The Price of Victory

OK, so last winter we had a 'discussion' about how much time was going to be spent doing information architecture and how much was going to be spent doing design.

This post pretty much sums up the conversation. (read before continuing)

However, using my superior powers of persuasion (known to laymen as 'procrastination'), I was able to get an additional three months to complete the IA. w00t!!

Victory was sweet, if short-lived.

Fast forward to last week...


Oh, and no disclaimers this time. This one really happened.

With These Kinds of Savings, We Won't Need Furloughs

I wrote this cartoon Wednesday night. Thursday morning, our designer tells me about a meeting she had on Wednesday with our web governance committee that was pretty much exactly this cartoon.

I can't win for losing.

I had no foreknowledge of this meeting or its contents, and I attest that this cartoon has nothing to do with any meeting or meetings that may or may not have actually taken place on this or any other university, community college, high school, primary, secondary or private school in this or any other country on this or any other planet in this or any other alternate universe.

I think that I'll include that as a general disclaimer in all my cartoons.

This Will End in Tears

After a lot of unhappiness about TFRL and shutting it down, I've decided to try and give it another shot. I know that certain people were offended before, and I can't promise that people who want to be offended won't be offended again, but TFRL has never been about specific people; it's always been a commentary on the process of higher education.

And anyone who thinks that the way higher ed works isn't humorous... well, I don't know what to say to you. It's either funny or depressing, and I will always side with the happy, laughing people rather than the depressed people. I hope you will too.

I am concerned and unhappy that there are some who feel that they can't share 'safely' because of a fear that what they say may end up in TFRL. That was never my intent, and I understand and accept your concern. Real life is (and must be) an inspiration for TFRL, but I don't want anyone to feel that they are fodder for TFRL. I promise that nothing you say will be directly used or mocked in this cartoon... Well, I make an exception for 'generic' high-level administrators, the Governor, and the state legislature (state legislators should be burned at the stake - just sayin').

In the end, my hope for TFRL is that it is real, that it is funny, but that no one feels that it is about them, targets them, or ridicules them personally (see the exceptions above... did I mention burning state legislators?).

And for those of you who don't think that budget crises don't apply to you... just wait until California collapses and we all leave California for your state. This budget stuff won't seem so trivial then.

Is this thing on?

Wow...

I am stunned and amazed by the outpouring of support and sadness for the passing of TFRL. Seriously, I had no idea that so many people followed it or cared about it. I'm humbled and grateful. And your comments and tweets of support have gone a long way to ease the pain of deciding to shut TFRL down. I appreciate every person who has read my posts or voiced their support. You guys are why I wrote this blog.

But that doesn't change my decision to shut TFRL down. And that's a point I want to clarify. No one 'forced' me to shut down TFRL. It was my decision and mine alone. Our CIO never even implied that I should shut it down; his concern was only that posting things that were identifiable might create problems with our redesign process. He was clear that he didn't want that, but I also got the impression that he enjoyed some of the posts. After all, I'm sure he sits in a lot worse meetings than I do.

So please, if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me for not obfuscating my posts better, not anyone else at my campus.

Also, I think that as much as we all loved TFRL, it needs to be put to rest. I don't want the web community to take it over. Someone else will come up with something else that is uniquely theirs, and that's the way it should be. TFRL was what it was; now it's time to move on.

Thanks again for the incredible outpouring of support. I'm really moved by it, and as I said, it's made shutting down TFRL much easier.

Maybe I'll start something else down the road, and get in trouble once again. Trust me, this wasn't the first time - and it probably won't be the last.

I love you guys!

RIP TFRL

So, the CIO called me into his office to talk about TFRL today. He was cool about it, and didn't personally have any problems with it, but he's also a very smart guy, and communicated that he didn't want TFRL to be a problem in our redesign process. "Put this behind you and move on," he said, meaning apologize, don't write anything that directly relates to the people and meetings you deal with, but by all means have a cartoon.

Well, I understand and appreciate that, but I can't write a cartoon about things I haven't experienced. The whole reason TFRL resonates with people is because it is real. The only reason it is funny is because it's real. I can't write something that is a total fiction - I don't have that skill.

So, this is the end of TFRL. The only two people in the whole world that I know of who have a problem with it win. I sincerely hope they are happy because I am stopping this specificially for them.

Nickeled and Dimed to Death

Well, the California budget propositions all failed yesterday, and suddenly there is talk of layoffs, campus closings, swine flu, and transvestite aliens from outer space.

People (who just yesterday didn't blink at suggesting multimedia productions that might cost tens of thousands of dollars) are now supporting cutting big chunks of content out of our redesign project.

It doesn't take a genius to see where this will all end up. The irony is that we've spent 10 months coming up with all these great ideas, but we won't be able to afford to implement a single one of them. I think maybe I know where all the state money has disappeared to.