Last night I went out to dinner at Utopia on First Street in downtown Long Beach with Lauren and two of her work colleagues from the "Ad Agency". Dinner and the company were delightful. Afterwards we moved two doors west to the House of Hayden where I was to meet up friends celebrating Kimm's birthday and more of the "Ad Agency" folk were having a lovely time.

During the course of dinner and cocktails, Lauren and her friends offered many ideas about my job search, told tales of a career in advertising, made recommendations and offers of help to get a job in the advertising agency world. I stated that I preferred to work at a technology company or design firm, but the others argued that things were riding high in ad world and that I could easily get a job. Stories were told of agencies in New York, San Francisco and LA.

I got home and felt off. Not due to the wine, nor the duck dinner, nor the dogs going crazy upon my arrival, but something was off. I woke up at 4am with Belle wanting to play ball (having a small dog dropping a tennis ball on your chest at 4am is hard to ignore). It was in the time that it took to go back to sleep that clarity arrived.

As I took Belle's ball away, put it out of her reach on the mantle piece, and then turned back to my bed, I realized why I am very ambivalent about ad agency work. Yes, it is creative. Yes, it is a great opportunity to work on high profile websites for large companies with large budgets. Yes, it is an opportunity to work with a team of highly intelligent and creative folk. But... but...

My main reason that I want to give up my freelance business and go to work for a tech company or design firm is that I want to participate in the creation of an interface, device, or software that could impact or make easier a small or large part of someone's life. Whoever that someone or someone's life may be.

I have watched several techno-phobic friends and family members who wanted nothing to do with computers or cell phones come alive to the technologies and possibilities when a program or device came out that helped them do a task easier than they could do before, and they went from hating the technology to loving it in less than an hour.

* Blue would never ever touch her email the whole time I worked with her. I would read her email and call her to let her know that she needed look at it. Then I invited her to gmail, she moved, and now she loves email and uses her gmail account daily.

* Alex hated email and really had no use for computers. His cellphone was the bane of his existence, as he hated answering it. Then he got a Sidekick and I watched him in the course of one afternoon go from a playa hater to a Sidekick lover. And he returned his emails from his Sidekick.

* My mom recently threw her cell phone at the dashboard of her car out of frustration, it bounced and shattered her windshield. She could not see the screen nor navigate the interface even with her glasses on. She went over to Verizon and demanded a new phone, they up-sold her to a smart phone, and now she is moblogging. Really. She figured out MMS on her own and I was stunned to find a picture message from her when I was in Ireland, and when I returned, I set her up on Vox. Even more shocking for my luddite parent, she ordered cable broadband this week so that she can spend more time on Vox: writing captions, making comments and otherwise enjoying her new blogging adventure.

* My friend Shawn in Dublin is fully deaf in one ear and has only 25% hearing in the other with a hearing aid. He is a Ph.D student at Trinity and he conducts most of his non-face-to-face communication via text messaging. One can't leave him a voicemail, as he can't hear it. Shawn would really like it if his voicemail could send him a text or email that is the voice message all typed out. Wouldn't we all?

All that said/written, I want to participate in a team that creates a program / software, an interface, website, or device that changes lives even if in a small way that creates joy. I want to make a difference and I heard Vint Cerf when he spoke to the TCD computer science grad students on changing the world, even if in a small way. Some may claim that an ad agency can and does shape the way individuals and cultures behave and thing, I am reluctant to join that world and ambivalent about it. I would rather brave the tech world with all of its flaws. I would love to work in mobile, as most mobile interface and menus are difficult at best and windshield shattering at worst. I would love to help my mom and Shawn be able to communicate to the best of their abilities.