessibility and Design

Why are there so many posts about accessibility (#a11y) and design these days? Because design is fundamentally about communication and engagement. And here's the funny part: accessibility is also fundamentally about communication and engagement! That’s why I say design ultimately is all about accessibility.

The game of design is to make your content (your data or words or pictures or whatever) accessible to the right people, or as many people as you can, and putting it a form that makes it easily digestible, and engageable.

And in this game, whoever can communicate and engage the best, wins. So when you’re building your documents, or presentations, or whatever you’re making, take a moment to think, “how accessible is this? Can I do something here that will make it available, understandable, to more people?” That’s your job. 

Our job, at CreativePro, is to help you… with information, connections to experts, and solutions.

Thank You!

I enjoy sharing my musings… and I enjoy hearing yours! Feel free to follow this newsletter, share it with a friend, follow me on LinkedIn, and send me feedback. You can always reach me at [email protected]