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Two heads really are better than one

For a while now I’ve been designing a package for semi-custom WordPress websites (I promise it has a more exciting name than that, but it’s still hatching!). And when I say “designing”, I mean doing bits of research, brainstorming, coding, and photoshop-ing in between my regular client projects. Suffice to say it’s been slow and always pushed to the bottom of my to-do list.

After much pondering and churning and over-thinking in my own little vacuum, I did a couple smart things.

First, I had a coaching session with Charlie Gilkey. His eloquent questions made me feel okay about where I was at. More importantly, they also lit a fire in me to launch this thing a.s.a.p.

Second, I got in touch with David, a.k.a. the brilliant Sparky Firepants, to see if he’d like to collaborate on this wee adventure with me.

Oh-my-god-am-I-ever-glad-I-did-that!

You see while I’m weighing the pros & cons of software development tactics, which features the themes should have, how I’m going to deliver on Big Idea X or Y, David goes right to the root of it all: the customer. What the heck do they want, anyway? When they think about getting a website, what’s on their mind? (You can see his exploration of the idea straight from his sketchbook, above right.)

Which isn’t to say that I hadn’t been thinking about the customer, of course. But I’d been coming at it from different angles. So when I saw this exploration in my inbox, I was inspired to share it with you. To say: Great things happen in a team when each of you spark different ideas and perspectives.

As you can imagine, it’s a whole lot easier to keep the ball rolling when you’re excited by each other’s ideas and pushing the envelope together.

As wonderful as it is being self-employed, working mostly one-on-one with my clients, I know that the old cliche two heads are better than one is true. So I’m really looking forward to sharing this-thing-our-two-heads-are-cooking-up with you.

Makes you wanna go out there and collaborate with someone, eh?

Nobody cares about your website

This may be a funny thing for a web designer to say, but it’s largely true. Most people don’t come to most websites to see how great a logo is, or the fonts and colours used. To see the latest, greatest animation or graphical treatment.

They come to see what you’ve got for them. What problem (of theirs!) you might solve. What inspiration/information you can offer through your words, pictures, or sounds.

Still, the design of the site matters

Knowing that impressions of your credibility can be formed by viewing your website in as little as 1/20th of a second, it’s safe to say that your website’s design still influences how people receive whatever you’re offering. In that amount of time one can only get some impression of the site through major design decisions like colour choices and perhaps graphic style.

In a sense, your website is like a picture frame: it should support and complement whatever it is you’re displaying. It shouldn’t be the main attraction, distracting from your picture.

Switching off to switch on

There’s no doubt that we live in information-saturated times. Publishing tools have been embraced by the masses to the point that you can keep tabs on where uber-connected, far-off friends are having lunch. You can instantly tap into the history of just about anything, from 70s TV shows to obscure dog breeds.

In addition to all that popular trivia, many of us are compelled to keep up with the latest news or developments in our fields. Web design & development is like that; technologies and user expectations are constantly evolving and you have to keep up to do your best work.

There are hundreds of tools to connect you with the information you choose to follow, and for the most part they deliver a mixed bag of inconsistently useful stuff. So what’s a girl to do but stay “on” almost constantly, grazing for those tasty or nutritious bits?

I have become an information glutton.

In addition to the amount of information I *must* process to do my job well, I spend a lot of spare time consuming information from Twitter, Facebook, membership sites, and the various blogs they all link to.

All the while, beating myself up that I haven’t blogged in ages myself..

I go in circles: Who am I writing for anyway? For my clients? Sometimes. For friends? They’re all in the same boat as me. TOO MUCH TO READ. What have I got to say that’s new? It’s all been said, it’s all out there already…

And yet, I keep reading (or more truthfully, skimming) other people’s blogs, glad to hear their voices and perspectives. Nodding my head, if not commenting, at the discussions going on there.

The point? The web is big. There’s room for all of us.

If I value what others are contributing, if I admire their successes, who am I to stay silent when I’ve got something to say? It reminds me of this quote (which I thought was Nelson Mandela but apparently was by Marianne Williamson):

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. …as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

But, I have to make room for me.

I think the challenge for me now is turning off the information taps more often, so that I’m not drowning in others’ voices. So that I become thirsty to hear my own voice. To make room for me, so that I can share that voice with whoever cares to listen. To paraphrase Marissa: there is value in switching off.

Another challenge is to silence (or at least quiet) my internal editor. The one that says this post is not useful/profound/interesting/polished enough to publish. The reason for those partially written drafts waiting to see the light of day (this one waited 2 weeks!). The reason I often read other blogs but don’t add a comment because my critic says I’ve nothing of value to add.

And I think I’ll start by publishing this now, whether it has a nice tidy ending or not.

Ways to get a Website in a hurry

Tonight I got an email from a friend asking if I could help his brother out. The brother in question had a request from a publishing company to see his website, as they might want him to illustrate a book. Awesome, right? Yeah, except the brother doesn’t have a website.

Now it being a Friday night and me being generally booked about a month in advance, I decided to give him some tips on how to build himself a half-decent site ASAP. So without further ado I’ll expand upon those tips here… Read more

Who uses WordPress?

Aside: I wanted to call this post “If NASA is using WordPress, does that make it Rocket Science?”, but the logical, user-friendly, SEO-loving part of my brain won out over the funny part. Sorry about that.

I discovered tonight (via @raanan) that NASA is not only using WordPress, but using it so much they have created user guides for their departments. How cool is that?

There’s a lot of other high profile and amazing sites using WordPress listed the WP Publisher Spotlight. Here’s a few I found interesting:

• UBC’s Place of Mind – a UBC community site to aggregate content from blogs, YouTube, Flickr, etc.
• The Ann Arbor Chronicle – an online newspaper from Michigan. My favourite part is “Stopped. Watched.” — quick updates from members of the community.
• The Tasty Kitchen – a community website for recipes. It’s using BuddyPress, a group of plug-ins that turn WordPress into a social networking site (sort of like a niche Facebook).

There are so many more interesting publishers, from the Wall Street Journal, to the UK Royal Navy and Prime Minister’s sites, to Martha Stewart. The WordPress Publisher Spotlight is worth a look to see the breadth of possibilities with the platform.

Fitting Social Media into your day

Recently I wrote about the Social Media coffee shop. I promised to follow up with some tips on how you can fit this stuff into limited time, like your coffee breaks. Here goes!

Getting familiar (without getting overwhelmed)

If you’re new to social media or even a particular aspect of it, it can seem like a foreign country — one with strange language, etiquette and tools. It’s a good idea take on only one platform at a time (blogging OR Facebook OR Twitter). Also, begin when you can afford that bit of extra time, know that you’ll be spending more time than normal to start with it, and relax about that. Read more

WordPress Security & Upgrade Tips

I’d been thinking of sharing some of my tips on WordPress security, and this weekend’s alerts about hacking of older sites has pushed it to top of the post-ideas pile.

I definitely don’t claim to be an expert on security. But I have found the following to help me sleep a bit better at night and make events like upgrading or even possible hacking less stressful. I hope you’ll share any tips or questions of your own in the comments so we can all learn from each other. Read more

Do you have time for coffee?

A different way to think about, and make time for, Twitter & Facebook

Recently my Pilates instructor mentioned that she’s looking for an admin assistant, in part to do Facebook for the centre. In this conversation I heard two thoughts commonly expressed about Facebook and Twitter:

1. “I just don’t have time for all that.”
2. “Facebook is like another kind of email.” (By which she meant, a means to broadcast messages to her clients.)

I believe there is a more effective way to think of these things we broadly call “social media”. Read more

Fun with Moo Business Cards

As part of my recent branding efforts I needed some new business cards. As much as I love an awesome old-style letterpress card, that wasn’t the way to go for me. At least, not yet. I needed something that:

• was fairly inexpensive and quick (wanting them to arrive before an upcoming conference)
• therefore I could design and order myself (and I wouldn’t call myself a print designer)
• was nonetheless a well-designed product on a decent card-stock (thin cards suck!)

I was inspired by some moo.com readymade cards by Benrik with quirky phrases on them such as:

You seem like a serious business person. Let’s collaborate.

I love how these inject fun into the interaction of giving someone your card. Read more

Insight into right and left brain thinking

TEDTalks videos are such a wonderful resource. Every talk is so touching and inspiring in some way.

This one is by Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist — a student of the brain — who had a first hand experience of a stroke. She wrote a book called A Stroke of Insight about her experience.

Her talk really makes me understand the difference between right and left brain in a much more visceral way than I ever did before. It makes me understand my need for creative endeavours all the more. In fact, the need for all of us to foster these experiences for the good of our souls and our planet. What do you think of it?