I started as an online student with the International Academy of Design & Technology in Oct. of 2007 as an AS in Web Design candidate. I have worked for a school at Northwestern University for 10 years now, and my co-workers all had snide remarks when I chose IADT Online. “What do you know about this program? Have you compared it to others? Aren’t you worried about the stigma of online education?” My replies were always very simple. IADT Online offered a ‘Web Design’ degree, which was very important to me (versus visual communications or digital media or whatever…) I felt an online degree was my only chance at going to college.

I believe in using the Web to its fullest: for communication, productivity, and of course, education. Why attend a fairly new program in the already murky waters of online education? To make an impact. There is newness all around me. I’m a new artist to a new media, a new student in a new school. There are two major ways to deal with newness: resistance, and complacency. However, I believe that all the great people of history, (and many other great people that will one day become great people of history) dealt with newness as an opportunity.

So…my first tangible effort of making an impact at IADT Online is starting the Graduation Committee, GradComm. To this effort I will be traveling to Tampa, FL, the campus that houses the Academy Online staff. The nitty gritty of GradComm is for another forum. This post is mainly to announce my trip to Tampa and a general idea of why.

Now for the fun…if you are in the Tampa area and would like to meet myself and other design minded, social media driven, fun times loving, and all around TEH AWESOME people, join us at Splitsville Lanes in Channelside Plaza, Friday March 20, around 9pm.

Listen to all the happenings of my GradComm trip online via:

	@IADT_GradComm on twitter
	TreoBenny on brightkite
	@TreoBenny on twitter
	TreoBenny on qik
	TreoBenny on viddler
	TreoBenny on seesmic

The trend is to install WordPress in the root directory, such that ‘mydomain.com’ takes you to the blog. I don’t use this model, and in this type of example I think it benefits me…and my viewers. Modular information that you can selectively view, I like that. The home page is clean and straightforward, the traffic light of the site so to speak.

I have many more ideas for my site, and my blog specifically. I have a new theme in mind for 2009, which will require a little more work on my part to get up and running than any theme previously. But, to me, that’s the whole point

Scenes and images that interest me are art in my opinion. Because I almost always create imagery from existing scenes and objects, I feel most of my photographs, illustrations, and other designs are art of art: MetaArt.

What opinions | comments | theories do you have on the concept of MetaArt? In your personal experience that is. We can leave the haggling over the term in general to the ‘experts.’ LOL!

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It started back in high school (over 15 years ago) with a DTP class and a part-time gig as a Graphic Editor for a youth newspaper. I didn’t revisit any of my creative skills (or so I thought) until just a few years ago when I started doing basic Web edits and some publication design at work.

Things started very slowly, but finally in the last few months I’ve made leaps and bounds towards a career in (and lifestyle of) design. I sold my first design a little over a month ago…in my mind, this was the point of no return. I’m no longer a guy that designs, I’m now and forever will be, a designer. The more I think of myself as a designer, the more I can recognize that I’ve always been a designer. My definition of a designer follows. It has changed a bit over the last year and I hope it will continue to evolve as long as I pursue design.

A designer recognizes that the senses shape thoughts and applies this concept through various channels of communication.

For my assignment I chose a word whose meaning changed over a period of time rather than one with concurrent meanings at a single point in time. My word: Geek. People refer to me as a Geek fairly often these days, and I have no problem with it at all. In fact, I like it. But, it hasn’t always been this way. There was a time when being a Geek meant being an outcast, shunned by the “cool” people. Below is a selection from my paper:

Geek implied a deficiency in most other skills that were important to kids, (including hygiene.) Being a Geek meant you were ugly, didn’t communicate well, unaware of popular culture, and although you knew your way around electronics, being a Geek didn’t necessarily mean you had good grades.

That was up to about the 4^th grade, and then things changed. Popular culture started to embrace electronically inclined minds and gadgets became fashionable. Movies and music were extremely influential to pop culture in the mid-80′s and movies like “Back to the Future” found the main character embracing technology through the film. I wrote about Marty McFly in my English paper:

I was very popular by this point in grade school and was one of few students that regularly talked to every student in class. I noticed that I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with the Geeks and I was scared to death! I had not always been popular. It took until the 4^th grade for me to be considered cool and I didn’t want to jeopardize it. But, Marty McFly saved me. He demonstrated that it was cool to be tech-savvy. This was a step in the right direction, but the role of Geek still existed. Marty learned enough to operate the DeLorean, but the highly technical skills resided with Doc, and no 9 year old kid I knew aspired to be Doc over Marty. So, I learned to temper my technology skills depending on my environment to avoid the Geek tag.

The Small Screen also had a major impact, possibly more than the Big Screen, on the evolution of the term Geek. Shows like “MacGyver,” (my personal favorite) took the Geek character from the supporting role and butt of jokes, to the lead and hero of the show. I can’t think of any character, movie or TV that single-handedly resolved bigger crisis situations than Mac. He made being a Geek cool on several levels: He was a pacifist, environmentalist, well-built, good-looking, scientific and engineering genius! He was oblivious to fashion, but oddly enough, if you walk into Old Navy today, half the clothes come straight from Mac’s closet. MacGyver made carrying a Swiss Army Knife and knowing obscure facts cool. Initially, only Geeks watched MacGyver, but soon it caught on and today he is a household name, associated with quirky, sexy, genius.

Moving on to the title subject I’ll quote my English paper again.

Personally, I think Steve Jobs and Apple is responsible for the conversion of the term Geek. Apple computers were flat out cool and anything associated with them was equally cool. With an immensely larger audience for Geeks to associate themselves, I believe they literally evolved. Previously, Geeks needed only communicate with other Geeks and developed only a limited scale of communication skills. Now that the entire world was enamored with Apple computers, Geeks learned to communicate with a broader range of individuals.

In my opinion, the negative connotation of Geek is rooted in poor communication. The fact that a Geek is well versed in technology or electronics is not why people looked down on them. Once Geeks expanded their (our) communication skill set, they (we) started to adopt more mainstream ideals with appearance. Nowadays, with the mobile and personal computing revolution, Geeks are an envied bunch!

Today, even a long-time Techy like me has to actively work to stay within the Geek circles. The parameters are moving so quickly in the direction of finite, specific genius, yet retaining a well rounded social skill set and other non-technical interests. Geeks now have their own genre of fashion, they influence automobile manufacturers, and have totally taken over how we communicate, work, and play. If you can believe it, being a Geek is so attractive nowadays that some fake it! :-p

So…any and all comments are welcome. What do you think of when you hear the term Geek? Positive, negative? Flattering, insulting? Is the term applicable today or is it dated?