note to self: i have been informed that pie charts are no longer cool. or at least, not good data visualization… to which i must wholeheartedly agree. hmm… if only there was more time and sleep available as of late.

in any case, i thought i would share my slides — successfully created at the very last-minute thanks to sliderocket…

there’s a lot of talk these days about whether twitter and other micro-blogging services have killed blogs. while i tend to agree this is very much exaggerated, my own online publishing behaviors have suggested otherwise. (allow me to now disclaim the obvious: i’ve never considered myself a blogger.) in any case, i must now admit i am drinking a good amount of “twitterade.” which brings me to another pattern of “less is more” that has been emerging since the summer…

i’ve always been blessed with a variety of interests, hobbies and passions: various design and web projects, building and racing bicycles, writing and performing music, working on cars and much more. however i’m hitting that critical point where the necessary focus and discipline just gets harder and harder to maintain as the responsibilities grow. unwieldy. unsuccessful. unsafe at any speed. so i’ve decided it’s time for me to slow down. take deeper breaths. spend more time with those i love. smell the coffee. downsize. take the time to do things to the standard i want, whether that be a music project or finishing the bathroom cabinets.

therefore i’ve made some fairly dramatic changes as of late:

• pulled the plug on the paper south. this was by far one of the toughest decisions i can remember having to make, after three years of amazingly good times with the finest and most talented gentlemen around. i could produce a much more detailed and in-depth analysis on the subject, but in short came down to me needing to make music on my own terms.
• scaled down my freelance activities, which i have increasingly less and less time for due to the full-time job anyway.
• failed to renew my bicycle racing license. stopped shaving my legs. (you have no idea how much time this alone has saved me.) now riding just for the love of it. with less endurox, no agenda… and no particular place to go.

as a result of these and a few other changes, i hope to reveal two new special projects in the very near future. stay tuned… i can’t wait to share them with you.

i must admit that initially i was pretty upset. (this was by design one of the worst-looking myspace pages ever for the record.) i mean hey… i had always carefully managed and crafted my online presence. from my defunct designops blog to more recent projects to my job, i kept somewhat behind the curtain for numerous reasons… never feeling completely comfortable with sharing my thoughts and ideas online, whether personal or industry-specific. i have a poorly-maintained linkedin profile and have been tagged on flickr here and there… so who am i kidding? where was my sense of humor? each of us… like it or not, can be found online in certain and imperfect detail.

while the entertaining imposter page is now deleted (i’ll have to save my unproductive and depressing adventure with myspace’s customer service for another time), the whole thing got me thinking about my lack of participation and mixed feelings. i have learned to revel in the fact that many folks now think i enjoy right said fred’s “i’m too sexy” in that ironic hipster kinda way.

in short, crisis equals opportunity. i’ve decided to resuscitate shawnokeefe.com — knowing from this experience that if you don’t contribute to your identity online, someone else surely will.

thanks to adrienne, noah, eric and lya for the inspiration to get back on my virtual feet.

and special thanks to my pal kirk of course. i must give props where they are due for pulling off such a good prank. just don’t forget… on the web, turnabout is fair play old friend.