The New Anna Colibri: Potent with Potential

Theme song: Sweet Thing. Dedicated with a special thank you to Valerie for my making pretty new website with love.

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Hello, friends.

I'm excited. And a little nervous. Almost anyone would be.

I'm launching a brand new website on Thursday, February 13th. That's right: two days from now.

You could say it is a Valentine to myself -- the highest effort Valentine I've ever crafted.

Those who know me know that one of the services I offer my clients is web presence strategy and development.

Web presence is strangely intimate and personal for something intended to be so public. Your web presence digitally embodies everything you are on the web. If you are like many people, you want to control how you are seen by the world at large, but, like everything web and everything life, there is only so much you can control.

You only have so much time, so much money, so much ability.

At a certain point you have to publish.

I console myself with the word, "iteration." I love that word and it holds a lot of meaning in the worlds of technology and online marketing.

I also love the phrase "web presence." It sounds dignified and elegant (Can you have "elegant" without "dignified"? This is the kind of question I ask myself and enjoy time on my own answering.).

Which reminds me: it finally rained this weekend. We here in California have needed rain. Our country has been parched and dry.

I didn't realize it, but the weather was actually depressing me. I think feeling depressed by sunny weather is more common in places like parts of Africa in which life depends on a true rainy season. Here in California we are used to dry -- but not so used to it that after a while we don't feel anxious when sunny day crowds day after sunny day and the hills are brown when they should be green.

Which reminds me, too, that California's hills would be evergreen but for the fact that cattle were brought here bearing the seeds of European grasses that all but destroyed our native bunch grass. Or so the story goes.

Times change and so do we.

My old website is going to pasture.

I birthed the original annacolibri.com website with the help of a 24 year-old midwife named Stephen.

She grew (from no visitors to close to 1,000/month; from no PageRank to a PageRank of 3) and carried me to this, the two-year mark, of my business.

What happens next?

Each child has his or her own story. Each website also tells a story.

Each website tells the story of the finesse, the expertise, the taste, the judgement and the knowledge of its creators -- very different from a human baby whose form is more or less the product of chance.

For those who know, the flaws will be obvious; the successes clear.

For the intended audience, both flaws and successes will be all but invisible, but highly influential nonetheless.

Like I said, I'm excited.

My new baby website is, I think, quite beautiful -- maybe even dignified and elegant.

Time will tell -- a bit like the interview you either aced or the one with the questions you slap your forehead as you recall and wish you had answered better.

I have my hopes and dreams for my new website. She is potent with potential.

Your Turn

What in your life is new, or potent with potential?