My Super Power
An ordinary man sprints into a phone booth and in the blink of an eye, he is Superman. A lady standing in a parking lot spins around and around, then suddenly she is Wonder Woman. Local students report that a young man can utter a single word and in a flash of lightning, he is Shazam (a.k.a. Captain Marvel).
Those are the heroes that I grew up with, reading their tales of super-do-gooding in comic books. For most of my youth I hoped -- no, prayed -- that one day a bolt of lightning would strike me, and I would gain some super powers of my own. Or maybe, I would be radiated by cosmic rays while flying to England. And, yes, I looked for spiders any time I was near anything even slightly radioactive.
Obsession? Maybe. But in a world where the voice of an individual was almost silenced by media companies and globalization, the desire for super powers was a symptom for my feelings of powerlessness. Nothing happened, though -- no lightning, no secret words. And spinning around and around in a parking lot only made me dizzy.
Eventually, however, my super power snuck up on me. It came after I stopped hoping for it, and once it arrived it took some time for me to recognize it. The first time my power manifested was as a phone call from a major computer news site. They called me to get my opinion on a recent story. My name was in print (actually HTML, but I digress).
Name in print, big freaking deal, right? Well, yeah, you are right, being quoted in a short news story once or twice is certainly not going to get me a Super Friends locker in the Hall of Justice by itself. But getting quoted is not my super power; it is a result of my super power. Without my super power I would have never been interviewed, nor would I have been asked to write a white paper for Macromedia and certainly I would not have been able to speak at conferences across the United States.
My super power is my website. It allows me to communicate with thousands of people through the simple action of writing and posting. I can shift perceptions in a single bound and communicate more powerfully than a locomotive. I can raise issues and start discussions. I can help people, many people, all at once. I'd like to see the Wonder Twins have that much impact. Hall of Justice, I'd like a corner office please.
I may not be able to fly or use heat vision, but I can help people in other ways. Specifically, through my site Flazoom.com, I have been able to educate Flash developers about usability. Helping the Flash community understand that the coolness of their rollovers is second to the user experience of their work. My site has changed the way that people think about Flash. That is a pretty awesome power -- a super power, I'd say.
I'm not about to keep my power a secret. Unlike Batman, I have no secrets about the technology I use. A simple $15 a month web server and a few hours work every week is all I need to keep my super power membership current. And you can get one, too; you just have to get started.
So stop praying for a bolt of lightning and get out of the phone booth. ebay.com does not sell invisible airplanes. If you want to be empowered by the web, you just have to dive in. Get a domain and start typing. The world is reading.
