In literature, in media and most certainly in the workplace, mediocrity carries a decidedly negative connotation. Nobody wants to be merely mediocre.

Google “mediocrity” and you’ll get results such as “What To Do About Mediocrity on Your Team,” and “Mediocrity Is a Virus — Here’s How to Banish It From Your Life.” Article after article tells us that mediocrity is a slippery slope to complete failure.

Excellence, on the other hand, has become an aspirational gold standard. To strive for excellence is to dodge mediocrity at all costs.

Mary Lee Berners-Lee, pionnière de l'informatique et mère de Tim Berners-Lee, s'est éteinte fin 2017. Au même moment étaient enterrées les promesses d'un Web pensé à l'origine pour être avant tout un «commun».

This past summer, I gave a lecture at a web conference and afterward got into a fascinating conversation with a young digital design student. It was fun to compare where we were in our careers. I had fifteen years of experience designing for web clients, she had one year, and yet some how, we were in the same situation: we enjoyed the work, but were utterly confused and overwhelmed by the rapidly increasing complexity of it all. What the hell happened? (That’s a rhetorical question, of course.)