I thought I ought to make my first ever blog about my experiences setting up this website - no particular reason, it just felt like the right thing to do.

I’ve been thinking about having a site for about 5 years, which is pretty sad when you think about it.  The on-line world might be dynamic, fluid and growing at a rate of knots but getting a home in it has been all too much for this plodding luddite.

But no more…I’ve arrived.

The hardest part by far has been making some sense of the jumbled clutter that was going on in my head.  If anyone could ever invent a device for sucking thoughts out of a brain and translating them into sense on a (virtual) page then they would make it a fortune.

As each year of contemplation passed the prospect of actually creating something appeared harder and harder.  By the time I got round to facing into the challenge it seemed like climbing Mount Everest would be easier.

Luckily for me several things made the experience so much easier (and considerably more enjoyable) than I had imagined.  Here is my recipe for getting a site you are happy with.

1)  Get people you trust to ask you why you are bothering.  Laura, Jess, Russell, Chrissy, Paula, Becs, Kirsten and even Monty (you know who you are) all got me justifying my motivation for a web-site.  Explaining myself, often badly and occasionally whilst drunk, helped me to crystallise my ideas on what the site should be about and, just as importantly, what it should not be about.

2) Get a theme that makes sense to me.  When I came up with the idea of making waves (later changed to create waves for url reasons) everything suddenly seemed to click into place

3) Get someone really good to help you bring the idea to life.  The people at ichapel were fantastic.  They listened to my ramblings with endless patience and brought their own creativity and flair to the table.

4) Get a blog.  I am not a natural blogger but the prospect of an outlet for my constant stream of consciousness was very exciting.

5) Enjoy it.  I turned the process into a labour of love rather than a chore by re-uniting myself with past experiences and exploring them.  It was like meeting a long lost friend.

Tags: creativity, ideas, website

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