Hi. Welcome to the Web Designer Life blog. This is my very first post, and for such a momentous occasion, I want to write about a concept that has become increasingly important to me recently – expanding the pie. I swear this will be related to web design in the end, so just bear with me.
Basically, the concept is that rather than struggling, fighting, worming and weaseling your way to get your slice of the pie, everyone else be damned, a much better way to go about life is to work hard at making the pie bigger so that there is more for everyone.
Most people would immediately think about the pie being money, but to me, this pie is about more than that.
If what you do either improves your quality of life, and either improves or doesn’t negatively effect the quality of life of those both upstream and downstream from you, then you’re expanding the pie. If what you do decreases quality of life for anyone in the equation, then your shrinking the pie.
Shrinking the pie:
Here’s an example: Joe Schmoe is an engineer who works for a company that designs and manufactures bombs for the US military. By virtue of his job, his quality of life is improved (income), and the quality of life of other people upstream of him is improved (profit for the company, the owners, and shareholders).
But, there is a major decrease in the quality of life of the people downstream who get the bombs dropped on them. And also for the environment and wildlife affected by war and the resultant pollution and destruction.
To be blatantly obvious, Joe Schmoe is definitely shrinking the pie. Joe may not think about this, but ultimately, his actions will come back to bite him. If the whole pie is shrinking, then eventually, Joe’s share of the pie will also shrink, or he’ll have to work harder and harder to keep the same share he once had.
Just to complete the example, one way Joe’s pie will shrink is that dropping bombs on people drives them to terrorism as a way to fight back, which leads to 9/11, reductions in freedoms under the “Patriot” act, a general climate of fear, the wars in Afganistan and Iraq and the huge cost to fund those wars, which contributes to a building financial mess that dumps the whole economy down the drain, affecting pretty much every American negatively, probably including Joe. Bummer.
Expanding the pie:
So, what would be a good example of expanding the pie? Well, how about peer-to-peer lending. The basic idea behind this is connecting someone who has money to someone who needs money.
For this example, lets say that I have money to loan, and somebody (lets call her Mary) needs money for something (lets say she’s a broccoli farmer and she wants to become certified organic, but needs $20,000 to pay for the initial certification). The normal way where my money would be connected to Mary is through a big bank, which takes the money in my savings account and disburses it as a loan to Mary. Mary pays 14% interest on her loan, and I get .5% return back in my savings account, and the 13.5% goes to the bank.
Peer-to-peer lending takes out the bank. Mary gets to pay 9% interest instead of 14%, and I get 8% return instead of .5%, and the 1% in the middle goes to the peer-to-peer lending organization, which sets rules and keeps the market safe to invest in. Mary wins, I win, it’s possible for more people to get access to money they need to improve their lives, and like magic, the pie is expanded.
Bringing it all back to web designers and life:
So, what does all this have to do with web design? Well, this blog is going to predominantly be about web design (although I reserve the right to make occasional posts on other subjects). I’m not going to focus so much on the graphic design part of web design (ie. creating the look and feel of the website). That is covered pretty extensively on other blogs.
Instead, I’m going to focus on all the other associated aspects of web design – how to run a web design business, landing clients, providing great service, how to best do some of the technical parts of web design, and most importantly, how to use web design to improve your life.
Sharing this information and insight is going to be one of the ways I’m hoping to expand the pie. If other people can improve their web design skills, improve their businesses, and therefore improve the quality of their lives, then it seems to me that would lead to a greater share of the pie for all.
Additionally, if I ever make any money from this blog, then I will take 50% of it and give it to a different charity/organization of my choice every month. That’s right, a full half of my share of the pie from this blog will be given to an organization that is making positive change in the world.
I definitely haven’t made any money from this blog yet, and I certainly don’t have much myself, but to get things rolling, I’m going to donate $50 to Kiva.org as my first pie-expanding gift.
Do you have any thoughts, comments, or questions? Leave a comment for me if you do.
