Welcome to 2023!  Will it be a great year?  Well, we can only hope that it will be better than the past 3 years, but only time will tell.

Designers Circle is 16 years old and still fun for me to publish. For those who aren’t that familiar with this publication, it all started in 2008 when I thought it would be a great idea to share all the design networking events going on in the Phoenix-Metro area.  The Designer Circle monthly happy hours were very successful until the pandemic forced everyone to be quarantined, or at best, not socialize. I could do a Musk-like survey:  Should the Happy Hours start up again?

I seem to always change the format at the beginning of the new year, so true to form, there will be changes in the coming weeks.  I eliminated my popular soap box rants with “In My Opinion,” an uncensored column which came from my experience with Facebook in the last quarter of 2021. When I posted a picture of a policeman with the question – “Do you support the Police,” the post was removed by Facebook and substituted with “This content isn’t available right now. When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.“  This is a total lie and is still being used on many sites where Facebook doesn’t want people to know what is going on in the government- federal and state.  Their goal is to control what people know, and, unfortunately, there are some who only read Facebook for the news.

This was the reason for discontinuing to post on Facebook and write an uncensured column, a place where I truly have freedom of speech.

I have since posted only 2 items on this social media platform – one of a dog and one of a kiddo.  Posts that Facebook don’t agree with are still being removed as of the end of 2022.   

I have gotten only 4 negative responses from readers who don’t think “In My Opinion” is appropriate. The latest response was from a person who will remain anonymous, said that “everyone is entitled to express their own opinion, I don’t feel this site is the appropriate venue to do so.” He goes on to say that there are ample sites available for these types of dialogs; opinions do not have to invade the professional business associations. (to the commenter: Designers Circle is not a professional business association.)

In reference to the comment: “there are ample sites available for these types of dialogs,” I wondered what ample sites he was referring to.  Was it Twitter and Facebook, the platforms that have been totally censored by the owners of these sites? Before the Musk takeover, both these sites controlled the posts slanting information in a certain direction, the exact reason why I don’t post on Facebook. 

We still have the freedom of choice to read what we want and comment.  With six sections on Designers Circle, I encourage you to chose what to read, or listen to in the Podcast section, and comment, if you wish. 

The varied subjects I write about “In My Opinion” range from politics to the royals to what’s going on in our city.  If you chose not to read this column, but to read the other information, that is your choice. If for any reason you are offended by Designers Circle, you can unsubscribe. 

In this New Year I wish only the best for all of us.