Roadpost #13: A Web Journey

My VISTA journey is almost done and something wonderful has happened. I have finally completed one of my primary goals of my VISTA year. It is a simple thing, a website update, but it has pushed me far beyond what I expected when I began as a VISTA last August. I was not a technical person. I knew virtually nothing about websites, Facebook, videos, blogs, Photoshop. I am a storyteller, though, and this was a new medium for me to explore. I was game for it.

And so I kept learning, figuring things out, making slow progress. Every webinar that seemed to apply, I was on it. Every Google link that might provide useful information, I went there. I kept what Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, calls a growth mindset (as opposed to a fixed mindset). I understood that success would be built on lots of failures as part of the learning experience, but eventually I would become technically savvy. With each new thing I accomplished, I amazed my kids… How did Mom do that? I am not a wizard at any of this to be sure. Often I resort to muddling through, but I want so much to tell the story of volunteering and service that I’ve kept going.

Just to get this website update has taken most of a year. Change usually takes much longer than you can imagine, and this was no different, but it is here. The new website homepage is done. It is a good kind of change—not a drastic makeover, but just the right changes to improve the functionality of the site while preserving the look of the old. And I send some really big applause to Rob Herdzik of Bitfocus for doing the technical makeover for us, listening patiently to what we wanted and then delivering a great product.

And so I have to celebrate my small triumph with a blog post. It feels great. It really does. Service is like that. You don’t have to change the world to feel like you’ve conquered a mountain. Even the small changes are really good. I am savoring it.