The first name
that usually comes to mind when discussing women
who work with Flash is renowned designer, coder
and author Jessica Speigel.
Jessica is co-founder of We’re Here Forums,
an incredible resource community with over 50,000
members and receives upwards of 8 million visitors
per month. Jessica has been referred to as “a
hub in the Flash design community”. |
How do you explain the
amazing success and popularity of Were-Here?
You and Aaron have created an environment where
thousands of people connect daily. What do you
think you’ve done at Were-Here.com that
has made your forum such a success and kept
it that way? |
|
Well, it’s hard to put my finger on just
one thing. I think a lot of it had to do with
being in the right place at the right time in
the beginning, but I think what kept the wheel
turning was how Aaron and I chose to run the community.
We always tried to foster a supportive community
where helpful, kind people were elevated to moderator
status, rather than choosing moderators based
on their name or reputation alone. We also don’t
put up with abusive behavior. It’s so important
when building a community to create an atmosphere
where members feel safe to share their thoughts
without fear that someone will come along, throwing
around insults indiscriminately, and have nothing
done about it. I think that’s why we can
manage to have political and religious conversations
with people from all over the world with extremely
different views successfully. People know that
threads like that are welcome, as long as they
don’t become abusive, so people share their
thoughts in a much more constructive manner.
That being said, I try and always take into
consideration a person's intentions (as much
as I can know anyways) when sizing up their
actions or words, before and after the fact.
I also don't always take into account a person's
reputation, because any event can be twisted
around to sound bad or good, depending on the
description and the person doing the describing;
and most importantly mistakes are a part of
life. Not giving a person another chance to
do right is the real mistake you can make. Aaron
and I always kept that in mind when it came
to the were-here community. People were banned
at times when they clearly violated the rules;
abusing other members, posting inappropriate
material, etc. However, a person that contacted
us to explain himself is never refused a second
chance. A third chance would be pushing it,
but it did happen, depending on the situation.
99% of the time, the people who were given another
chance never repeated the original behaviour
and went on to become very valuable members
of the community.
The most important thing is to treat people
fairly. |
| When
you launched the site in 1999, did you ever expect
it to grow to the enormous capacity it has? Could
you give us a little history of how it began? |
| Really, if you had asked me this question three
years, eight months ago, I would have laughed.
I never expected or intended for the site to grow
as it did. Originally, Aaron registered the were-here.com
domain name as a personal site. At the time he
registered the domain, we were both members of
the Flashpad community at flasher.net. After we
had been members there for about a year, the site
suddenly went down and never came back online.
It happened that Aaron was testing out bulletin
board software for a client when that went on,
so we decided to create a small resource site.
I wrote a bunch of tutorials, based mostly on
the questions I answered most frequently on Flashpad.
The people we interacted with on Flashpad started
migrating over and the rest is history! I must
say that I kind of miss the old days though. I
enjoyed the days where I could personally answer
every question posted to the forums. |
| What
inspired you to create this site? |
| I know this sounds suspiciously wholesome, but
I really just wanted to help people just getting
into the industry. I started my career through
the community. I learned everything I know online
from resource sites and made contact with potential
employers in the same fashion. It was important
to me to give back to the community that had helped
me get started. It’s so nice to see someone
that’s been helped through the community
make it and then make the shift from student to
teacher. It’s a great process of learning
and sharing the gained knowledge. |
| The
site had some down time. What happened? |
| Aaron and I had some personal as well as financial
problems. We were in the middle of moving hosts
and kept our account active with the current host
while the new server was being set up, but the
new host never could get our server set up to
spec, and we double paid for a couple months.
Then we got in a car accident and that really
put the financials over the edge. It was a really
unfortunate train of events, but life is like
that sometimes. After we realized that could happen
again at any time, we sought financial backing
to ensure that members will always be able to
use were-here.
It wouldn’t be fair to the community to
continue to keep it privately run when we could
barely handle the expenses. Luckily for us, Erain
was totally willing to help out and back the site.
I really respect what they’re doing for
the Flash community. It takes a special kind of
company to take a floundering community (that’s
down at the time) and sink money into it to save
it for the sake of sharing knowledge. Erain
and were-here
have always had a connection; it stems from our
commitments to our work, the Flash community and
our beliefs in putting people first. |
| What
do you bring to the Flash community that sets
you apart from the rest? |
| I think a genuine interest in helping people
to succeed. A lot of people don’t like to
share their secrets because they think it will
hurt their chances of finding work. I tend to
take the opposite view. Sharing only makes the
Flash community better as a whole. People always
have their unique strengths and weaknesses and
that’s what employers look for. |
| What
influenced the design of your new site jessicaspeigel.com,
which is much more organic and feminine than webstyles.net? |
| Nature inspired me to create the new site in
the new style. I’ve been spending a lot
more time in nature recently to find inspiration
and look at things differently. I feel kind of
stifled in the midst of too many man-made things.
It’s a nice change of pace to get out of
the city and observe nature in its element and
how man interacts with it. Before I started on
jessicaspeigel.com,
I piled Aaron and our dog Akiva into the Jeep
and drove as far as I could on Taylor River Road
(which is out towards Snoqualmie Falls for the
Seattle locals). When the road runs out and you
get deeper into the woods, you’ll start
to happen upon old military experiments. We started
to hike and came upon this really beautiful bridge
and I was struck by the fashion in which the angles
of the bridge interacted with the color and shapes
in the forest around it. That’s what inspired
the angular composition set off by the orchid
photo and organic type. It also inspired the combination
of military and woodsy color scheme. |
| You
mentioned in your Flash Goddess profile that nothing
else compares to creativity. Do you think using
Flash has added another dimension to your process
of exploration and discovery?
|
| Of course! The ability to fuse motion and interactivity
is the most interesting jumping off point I’ve
had in developing my creativity with Flash. When
the ability to read dynamic data came onto the
scene, I added that into the mix in my work. It’s
been an undeniably interesting experience to figure
out the ways that work to deploy dynamic content
that integrates motion, typography, and interactivity.
I love to take traditional applications or games
from the “real world” and translate
them into Flash, giving them that extra dimension
of usability and interactivity that make Flash
based projects so fun to use if they’re
built well. Every time I use an application online,
my mind just goes off thinking of all the features
that could be added if the application was Flash
based. |
| Do
you spend as much time as you would like on your
Fine Art interests? |
| Unfortunately, no. I don’t think anyone
does really, unless money isn’t an issue.
I wish that wasn’t the case, the world would
be better for it if people had free reign to express
their creativity! I try and sell what fine art
I can so I can justify the time financially, but
other than that, it will continue to have to be
a hobby. I’ve really been getting into making
jewelry lately. I used to do that a lot in the
past and actually sold quite a bit, but fell out
of it for a long time, so I’m hoping I can
pick up where I left off and be able to support
my fine art habit again. |
| How
was your experience with your first solo authoring
effort, Flash MX: Application Design & Development? |
| I don’t think I would do a solo technical
book again and especially not about beta software!
It’s too much work for just one person and
it’s invaluable to have another author to
bounce ideas off of during the book’s development.
I pretty much didn’t leave my house for
the time that went into the book and that’s
not healthy. I was so burned out when the book
was finished, I didn’t want to turn my computer
on for months after that! It was kind of funny
actually, right after the book was complete, my
computer wouldn’t turn on so I just left
it. Turns out the video card had went bad, I wore
it out working the computer so hard! With all
that being said, I did learn a lot from this authoring
effort. About the publishing industry, what goes
into a tech book, and the entire process a book
goes through from conception to shelf. |
| Do
you have plans to write more books with New Riders? |
| I don’t think I would write another technical
book for any publisher, but I would love to continue
my writing career. It’s just not worth it
to me to pour your life into a book that’s
only going to be around for one version of software.
I would rather write about something more eternal,
that will be useful and interesting not just in
the current time. |
| Has
your writing had an affect on your career and/or
design process? |
| Definitely. I’ve been getting back into
creative writing lately, and I think that really
helps me in my work. I also spend a lot more time
doing the initial specs for a project, then turning
those into documentation on steroids! The last
project I did ended up with like 50 pages of documentation
for developers who would be working on it in the
future. The in-house developers were shocked at
the hand-off, they had never seen anyone document
their work so thoroughly before. |
| Do
you remember what it was that first caught your
attention in a serious way to bring you to Flash? |
| It was the old (1998) Macromedia site actually.
Aaron and I were getting into computers and design
and trying to figure out how to make artwork interactive
and how to make it move. We saw the Flash work
on the Macromedia site and knew that was what
we needed. I was going to college at the time,
so I bought every piece of Macromedia and Adobe
software I could find in the student store. I
got Flash 3, Fireworks 1, Dreamweaver 1, Photoshop,
and Illustrator. They were 99 dollars apiece,
I spent every dime I had on all that software.
At the time I was also trying to teach myself
programming in Visual Basic and C++. I had a friend
that worked at Microsoft and he bought me Visual
Studio from the Microsoft Store, but it was way
too hard for a beginner. I got the hang of Visual
Basic pretty easily, but C++ I couldn’t
handle. It was funny, because when I got into
Flash, it really annoyed me that there were no
variables or if statements to control how movies
ran. I finally was vindicated in that regard when
Flash 4 came out. |
| I
find it rare for someone to be exceptionally talented
in both design and programming. How did you become
interested in back-end programming? |
| Definitely! It’s funny, because people
tend to look at scripting as a purely logical
activity, but I’ve found it to be just as
creative as design work. Flash really taught me
how to be a “programmer” by illustrating
in a really visual manner how code can interact
with design elements. It helped me to visualize
the whole process and helped me develop a really
well-rounded set of skills. When people look at
my resume and see the diverse mix of traditional
design and programming, they are generally really
surprised, because programmers generally tend
to have minimal design skills, and designers tend
to have minimal programming skills. I’ve
been trying to use myself as an example to mend
the rift between designers and programmers, because
each group tends to view the other in a different
light than themselves, but really both groups
are exceptionally creative. I remember when Flash
4 introduced ActionScript, and there was a huge
buzz among the community pitting programmers against
designers, asking who was going to win. I think
we’re going to see a lot of really well-rounded
people come out of this industry and Flash continues
to progress. |
| Do
your technical abilities give you greater control
over your Flash design? If so does this help you
achieve the results you’re aiming for? |
| I believe so. Really, what’s helped me
the most is knowing exactly what Flash can and
can’t do. I know it sounds weird, but knowing
the limits expands my creativity so much. That’s
the kind of person I am, give me a rule and I
will automatically figure out a way around it.
It’s just the way my brain works. |
| Who
has been your artistic inspiration in your professional
work? |
| It’s so hard to name just one! Todd
Purgason (http://www.juxtinteractive.com)
has always influenced my style. Additionally,
Christine Smart (http://www.beingsmart.com)
has always inspired me with her artwork and all
around craftiness. I also love Jenny Dean’s
(http://www.visualade.com)
style, it’s so minimalist and fun! There
are so many people doing such amazing things with
Flash right now. I don’t think I could name
them all if I tried! |
| Name
the first five non-Flash related things that enter
your mind, and tell us a bit about each. |
Science – Been doing
a lot of thinking about science recently. Especially
quantum theory. I’m reading this great
book right now that speculates about how free
will could be proven via quantum phenomena.
It also goes into quantum processes in the brain
and how God could work in the world through
quantum uncertainty while not breaking the laws
of nature.
Religion – Been doing
a bunch of research on Judaism lately. I was
raised in a religious household, but kind of
left it behind as I grew older. I’ve been
trying to get back to my heritage and learn
about my tradition. I’m even learning
Hebrew again. I was almost fluent when I was
younger, since I started learning it in preschool,
but I’ve forgotten a lot of it over the
years. I remember the alphabet and how to read
it, but not a lot of the grammar and syntax
anymore. I can understand a few words here and
there, but not anywhere close to where I used
to be. It’s such a beautiful language
too and it would be a shame to not relearn it.
Education – I really
want to go back to school and get my degree.
I’ve been thinking about it for a long
time now, and I’ve decided that it’s
time. I really want to finish up as much schooling
as I can before I settle down and have a family
(even though that’s a long way off). Now
I just have to figure out what I’m going
to study!
Meaning & Consciousness
– I know that’s kind of an abstract
thing to say, but I’ve been wondering
how human consciousness interprets and seeks
out meaning in different things, language in
particular. I remember when I was a little girl,
I was baffled by the fact that I couldn’t
look at something that was written without reading
and understanding it. I would try to remember
how the characters looked before I learned how
to read to no avail. It’s really interesting
to me how a mind will seek out meaning in the
smallest things and relate them to the person’s
experience. It seems as though human consciousness
is hardwired to seek out meaning. To me, that
proves the existence of a higher consciousness.
Maybe that ties into spirituality, but I’m
really in awe of the entire process. When you
see meaning in everything, there’s no
way to be unhappy with life.
Interior design – My
walls are hospital white and none of my furniture
matches, enough said! |
| Being
self-taught, do you have any advice or tips you
could give to those starting to learn Flash? |
| Get involved in the community! Ask a question
when you’re confused, but more importantly,
try and answer all the questions you can. I’ve
always found that teaching others is a wonderful
way to learn yourself! Besides, it gets you karma
points. Learn from what others have done in the
past, and try to improve on their work. There’s
no reason to rebuild the wheel, but things can
always be improved. Share your source when you’re
done so others can benefit from your learning
process. Last but not least, RTFM cover to cover
before you begin. It doesn’t matter if it
doesn’t make sense or sink in right away.
It’s not really important that you understand
it the first time around, but rather that it’s
in the back of your head when you’re working
with Flash, and you’ll remember vaguely
reading something that relates to what you’re
doing and be able to find it in the help later. |
| It’s
fantastic that a woman in her twenties has accomplished
so much! What’s next for Jessica? |
| In the immediate future, I’m doing a big
contract job for Microsoft that I’m super
excited about. Going to be working with the team
that makes my favorite piece of MS software, Encarta
Encyclopedia! That should be a lot of fun! I’ll
be saving my pennies and getting back into the
classroom after that! |
| If
you could say one thing to the goddesses out there,
what would it be? |
| Keep on truckin’! It’s so important
to have a big, representative group of all the
Flash babes out there so when a little girl says
to her mom, “Mommy, when I grow up I want
to make things move!” Her mom can look to
the FlashGoddess site and show her how many female
Flash developers and designers are out there to
inspire her to be great. There should be no reason
for a girl to think that only boys are smart enough
to do all the “confusing” technical
things. Smart is sexy! |
