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June 29, 1996
Chicago
Dear Friends:
Most of my visits to cities are to hotels near airports. You don't get to see much local life that way, but it makes the traveling easier. What makes it interesting is when you step away from the business and into the city.
My first official visit to Chicago for a workshop showed me once again the power of the network growing online. I met Krysia Jacobs and Teresita Dabrieo for the first time, in person. I had met both for several months before, online in newsgroups and at their Web sites.
I can't say I actually had met them. I read several of Teresita's postings on a mailing list, visited her site, and became acquainted with her approach. I met Krysia through her husband Alan initially, when both offered to share an incredible visual journey through the remnants of Auschwitz via email.
Marketing and the Holocaust; my approach to the Web does have its own extremes, but in the middle are the people making this network work.
Web sites tell alot about the owner. Some are thrown up haphazardly, slummed together with ungodly awful graphics and a big cover. These are the real impressionists, who slap you in the face with an image but never think that you'll go the next step. Then there are the people who invite you in to stay for a while, to think, and to change...people like Teresita and Krysia.
Meeting Them Virtually
Krysia and Teresita are quite different. Both run sites the invite you into explore, guided through words, thoughts, and challenges to go one step further. The visitor searches through the site, creating their own plot.
Krysia created the site, IDEA: A Journal of Social Issues, with Alan. The site is classy, with a print magazine look, quiet and contemplative. Here the words are most important, navigation being designed around you reading what they have to offer. Thought provoking, challenging, and inviting dialogue; check it out for yourself at: http://www2.interaccess.com/jacobs/idea/
I was honored when they offered me the outstanding photographs and visual poetry of the Auschwitz/Birkenau photographs: (http://remember.org/jacobs/index.html), where the black imagery and the angles of vision are elegantly combined on a page that forces you to try and create the words between the photographs. The power of both sites is evident when you enter.
Teresita's site is a motivational wonder and a gold mine for Web consultants. The first thing you notice when reading her words in a mailing list posting or visit her Web site is the style; it is inviting, the language making you want to click on the words. Not overhyped but definitely not understated, she maintains the mixture of marketing and persona. Visit her at http://www.dabrieo.com.
Each of these sites stood out to me because they have a voice. Like a writer needs to find a voice to a piece (I'm still looking for mine here), a site has to have a distinct personality. We all get so overwhelmed at the techniques of the Web, but the sites that work develop a style that no one else has. Both of these sites have that stamp of uniqueness.
Meeting in Person
I met Teresita at the workshop. Her husband, Dan, attended and shared a common Mac background. It's funny, people may bash the Mac and it certainly isn't the computer of the people, but I meet some of the best people in that little computer circle. Problem something enjoyable about being in the minority, but for me the real appeal of the Mac has always been the creative side. There is a certain flair to the approach, sometimes grossly exaggerated and inundated with ego, but a focus on creating something unique. We may not achieve it, but I think we like to think we are after that grail. I guess that's what rocks our worlds.
Dan's the type of person I could talk to for hours without noticing time (this from just 10 minutes of actually speaking). Teresita is the same; together they have built their own business network; you can tell the power of communication, talking about others you have run into online, providing leads into avenues that the other person never heard of.
It's just like the old saying; one stick is easy to break, two are harder to break, and three are about damn impossible to break. You can tell from meeting both Teresita and Dan that they have many sticks in their network. But the special part is actually meeting in person, getting to see the person behind the relative facelessness of the Web network. I'm sure we will be working together in the future. When I think of my first meeting with them, I think of my three favorite online words: ideas...information...inspiration. As Teresita likes to close her letters, ñBe Greatî. Amazing.
After the workshop I was lucky enough to have some time to grab a cab to Wrigley Field, which is near where the Jacobs live. Alan was out of the country at the time, but I got to sit down for a few hours with Krysia. She is from Poland, a talented Web designer and interested in the Holocaust. Some people look at my Cybrary site and shy away, but isn't it the same for everything online? If you have an interest, a passion, or some drive that can be fulfilled by a site, you go to it. The Holocaust drives over 6,000 visitors a month to my site (yeah, like it's mine; it's the audiences', plain and simple. Just visit Alan and Krysia's part of the Cybrary and you know there is something amazing going on.)
Krysia showed me a collection of photographs, some videos Alan had created, and a map that still sticks in my mind. It is a map of Poland with literally hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of pins on it. Each one represents a ghetto, labor camp, death camp, or work area for the victims of the Holocaust. I couldn't stop staring at that map, which we hope to show online, because the pure visual of it is stunning. It will tear your heart out, because it did happen. And could happen again, anywhere. That's what scares people about the Holocaust; when learning about it, you have to change. Period. It makes you react. Looking at all those pins, you can't help but shut up. And remember.
What I found was one of the most moving use of images I have seen. The map was the first, followed by Alan's video of a day in the camp, with him reading words of survivors. Not morbid words, not pitying words, but words of survival. And no sound track, no Hollywood ending, just the truth, plain and simple. Then she shared paintings by survivors, pictures by guards, and a promise to try and create a new educational approach. Maybe based on maps, certainly online and evolving. I look forward to what will happen.
And in that afternoon, I got to meet two people whom I first met in the wonderful network of the Web. One changing people's career approach, inspiring them to achieve their dreams with hands on, practical techniques. The other opening visions in the minds of the audience, piecing together difficult visuals and trusting the audience to open the doors to understanding, to painting their own words, to understanding.
To both I wish peace...and a promise to do whatever I can to be a valuable part of their network.