Introducing the Wisdom Compendium
Friday, November 11th, 2005I’ve long admired people who have had the gusto to introduce themselves to people they respect and admire and ask for a little bit of guidance.
One of the greatest lessons in life is learning to seek out wisdom from those who have already achieved what you aim to accomplish.
Don’t ask Larry from accounting who’s part of the water-cooler gang. Instead, talk to that new guy in sales who’s always hitting his numbers, always coming up #1 and who seems to have his stuff together. Or whomever you have tons of respect for as a person.
What about ‘The Dude’, you ask?
As I say in my sidebar — there’s nothing wrong with being The Dude.
In fact, being financially, socially and otherwise comfortable enough to be the dude is a sign that you do in fact have your schtuff together. Your ducks in a row. Your t’s crossed and your i’s dotted, if you will.
My goal is to one day be financially independent so that I can, if I so choose, dedicate 100% of my time to a project that I love. Or, 80% of the year doing that, the rest to goofing off in exotic far-away lands. Yes, we should all let our people go surfing.
But, this isn’t about financial independence. It’s about the journey.
It’s about what I can learn along the way. How I can grow and become a better person (better coder, better designer, better startup guy, better friend, better son, etc) in the process.
The Wisdom Compendium
To that end, I’ve begun contacting people who I come across in my travels (online and off) to see if they’d answer a few interview questions, which will then be posed to wisdomcompendium.com.
Hopefully others will gain from these interviews as well in their journey through life.
These aren’t meant to be “hard-hitting,” journalistic-type interviews.
I’m trying to get at those core things people do, believe and practice on an ongoing basis that makes them successful in whatever they pursue.
When I was growing up, one of my friend’s parents (who I had tons of respect for because he was a well-respected lawyer in the community) once told me that it doesn’t matter what you do in life.
He said, it doesn’t matter whether you’re an architect, lawyer, doctor, head chef, engineer or carpenter. As long as you do your job to the best of your ability, always striving to be the very best in your craft or profession — that’s what matters most.
Thus, I’m going to try and interview a diverse cross-section of people from all kinds of backgrounds, crafts, skills and professions. (Of course, it’ll probably be mostly startup entrepreneurs and technophiles for a while!)
The Wisdom Compendium’s First Interview: Garrett Dimon
Garrett Dimon is a talented web developer, user-interface architect and coder with a passion for accessibility and web standards.
He’s the creator of the excellent YourTotalSite as well as his own popular weblog on simplicity, less code, agile development, Ruby on Rails and more.
Garrett is also an Information Architect at Bright Corner.
His unique blend of technical ability and design-savvy compelled us here at The Wisdom Compendium to inquire further into his work and seek advice on pursuing that rare path of skilled coder + designer.
His business card says it best:
Garrett Dimon is on a mission to make the Web a better place. Armed with usability and efficiency, he’s convinced that if it needs instructions, it doesn’t work. That’s why everything he does – from information architecture to site development – is elegant in its simplicity and a complete joy for the user. When he’s not obsessed with usability, he can be found playing basketball or crusading for better content. If it’s about the Web, he’s all over it.
With roughly a a thousand subscribers to his Weblog and growing (as well as being a prominent member of the 9rules weblog network), Garrett Dimon is an up-and-coming star and one to watch.
