Welcome to my web site. The IndieWeb community is creating tools to allow us to break free of corporate silos like Facebook and Twitter. The tools are not quite ready for prime time and so are not as easy to use as I would like them to be. I explained here why I think the IndieWeb movement is important. I see the IndieWeb as a “virus of light” in a web of corporate darkness. This web site is my contribution to the spread of the virus.

I find the principles of the IndieWeb to be inspiring:

1. Own your data.
2. Use visible data for humans first, machines second.
3. Make tools for yourself first. That is, scratch your own itch.
4. Use what you make. That is, eat your own dogfood (which is called selfdogfooding–I hate these phrases).
5. Document your stuff. You’ve built a place to speak your mind so use it to document your processes, ideas, designs, and code.
6. Open source your stuff. Making your stuff open source allows others to get on the IndieWeb more quickly and easily.
7. UX and design is more important than protocols, formats, data models, schema etc.
8. Build platform agnostic platforms.
9. Build for the long web so we don’t have to destroy everything every few years.
10. Encourage and embrace a diversity of approaches and implementations. Avoiding monoculture makes the IndieWeb stronger.
11. Have fun! Keep the web weird and interesting.

You can reach me through this site, at my Plymouth State University email address (cleblanc@plymouth.edu) for professional purposes, or at my personal email address (cathieleblanc@gmail.com) for other purposes.