Stop Jon: the writings and ramblings of Jon Pederson

The Making of a Good Team

Working with people is what I do, and what most of us do every day. No matter what we produce with our time each day, very few of us can do it alone. We may not be interacting with the guy that has no idea what it means to clean off his desk, has major hygiene issues, lacks any sense of humor or social skills, and stands way to close to your face when talking to you on a daily basis, but none the less we have to deal with people to get our job done. The question on my mind is, how does this interaction help or hinder our production?

The short answer that carries such profoundness that even I want to quote myself is, “Yes, it does.” There you have it. You have just witnessed the wisdom of Jon Pederson (the full extent of it). But seriously… I’m just joking… but seriously, no really…. OK, shut-up and move on Jon!…

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Web Standards and IE8

Two days ago it was announced that IE8 will render by default to Web standards the best it can. This is a monumental occasion as Microsoft has been very reluctant to partner with other companies involved in the proliferation of standards on the Web.

This also comes less than two weeks after Microsoft changed their stance on business and technology practices. They announced on Feb 21st that they will be making broad changes that effect their focus on working with other companies to better support industry standards.

I am not shy to say that I really don’t like a lot of the practices of Microsoft, and have not found their products to be any enjoyment to use. However, this change to expand interoperability has given me a glimmer of hope for the future of the company. At this point the deck is really stacked against them in the area of influence on the Web, and with more and more people using the Web for their daily productivity this is a bad place to be for Microsoft.

We will see how compliant IE8 really is, as they did say, “IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can.”

– UPDATE –
Microsoft released IE8 beta.

Subliminal Advertising Works, Maybe

In a recent post, there was an incredible piece proving that everyone is effected by subtle advertising whether they admit it or not. In this video the roles get reversed, and the ad designers themselves get pulled in.

What To Do When It’s Slow, Because They’re Busy

For most of the creative industry this time of year is often very slow. People are thinking more about using leftover vacation time, spending time with children while they have a break from school, and what needs to get done before the end of the year. All this adds up to people not being too focused on work, and as a result it’s pretty hard to get much done when the people you are depending on for decisions and approval are off somewhere else mentally. When you are a creative professional this mostly turns into a waiting game, and thus a slow time of year because everyone else is so busy with not working.

I’ve been thinking for the last few months about what to do during the “slow time” at the end of the year. Oddly enough, for our company (PWG Design), this has been a strangely busy time, when normally we are slow during the month of December this year we have been swamped. I ended up with all this thought going into what to do to stay busy, and now am not going to get to do any of it. So, I pass my thoughts along, for whatever they’re worth: (more…)

Right Development

I really push for standards on the Web. My goal is to do things right, and with the highest quality possible. I am not satisfied with just that though.

When most of what is done on the Web is a stretch, or hack of what was originally intended when HTML and CSS were first conceived, how do we know the right way of using them while designing and developing Web sites? Validating with the W3C would be the easy answer, but I don’t think that addresses the the full scope of the future of the Web. (more…)