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Archive for feminine technology

Code Like a Girl

I was checking my delicious del.icio.us tags yesterday and came across a post (saved for me by the eagle-eyed Beth Kantor) that spoke directly to my heart … Code Like a Girl. Reading this post about the joy of writing beautiful code was like falling into heaven on earth … "there are other people out there who think like me!"

I take this as a very good sign.

And it’s not just code- it MATTERS that the work all of us do is beautiful, not only on the outside, where everyone can see it, but on the inside, too. That everything we put into what we do is the cleanest, the most elegant and beautiful effort we can make.

You can look at it like feng shui – order & beauty inside, order & beauty outside.

Forgiveness

This is an example of a particularly ‘feminine’ use of technology… taking a ubiquitous marketing tool and through a personal connection with grace & beauty, transforming it into a carrier of light and forgiveness.

A friend of mine’s father just died.

She’d been caring for him for a long time now, and when he passed, she did something beautiful. She transformed her personal grief into collective grace by creating a blessing, an inspired gift (click here for yours – make sure your computer’s sound is on), and sending it out into the world.

This is an example of what I mean when I talk about a particularly
‘feminine’ use of technology…

She’s taken one of those ubiquitous ‘auto-responders’, the latest craze in marketing, and through her own connection with grace &
beauty transformed this mundane tool into a carrier of light, love and forgiveness. Now that seems like something worth marketing.

Why Beauty Dialogues?

We have dialogues about war, about societal decay and spousal abuse, landfills, collapsed morals & the lack of universal health coverage… I think it’s time to start a dialogue about Beauty.

We have dialogues about war, about societal decay and spousal abuse, landfills, collapsed morals & the lack of universal health coverage… I think it’s time to start talking about Beauty.

What is Beautiful to you? What commands your attention and attracts your sense of awe?

What do you hold so precious that it is always beautiful to you, no matter how it might appear to others?

What does it mean to ‘Walk in Beauty’?

One of the people I most admire in the world always talks about the importance of holding ‘Beauty in the Center’ and I dedicate this conversation to a deeper collective understanding and embodiment of that reality.

I want to use this space to talk about all those things I find beautiful, and explore why I find them so. About how important it is to me to keep Beauty in the conversation, and not relegate her to a shelf of something that ‘would be nice, but isn’t essential’, because she IS essential, in my life, and I believe Beauty is essential in all our lives and in the world today. It seems to me that we need her presence now more than ever, so I want to call her into being & illuminate her as best I can through word and color, image and sound.

As a designer of online communications like websites and blogs, e-zines, online conferences, etc., I’m always fascinated by how far I can go within the limits of my medium, and I don’t believe anyone has yet touched the boundaries of this connective ether-web we share here in cyberspace… This is my pleasure and my passion, dancing simultaneously at the center & on the edges, so I would like to explore Beauty from this perspective, both in this conversation and in my work as it continues to evolve and develop.

From a more personal perspective, I notice that my life is an interwoven play between my art, my career and work in the world, my feelings and thoughts, my current passions and the myriad personal and professional relationships that sustain me. I want to illuminate that interconnection between all my parts here, and not pretend that my professional life is completely separate from my creative explorations or my personal joys and sadnesses.

If you are drawn to this dialogue and want to join me in the sacred play we’ve embarked upon here, I’d love that! Your collaboration is most welcome… and you are welcome to just dip in once in a while and read what others have to say. It’s all good.

Blessings upon you wherever you be,

Amy

About the Beauty Dialogues

We were noticing how absolutely beautiful we found a particular tree, or perhaps it was the pattern on the ground made by the sun shining through its leaves that we found so moving…

The Beauty Dialogues came out of a conversation between myself, Ashley Cooper & Beth Alexander during a walk we were taking together during a Spring 2006 Summit of ‘Girl Geeks’ in Seattle.

We were noticing how absolutely beautiful we found a particular tree, or perhaps it was the pattern on the ground made by the sun shining through its leaves that we found so moving…  we started to wonder aloud about what it is that makes some things beautiful in that aching, haunting kind of way… what it is in that particular moment or material that evokes the ‘beauty!’ response in one or another of us.

What is beauty, anyway? Is it different for each person? Or is there some ‘objective’ measurement, like Christopher Alexander’s calibration of the amount & quality of ‘life’ in each element, to what we collectively experience as Beauty? Is it a pleasing surface symmetry, or is it some deeper indication of wholeness and pattern that triggers the awareness of beauty in our midst? What is the ‘essence’ of beauty?

And thus started an inquiry that has already blossomed into a thousand forms, including this blog; a conversation that I hope will continue to meander like a healthy river through our curious minds for some time to come (here’s one of the tributaries).

Something truly remarkable to me about that summit of eight women in Seattle was the way we all see Beauty at the center of our lives and work … this and the passionate belief we share in using the power of technology to enhance the sense of community and connection between people. Beauty in action, if you will. This perspective seems to be a particularly feminine point of view, and feels like something deeply needed in the world right now. It’s a perspective that brings balance and begins to restore wholeness, not only to the way we see and utilize technology, but also to our ability to face and respond to the larger challenge for humanity in today’s world.

And so we wind around to another layer of the conversation… what is our work with Beauty in service to?