As I have mentioned before, I enjoy reading Jeffrey Newman’s Provocations site. Jeffrey is a web designer at present and I decided to delve further into the ‘workings’ of his mind and arrived at an interesting, thought-provoking individual. Here is Jeffrey in a nutshell, albeit not as thorough as space would allow.
Prior to moving to 108 Mile House, Jeffrey was born and resided in South Africa, then moved to England via France after graduating from university.
Jeffrey is an avid eco-friendly environmentalist and stumbled upon this way of thought after reading a newspaper report (1970) on The Club of Rome report Limits to Growth
In the early ‘80s, Jeffrey met his wife, Maddi, in Calgary. Maddi works in graphic design and always had a natural ability in this area. She describes herself as a ‘compulsive-formatter’ and a few years ago she landed a job as a production manager with a womens’ magazine which pushed her to become more serious as a graphic designer. You can view some of her work at Maddi
Jeffrey and Maddi were living in a community of 100 Mile House and when they left that community, they chose to stay nearby at 108 Mile Ranch. They enjoy living at 108 Mile, and they enjoy working from their home where they each have an office.
They provide community support for their area by encouraging support for local businesses and activities ie: he built a web page with information on where to find food produced or raised in the community. He is also on the board of the 108 Mile Ranch Community Association 108ranch
and he maintains the website (surprise). Jeffrey is also the member of the Airport Commission for the regional airport. Maddi and he share a seat on a committee in 100 Mile House that helps select local candidates for government support in launching new small businesses.
Jeffrey slid in web design gradually. He had been running a three-acre organic vegetable garden and the idea of his own web site appealed to him in the late ‘90s when more online sites were popping up. After about a year of fine-tuning his personal site, someone asked him what he would charge to build one for them. Over the next couple of years, Jeffrey did more web designing and less gardening until he became a full-time professional web designer. Prior to organic farming, Jeffrey’s careers included child care worker, drug rehabilitation worker and remedial teacher/counselor.
Not surprisingly for an inveterate eclectic, Jeffrey doesn’t have a favourite website. Recently he built a website for the BC interior because he didn't see one online that he found useful. This was the first time he had become his own client - and this ‘client’ was quite happy with the results. Jeffrey also heartily recommends Sacred Lifeboats, which has just been launched (sic). It is directed at US citizens but will be helpful to others and, he suspects, will be encouraging to many beyond the USA to know that such matters are getting real attention
there.
For his Provocations site, Jeffrey determines the content by whatever stirs him: from an event or an idea that he thinks could use more attention, to something that might even open a small door for a reader. It could be something as simple as switching to a bristle toothbrush.
Jeffrey could not pinpoint a specific intent for his websites as each piece stands on its own and has its own intent/reasons. He simply wants people to be provoked by what they’ve read and preferably act on it.
When asked what he thought was the future of the internet, Jeffrey felt he wasn’t very qualified to comment on this. However, he enjoys the increasing collaboration the internet facilitates; the building of community (real and virtual). He’s glad to see that Wikipedia is becoming so popular and well-used, apparently surviving the pressure of this increase usage. Freecycling is working well in the Interior and in many places around the world. It builds community as the Web provides an alternative to the corporate media. He sees blogs and other independent communication sites coming under increased pressure to conform.
Jeffrey had this to say about:
Internet hackers - reclaiming a sense of power; getting away with stuff(cyber-Ninjas); Robin hood types in some cases.
Virus spreaders - to make a mark on the world (power); anger and alienation, akin to other forms of vandalism.
Spammers - to make money.
Jeffrey’s general thoughts regarding the next twenty years are that dwindling energy sources will force us to be ingenious and more cooperative, especially at the local level. Either that or we'll be participating in the end of civilization. (See Richard Heinberg: A Letter from the Future.)
Some trivial, yet interesting facts about Jeffrey are:
With being so busy, he reads approximately two books a year. He’s currently reading Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver and recommends it highly. In fact it
inspired a recent blog post: Coming to Know my Place.
His taste in music is eclectic. Some examples: virtually everything that Mark Knopfler does - from Dire Straits to the Princess Bride soundtrack to Knopfler’s album with Chet Atkins and his most recent album, Shangri-la. Another contemporary favourite is The Be Good Tanyas. His all-time favourite jazz artist reflects His South African roots and the artist,Abdullah Ibrahim, comes from the same city where Jeffrey was born. One of Ibrahim’s finest and a fairly recent album is Cape Town Flowers(Cape Town being where they both are from; yet their experiences are vastly different because of apartheid). He loves classic Brazilian bossa-nova; enjoys classical Indian music and some classical western music - many of the usuals as well as Spanish guitar music by people like Granados,
Villa-Lobos and Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
In closing, I asked Jeffrey if he had any formal training as a writer as his articles are often well crafted. He replied that, as a little boy, his mother would encourage him to write as he ‘was so talented’. He assumed her praise was that of a proud or ambitious mother.
Well, as we all know, Mother is always right.
To check out Jeffrey’s sites and writing go to:
provocations
Jeffrey’s company
British Columbia
Interior News
Sacred Life Boats
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