19 May 2011 5 pm eastern

Letter of the Month

Hi Jeffrey,

Back in 2004 we had been running Headscape for three years. Things were going well but personally I was a little dissatisfied with my career. I just wasn’t as excited about the web as I had been and was lacking a new challenge and direction.

Anyway, we won a new client that was particularly concerned about accessibility and so I realised I had to brush up my skills in this area. I decided to see if I could find a book on the subject. Bizarrely I ended up buying Designing With Web Standards. I am not sure why I thought it was going to be about accessibility but for some reason I did. Anyway when it arrived from Amazon I quickly discovered that although it did touch on accessibility it was about so much more.

I remember what I now refer to as a pivotal moment in my web career. I was sitting in bed reading your book. I knew nothing really about CSS (other than for setting fonts/colours and I couldn’t see what was wrong with the old way of doing things). However as I read, it was like a slow realisation. I remember vividly turning to my wife and saying “This book is amazing. I am going to have to relearn everything I know about building websites”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. On one hand the enormity of what you were suggesting was overwhelming but on the other hand it was just the injection I needed in my own career.

I reached the end of the book and made a decision. I was going to move the whole of Headscape across to standards based design. Not only that was I was going to do it as soon as possible. By 2005 we had made the transition and have never looked back.

So far this is probably not dissimilar to other stories you have heard. However, it doesn’t stop there. I obviously started to follow your blog and you mentioned you were coming to speak in the UK at @Media 2005. For me this was too good an opportunity to miss. I wanted to see this guy who had turned our business upside down. Myself and my cofounders at Headscape booked on the conference.

I had never attended a conference before. In fact I had never spoken to another web designer outside of those I had worked alongside. It is therefore hardly a surprise that @Media blew me away. Yourself and the other speakers were so inspirational. In particular I remember Jeremy Keith’s amazing talk on Javascript.

However, the moment that changed everything for me (yes again) was right at the beginning of the conference. Patrick asked various bloggers in the audience to stand up as he mentioned each of their sites. I was overwhelmed by the sense of community and the knowledge in the room. It left me desperate to be apart of that. I left the conference and started building boagworld.com the very next day.

I guess my point is this. If I hadn’t bought your book by accident we would never have attended @Media and if I had never done that I would never have founded boagworld.com. Boagworld has transformed Headscape and brings in approximately 90% of our new business. You have helped our business grow, reinvigorated my own passion for the web and allowed me personally to do things (such as travel the world) that I would have only dreamed of.

That deserves my thanks.

Thank you.

Paul Boag [Web Strategist, Broadcaster, Author & Rabble Rouser]

Filed under: Acclaim

18 Responses to “Letter of the Month”

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    Bjarni Wark said on 19 May 2011 at 7:30 pm:

    I find both these guys inspiring and have over the years enjoyed the content of the earlier podcasts of Boagworld and too after reading Designing with Web Standards found myself feeling a lot more comfortable to what and where web design/code was heading.

    I have to admit I have bought the 3rd edition of Designing with Web Standards, maybe an overkill but wanted to re read the book for a current refresher and to see if I can absorb and benchmark where my own understanding has come over the years after initially reading the book over 5 years ago.

    Thanks to both of you for sharing your insights and knowledge over the years.

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    Jeff Croft said on 19 May 2011 at 7:32 pm:

    For all the times I’ve argued back and forth with you, Jeffrey, I could have just as easily written this letter, myself. And so could hundreds, probably thousands, of others. You’re personally responsible for so much of what I have, and I can’t thank you enough. I’m sure you know it, but you should be so extremely proud of everything you’ve done. Thank you.

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    Kev Adamson said on 19 May 2011 at 7:40 pm:

    “Taking Your Talent To The Web” was the book that lit my blue touch paper.

    I’d come out of Art School with my design degree to a world where design applicants were many, but jobs few.

    The book gave me a new direction, a new challenge, and a confidence that my education would not be for nothing. Your words have been the catalyst for the careers of many.

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    Dale Cruse said on 19 May 2011 at 8:00 pm:

    I’m with Paul, but instead of starting with “Designing With Web Standards”, I started with “Taking Your Talent To The Web”. Mr. Zeldman (still have a hard time calling you Jeffrey) you’re not the reason I have a career, but you are the reason my career makes any sense. You shined a light that allowed so many of us to follow.

    I still remember when you came over & sat down next to me at AEA Boston 2007. The first thing I wrote in my notebook was: “Holy shit, I’m sitting next to Jeffrey Zeldman!”

    Thank you. For everything.

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    Ryan Munger said on 19 May 2011 at 8:59 pm:

    I often tell people I started playing the guitar because “I wanted to be like Jimmy Page.”

    Zeldman is the Jimmy Page of web design.

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    Suleiman Leadbitter said on 20 May 2011 at 6:30 am:

    Hey man, there’s a lot of love in this room

    I’ve been talking got various people about positivity in our industry and also through life in general. To many people are quick to pick holes, rant, nag and basically bitch to each other but do not give enough good feedback, compliment or just be nice.

    If someone inspires you or has benefited you in some way, then say thanks and let them know.

    :)

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    Trace Meek said on 20 May 2011 at 12:42 pm:

    Taking Your Talent To The Web, Baby! Paul’s letter rings true. Thanks Jeffrey!

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    Aaron J. Ruckman said on 20 May 2011 at 4:00 pm:

    Hi Jeffrey,

    Here’s my Designing with Web Standards story:

    I spent a long, unfulfilling year in public accounting right out of college (1999). At the end of that year, I knew I had to get out and pursue my entrepreneurial passions. I went to work with my dad reimagining the industrial company (www.AmeritexIndustries.com) he founded 15 years earlier.

    I knew the web was important, but I didn’t know much about it other than how to surf and find basic things. It never occurred to me that the web could be much more than it was in the early 2000′s. Eight years went by without my digging any deeper into the web. Then in early 2008 I was working on our first e-commerce website when something happened that changed everything …

    I was given a copy of Designing with Web Standards – which I started reading on my honeymoon (on the plane there, at the beach, in the hammock and on the plane home – non web standards activities have been redacted). I kept nudging my new wife saying, “Read this part!” There were three of us on that trip – me, my wife and you clad in your iconic blue beanie.

    When we returned, I bought a copy of Designing with Web Standards for every member of our web development team working on that first e-commerce site and told them, “From now on, we’re only building standards-based websites.” That decision remains (for many reasons) the single best decision I’ve made in business and it never would have been possible without your book.

    I hope you and your readers will forgive the length of this comment as I’ve waited more than three years to tell the story and to simply say, “Thank You”.

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    Jeffrey Zeldman said on 20 May 2011 at 5:40 pm:

    Thank you all.

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    GP said on 21 May 2011 at 9:29 am:

    Parmi tous ceux que je lis et relis avec plaisir, “Taking Your Talent To The Web” demeure certainement un de mes bouquins préférés. Superbement écrit (so well written), brillant (brilliant) , drôle (funny), inspirant (inspiring) & tutti quanti. C’est sa lecture qui m’a conduit à gagner ma vie sur le Web, une décision que je ne regrette toujours pas. “Taking Your Talent To The Web” (et par extension Zeldman.com) : un “must read” au panthéon de ma bibliophilie perso.

    Cheers!

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    Paolo Sordi said on 22 May 2011 at 9:25 am:

    “The Daily Report” was the site and “Taking Your Talent To The Web” was the book: they made my (professional) days and still do.

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    Steven Ayres said on 22 May 2011 at 10:09 am:

    Designing with Web Standards was my awakening to a whole new level in my career. Thanks Jefferey.

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    Stork said on 23 May 2011 at 10:45 am:

    I usually describe “Designing with Web Standards” as the similar to the New Testament: we are all sinners; we all have done horrible, unspeakable things with design. But we didn’t know why they were horrible, and salvation can be ours. I felt baptized, and all the tags I had typed, all the table layouts and yes, even a “best viewed in” image… all washed away.

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    Stork said on 23 May 2011 at 10:46 am:

    (should have been “all the font tags I typed”)

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    Scot said on 23 May 2011 at 12:48 pm:

    A compliment to be truly proud of…and words from Mr. Boag we all share.

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    Theo said on 23 May 2011 at 5:02 pm:

    I am so far away from this stuff but i feel like a mott being atrackted by light.
    We all need characters to look up to, people to learn from and yes you inspire me on my way trying to be better with every project i am working on… thank you Mr. Zeldman

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    Ken Howard said on 24 May 2011 at 10:38 pm:

    I remember HTML class in College. The instructor hadn’t a clue of CSS. I bought a copy of Designing with Web Standards. When I presented the book to the class, I felt like a champion. They all looked at me like I had horns. It was a great feeling to know I had the knowledge of the future and they didn’t.

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    Sacur Ibraimo said on 1 June 2011 at 5:02 am:

    Living in a place where the web design courses suck and teach you only how to use Dreamweaver (lol)…your books (Taking your talent and Designing with web standards) helped me to find my way to the webdesign world. A special thanks from Mozammbique (Africa).

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