Since the MiniDebConf Jonas and I have been travelling in Spain, France and finally staying in Belgium for a week, getting some work done. It's been harder than imagined to work during travel. I haven't exercised either, and regained at least three of four kilos I spent much time and effort getting rid in the year preceding. I thrive in my home and find it hard to keep my own time and focus when I am deprived of my own space.

It was challenging to give a talk, "Why aren't more designers using Debian or working for Debian", my first public talk. I've been working to recapture my points in writing, to make a stronger statement, but I seem to blur my own views with conflicting ones, and I'm loosing momentum every day.

One of my reasons for speaking up was to do it even though I'm not at trained speaker and have "nothing" to contribute but my opinions from the angle of a user that happens to be a designer. Not claiming to be a superior designer, but one that would like to contribute if it was easier to figure out how. And since the community wants to encourage designers to contribute to the Debian project, I figured it to be a good idea to talk about how this has been challenging to me as a dedicated user and completely out of the question for any other designer I know - or knew before the minidebconf. No reseach, no scientific proofs, just my wiew from my "dumb user" and designer's perspective.

I saw one single attendant rolling his eyes during my talk. I didn't care at that time, but I've given that look more consideration than the people approaching me after the talk, saying thank you for voicing their opinions and thoughts. I think that's absolutely astonishing and at the same time it's just typically me. It makes me angry, first with myself for not speaking to this man's perception of things, then with myself for not just letting go of that image. I'm really glad that so many seemed to listen with curiosity and interest. What if one more - or half of the auditorium - had rolled their eyes? I don't like to feel that vulnerable.

The truth is, though, that I'm really not. I gave the talk against my fear of failure and public humiliation and I'm convinced that my thoughts and actions matter, just as anybody's does, if we dare to say what's on our minds and to take action. I believe it's in anybody's power to "make a difference" and even "change the world" - at least in a small way. I guess that's one of the underlying reasons to be a designer in the first place. That is quite a strong position to take.

I've created the wikipage http://wiki.debian.org/Design - well knowing that design is a word with many meanings. Everything is design. Since the talk I've been in doubt about that page. About the project, my aim with it, what to do about it, how to move on with just a tiny babystep, and I realise that I'm simply afraid to be disturbing someone's peace, making people angry or roll their eyes at my fumbling attempts to figure out in public what can be done to make a thriving community of designers collaborating with coders to make better, more usable and attractive software in the free, wide world. I'm starting a design process, not presenting a perfect, finished solution.

Now, having put these thoughts into words, perhaps, my mind will be somewhat appeaced and let me move on with my intended tasks of cultivating that acclaimed space in the Debian information jungle into a friendly and welcoming place with info that makes it easier to be a contributing designer in Debian.