And here I find myself, in an act of self-promotion, culling through twenty years of work, deciding what to mention and what to leave for dead. Unlike a memoir, which thankfully nobody does at my age, a portfolio is intended for demonstration. It answers the questions: what have I done? and what can I do?

At the shopping mall near where I grew up, a music store sold Casio keyboards. They were stacked in a windchest configuation of varying heights, each one blinking, calling, and drawing me to that one special feature, the big orange demo button. Which song the keyboard played didn't really matter. It was a showcase of bells and whistles. When the Casio performed its act of self-promotion, it answered: I've done something cool, but you can make something even better.

Those midi sequences feel hollow today, as does much of demo work of a frontend developer: the parallax effect, the smooth transition, the bespoke micro-interaction. A technical accomplishment doesn't always carry well through the ages.

What sustains me are the good works of storytellers and musicians. For better or for worse, I cannot place myself in either group, but I've had a role in curation. As a product manager, I've coordinated designers, developers, writers and programmers to bring a cultural agenda to life. I've distributed music to streaming services and created a cross-promotion marketplace to connect musicians with content creators. I've supported investigative journalism and exhibited works of art.

And for whatever it's worth, I still have my Casio.

-- Jason Yergeau