It’s easy to spot a beautiful portfolio. Designers know that looks sell, and many people sell themselves that way. Of course, the ability to make something that looks good matters, especially for visual designers. But the challenge is that great images say nothing about what it will be like to work with someone, or whether they’ll be consistently able to produce good work.

Last week marked four years for the Museum 2.0 blog, and it got me thinking about how and why I first started doing this. People--especially young folks looking to break into the museum business--often ask me how I got here. This seems like an appropriate time to share the story.

Last week marked four years for the Museum 2.0 blog, and it got me thinking about how and why I first started doing this. People--especially young folks looking to break into the museum business--often ask me how I got here. This seems like an appropriate time to share the story.

For those who couldn’t be there, and for those who were there and seek to savor the memories, here is An Event Apart Chicago, all wrapped up in a pretty bow:

AEA Chicago – official photo set
By John Morrison, subism studios llc. See also (and contribute to) An Event Apart Chicago 2009 Pool, a user group on Flickr.
A Feed Apart Chicago
Live tweeting from the show, captured forever and still being updated. Includes complete blow-by-blow from Whitney Hess.
Luke W’s Notes on the Show
Smart note-taking by Luke Wroblewski, design lead for Yahoo!, frequent AEA speaker, and author of Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks (Rosenfeld Media, 2008):

Jeffrey Zeldman: A Site Redesign
Jason Santa Maria: Thinking Small
Kristina Halvorson: Content First
Dan Brown: Concept Models -A Tool for Planning Websites
Whitney Hess: DIY UX -Give Your Users an Upgrade
Andy Clarke: Walls Come Tumbling Down
Eric Meyer: JavaScript Will Save Us All (not captured)
Aaron Gustafson: Using CSS3 Today with eCSStender (not captured)
Simon Willison: Building Things Fast
Luke Wroblewski: Web Form Design in Action (download slides)
Dan Rubin: Designing Virtual Realism
Dan Cederholm: Progressive Enrichment With CSS3 (not captured)
Three years of An Event Apart Presentations

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Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=2695

To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated.