Andy Chase

Days are getting shorter, nights are getting cooler, and on a rainy drive across central Massachusetts today I saw a lot of leaves falling to the ground and blowing around - not nearly as many as are still keeping the trees green, but it definitely felt autumnal.

Fall remains my absolute favorite season, but it did catch me a little bit off guard today; this summer felt like it hardly happened. I blame it on the fact the it rained for most of May and June.

I just came across this little souvenir from the height of the Dot Com boom, when I spent half a year working for the ill-fated Stan Lee Media. I do wonder who (if anybody) ever actually read these things once they were returned to HR:

Question

6. Suggestions you have regarding the better accomplishment of your tasks

Answer

Squnkwurx (that was what they called the web department) needs to be granted more authority than it currently has in matters of design. While I appreciate the necessity of corporate approval of new pages involving Stan Lee Media properties, the approval process is in desperate need of streamlining, and on the executive level it should be limited to matters of legal compliance and continuity. I am of the opinion that the professional web designers, developers, integrators, and producers are better suited to make basic decisions about web specific design and interface than executives in charge of more general concerns.

Currently, any page concept or graphic that gets approved by the online producers is apt to be pushed live only to be changed a day later at the request of any number of creative officers… sometimes conflicting, multiple changes get made to a page or graphic in this way, until the original concept is diluted and lost. It should be clearly established who gives final approval to a project, so that new project designs and concepts can go directly to this person. Once this person signs off on an idea, the project should be allowed to proceed as originally conceived, without interference. Any given project might require the approval of a different person from one case to the next, but in any event there should always be one person who has the final word. Any suggestions for change should be directed to this person, not the developers; it is currently an exercise in frustration to get anything new onto the site and move on to the next thing when given conflicting instructions by several different people.

Question

7. Any creative ideas you have for the company

Answer

First and foremost I think that we should do focus groups on our current web site to see what it is that our audience most wants to see. Currently, we invest a great deal of time and energy in the STANzine section of the page, even though our flagship content is our 7th Portal and Accuser webisodes. I think that we should spend much more time developing the site to support the webisodes, with character backgrounds and information, artwork, etc. – The 7th Portal Swimsuit Edition has proven tremendously popular, much more popular than features like “sez who” or video game reviews. Our X-Men pages are currently the most popular section of the site. Again, character-driven content.

Also, if we are going to continue to produce “STANzine” as an online magazine, we really need to restructure it like one. The current STANzine is a disaster… no organization on the main page, and no context given to other features like video game reviews and one-off columns; no information is given about the authors, and it’s not clear what things are regular features VS random essays. Sections that haven’t been updated in weeks or months get the same amount of space as sections that change daily, and it’s impossible to focus on anything.

Our webisodes are in a very traditional, literal, comic-book style. There are a number of other web sites, such as Icebox.com, Eruptor.com, Jibjab.com, and now warnerbros.com who are producing their own episodic content in a much edgier style, often adding interactivity to their cartoons. I think that Stan Lee Media should look into coming up with our own animations in this style, to be competitive with these other sites and appeal to a broader audience.

Ah, those were the days.

As I headed out to work this morning I spied a red spotted newt crossing the road a couple hundred feet from the end of our driveway. I pulled over and took the necessary few moments to carry him the rest of the way across the road, rather than leave him to be squashed by other motorists who either don’t even notice tiny critters like that, or don’t bother to swerve if they do.

I’ve pulled over to escort turtles across the road too, and transported mice caught in the house a few miles down the road to release them. There are plenty of people who think nothing of leaving glue traps around for mice to get stuck in and starve to death.

A couple of years ago I came across carful of middle-aged ladies throwing their garbage into the woods at a Quabbin gate parking area… when I pulled over and offered to take their garbage for them, explaining that I’d rather take it home and put it in, oh, a trash can than have them polluting my neighborhood with it, they got back into their car (Scenic Cape Cod license plate and all) and left without a word, although I’m sure they were clucking to themselves all the way home about how rude I was.

The idea of not swerving to avoid salamanders, frogs, toads, squirrels, mice, shrews, voles, etc and the idea of treating the world like my own personal garbage can are so utterly foreign to me that I have a hard time imagining how such people relate to the world… and it’s troubling to think about the nurture versus nature question; were they brought up like that, or is it just in their basic nature? Neither option is very palatable.

Simple things like basic courtesy are probably safe to attribute to nurture; I always say my pleases and thank yous, hold the door open for people (or apologize if I don’t see somebody coming right behind me, or thank other people for holding the door). On the other hand, what about boys who delight in killing frogs with firecrackers or shooting small animals with BB guns? I never had even a shred of inclination to do anything like that. What are those boys like when they grow up?