My 2011 Austin trip photos Top tips for SXSW newbies Plan meet-ups and your conference schedule in advance. There is so much going on you’ll be glad you did even though you’ll deviate from plan. Stay with a group of friends unless you’ll find that overwhelming. It’s nice to have a friend or two to [...]

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with local business owners at an Aspire Self-Employment event. It was a lively discussion full of great questions and debate about web marketing and social media. Afterward I received a question from a participant by email: What are the pitfalls of doing your own website? I’m currently [...]

This past week has been a wonderful, unusual journey for me. I was fortunate to share the experience of the Lift Off Retreat with a group of incredible people. Far more than your average business workshop, it was an opportunity to delve into the heart and soul of our businesses and forge strong bonds with [...]

Thursday nights I go to Life Drawing in a quaint little town hall in Grantham’s Landing. (Yes, folks, I do live in the boonies, and love it!). It’s a welcome change from focusing on all the little details that go into making websites. At the same time, my brain likes to noodle things other than [...]

Wow, what a day. I wouldn’t be blogging about it now except my brain is so busy recapping it won’t turn off and go to sleep. So I might as well recap for an audience, right? I went to one good session today, by Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational. I think I’d rush through [...]

I’m in Austin TX this weekend for SXSW Interactive: part of an annual mega conference for the web, film, and music industries. The first session I attended was “We F*cked Up”, with a panel of web consultants discussing failure: recoverable and unrecoverable failures they’ve had, their definitions of failure, etc. Points that stuck with me: [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]