It turns out that you might know me. Yeah, I’m that kid who always sat the back of the class. Didn’t say too much but when I did, it was ponderous. Later in life I became that person you work with who pays zero attention to her brand. Yes, that’s me. I believe we’ve met.

It’s not that I don’t have things to say about the design world. I simply haven’t. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere here, creating this website has been an introspective exercise for me. Ultimately I find that I’ve treated my design career rather differently than I treated my academic career, in which I was highly engaged.

First: an admission. For several years I believed that the design world was a stopover for me on the way to becoming an academic. At the point I graduated, academia was flooded with applications. Seriously. The last time I went on the academic job market, there were a total of 15 jobs in my field in the entire United States. 15 slots for which several hundred were competing, many of whom already had books out. My couple of articles and publisher interest in my book got me to round two.

So I returned to the Bay Area and accidentally found myself working in the online arena. As my “stopover,” I was more engaged in polishing my dissertation for publication for the next year’s academic job search and in reconnecting with family and old friends, by which I mean spending a lot of time at local watering holes.

Second: a realization that I’m outside looking in. All of sudden everyone’s all about their personal brand. Did I sleep through this? I must have, cause I really don’t remember what must have been a rising tide of interest before it became de rigueur.

So here I am world of internet-y design. See me. No, really. I’ve got things to say, so here goes. But first, some thoughts about our budding relationship:

• I understand from one of our practitoners that the web has changed “the nature of how we read and learn” and that the “old model of sustained narrative” is, well, old-fashioned. I’m afraid that I’m a fan of sustained narrative and the rigor of thought that goes with it. Tweet-sized bytes in powerpoint robes do not rigor make. Though they do make a sweet Twitter primer for my dad (thanks!). Sustained narrative is a form of thinking. Its process an end, not simply the means. It is, in a word, one of the ways that I think. Therefore I am, at least in this space with my own brand, content to write the way that I have learned and love. Sorry to be a such downer.
• Analogy and metaphor are my close companions. I’ve got six years worth of them from the 18th century that I’m ready to unleash on a similarly perplexed and perplexing early 21st century. Seriously. Do you know of anyone else talking about interaction design and the grotesque in the same breath? I thought not. If nothing else, it’ll be fun for you to watch me try it.
• Understand that I not a consistent cheerleader for our interactive world. By nature I’m skeptical about broad generalizations of any sort. I am very likely to resist the kind of vaguely-McLuhan-esque talk about how the internet is changing everything. And how that’s, by definition, a Martha Stewart Good Thing. History demonstrates that many Good Things we’ve conceived turn out to be Less Than Good Things. The plastic water/soda bottle, non-fat ricotta, and culottes come to mind. Pause for thought is not unwarranted.
• I believe that people who believe the internet is “ubiquitous” lack a grasp on the realities faced by a pretty big number of the planet’s population. The internet is ubiquitous in the sense that it exists around us. This does not, however, mean that everyone has the resources necessary to jack in. And, no, the public library does not count because “ubiquitous” would mean it’s always available to me. Everyone knows that libraries are closed three days a week.
• I am not above social commentary. The personal is political. As is the internet and its offshoots.
• I love words. The way they sound, the way they look, on-screen or off, the way they mean. And I like to start sentences with prepositions. Long sentences do not frighten me. Well written, they shouldn’t frighten you either.
• I also love images, which is why working in the internet design world has been so great. It’s a combination of words and images. Oh wait, it’s not. That was the old model. Bummer.
• Satire is my favorite weapon. I’ve got a sense of humor about my own blind spots. I hope you do too.

I could go on. But if you’re still reading this, and have plans to read further in the future, you’ll figure out my “brand” soon enough.