First, can I just say thank you for being a part of this newsletter? It’s not a large number by far, but it feels intimate enough. Like a tiny-small conference, where I think of most of us were in a large space, we’d all enjoy each other’s company and there’d be enough people that you’d always find someone new to meet over a long weekend.
There’s a very apropos reason for the subject line here. And let’s use another list.
- Don’t call it a comeback, redux, for real. I know the last time we spoke, I soft announced Studio 28. I had a lot of questions at the time and prior, about why. I reasoned it with friends and they all empathetically agreed. Except one or two. At the time, I was very much about starting everything fresh and tearing down everything that had come before. A visceral reaction.
But as the weeks and months have passed, and my identity and path have settled and resolved, I came to realize that I had put 17 years worth of brand equity into Weightshift. My social accounts are all named that and for what it’s worth, my identity and that name are intertwined. In addition, it’s easy to tear things down and start fresh. It’s harder to maintain something, change and evolve it over time, and to not get pigeonholed. So, in that vein, and in feeling comfortable in my own skin, Weightshift is back. Different and evolved, but back. Studio 28, we hardly knew ya. Thanks for all the gifts.
- Making products again. Some of you may have heard: my old partner-in-making-Internet Scott Robbin and I announced a new product and endeavor.
It’s called Vapid.
It’s an intentionally simple CMS (but is as powerful as you need it to be), built on the idea that you never need to leave the HTML to have a custom dashboard for clients. It’s for people who build websites for other people. It is both an open source CMS AND a hosting platform (in private beta and we’re sending out invites now!).
It’s been successfully deployed by Cards Against Humanity on their http://cah.pride site, and their http://voteworms.com (heavy heavy traffic as you can imagine), as well as by a few others. It’s battle-tested, and we’re smoothing/improving/making things for a general release later this year.
Read the announcement and check it out at vapid.com. Also, get on that beta! Hit reply if you want in or here.
- I’m speaking! I spoke last year at Creative Works in Memphis (a great conference by the way, very pro) which was a nice return to speaking since the last Brooklyn Beta.
This time around, Simon Collison (or Colly as you may know him) has brought back New Adventures. It’s one of the conferences I was always curious about but never aligned time-wise. So it’s an absolute joy to have Colly invite me to speak. It’s also been a number of years since I’ve been back in the UK (1998, though I spent the first decade of my life there), so I’m excited for that as well. I’m still working out with Simon what my talk will be about, but there’s a focus to New Adventures, and my talk will be themed around being human, what modern diversity looks like, and why we build the things we do in what I believe should be a diverse world. I would absolutely love to see you there. If not for me, go for the amazing crew that Colly has lined up.
AND: here’s 10% off, when you use the code NAZ10. Consider it seriously, and come! https://newadventuresconf.com/2019/
I had planned for longer but wanted to save some topics around product design (and the evolution of Weightshift in it), weird work structures (why 9-5? why so much distraction at work when we also need deep maker time?), and more.
Housekeeping:
- I’ll likely be moving this to MailChimp proper the next go around.
- Would you like to see these a little more frequently? Not much more, but more than now. Perhaps, regularly is what I’m saying. Longer? Shorter? Good length?
To new-old adventures,
Naz.
P.S. See what I did there? (cue groans) ✌️
Naz.
P.S. See what I did there? (cue groans) ✌️