I’m 28 years old. That means that I’ve already spent at least 1/3 of my life (and that’s only if I have a “natural” death when I’m 75, or so). I haven’t done squat with my life; at least by my standards I haven’t. That’s not to say that I haven’t worked hard to get to where I am – because I have. I just feel I could be doing so much more.
Too many people find themselves at the end of their lives with more regrets, then they do accomplishments. That’s not to say that I won’t have regrets when I find myself slipping away into that dark abyss called “death” – because I will. I just hope to be happy with what I’ve done with my life.
There’s something I do on a regular basis. Whenever I’m laying down for a nap, or mindlessly staring at a television screen, I usually find myself thinking, “What the fuck are you doing? Get your ass up and do something worthwhile!“. I really hate wasting time on things – like naps – that I could otherwise do without. That’s one reason I don’t don’t play video games very often. I feel better about my time I spend, when I spend it being productive.
I’m not perfect. I have many, many flaws. Everyone does. That’s why the way I choose to live my life may not apply to you. You may feel fine with following a more secure path – and there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone’s different. I just hope that you feel at ease with the decisions you’ve made in your life when darkness starts to fall over your eyes.
I’m not a big fan of being alone. I crave the comfort of being around other people. Having someone there that you can bounce ideas off of, or collaborate with – it’s awesome. That’s what I love about coworking. It allows for collective collaboration of creative individuals in a friendly and open environment.
I’ve had an interest in coworking for some time now. Early last year, I was involved in trying to get a coworking space setup in Little Rock. Even though it didn’t work out, I learned a lot of what’s needed to get a coworking space started. Mainly what’s needed is a willingness to work hard to see it through.
Fast forward to today.
When I attended this year’s LessConf, I had a great conversation with one of the presenters, Alex Hillman, the founder of a coworking space in Philadelphia called IndyHall. That conversation sparked a newfound interest in me to get a coworking space started in my community. So as soon as I got back from the conference I spoke with a few of my friends and they had a similar interest in seeing something like this started in Conway; thus Conway Coworking was born.
We have our first meeting planned for June 9th at 6pm at Starbucks on Oak St. in Conway. We’re going to use the meeting to gauge interest in the community and find out what creative professionals in Conway are looking for in a coworking space. We want to make sure that we provide them a proper space for their creative output.
If you’re a creative individual, you should join us. It’s gonna rock.
There’s a quote from Chris McCandless I carry around with me, that says, “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism … nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.”
Many of us will go through our lives with something inside of us burning to be set free, but we’re too scared to embrace it. This is no way to live a life. I know from experience.
That’s why from here on out I’m just going to fucking do it. I’m going to embrace the things inside of myself that I should have embraced a long time ago. I think you should too.
2.) Friends are invaluable
I love my friends. I can’t even begin to thank everyone that helped me make this possible. This event was everything I had hoped it would be and without their help, I wouldn’t have gotten to experience it. You guys are to best. (You know who you are.)
3.) I’ve got a lot to learn
I’ve procrastinated long enough. It’s time to learn a programming language, other that HTML. I spoke with Evan Light, owner of We Are Titans, a Ruby on Rails shop, and he was super helpful in helping me find the right reading materials to start learning Ruby.
4.) Passion is great, but without talent it doesn’t mean jack
Sure, with enough passion you can find a way to get anything done – for the most part. But in web design and development if you don’t have the chops, your likelihood of succeeding is seriously diminished.
In closing…
I came away from last years LessConf with a high that lasted for months. And then life got in the way – bills, family, responsibilities, ext. I remember now why the event had such a powerful effect on me. Being around super talented individuals who were doing amazing things challenged me to do amazing things myself. This year was no different.
LessConf 3010 is only a few days away. I really enjoyed last years conference and I’m excited about attending this years. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it this year due to my financial situation, but I was able to find a couple of sponsors and a roommate, so now its all good. It should be a lot of fun and very informative. Allan and Steve have got some amazing speakers lined up for the event – like, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson from 37signals.
Here’s the promotional trailer:
Also, I’d like to thank Paul Strack, from CustomXM Printing, for helping this come together. Allan Branch for the love and for throwing this kick-ass event. And Aaron Deckler, from Lolight Design, for being my roommate and cuddle-bunny for the duration of my stay in Atalanta.
I was watching CNN the other day and they had a gentleman on who knew a lot about business and was giving advice to people who might be interested in starting one in this economy. One thing he said really struck out — “you should focus on something you love, because in order to succeed in a business you really have to have passion for what you do.”
That really goes for anything you do.
That’s why I strongly feel that what you do in life says a lot about who you are as a person. Your career choices, the degree you received in college, who you work for, ext. ext.
I have a set of goals that I want to achieve in life. These goals are mainly focused around my career. Many people these days — even college graduates — are lacking goals. And the reason they don’t have goals is because they’re not passionate about what they’re doing.
So, do you have a career plan? Do you have goals? If so, what are you doing to reach them?
Moral of the story — if you don’t love what you do, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Find something you enjoy (and that you’re good at) and stick with it.
How many social networks do we need? I mean, really? There’s a social network for everything – racing, environmental causes, food, crafts, old women who like to talk about other old women, video sharing, micro-blogging, ext, ext. It’s a bit much. Don’t you think?
And where is this all leading?
Most likely they will all eventually implode into one another, which will cause our brains to turn to mush. This will be caused by the disconnected euphoria that we will feel preceding the implosion. Silly, I know, but not too far from the truth.
What is going to happen is we will all eventually only need one login for all SNSs out in the vast reaches of the web. Many of you are already experiencing this. Have you heard of Facebook Connect or OpenID? Well, you will. And there are plenty other organizations getting into the game.
Recently, I stumbled upon an interesting SNS that was doing some really cool stuff by bringing users content from their other social networks into their profiles for the site. (Wow, that sounds confusing in retrospect.) It’s called Virb. Check it out and let me know if it works for you. I’m curious. Also, add me as a friend while you’re there.
Designers– So, you see a website that is in desperate need of some TLC, but you’re not sure how to get that across to the organization behind it? Well, you could just redesign it. That’s what Dustin Curtis did.
Dustin Curtis wasn’t impressed with the current design and UI of the American Airlines website, so he decided to do something about it. Being a User Interface Designer by trade, he redesigned the site and created a much more appealing site for customers to visit. You can read his blog post here.
Clients — There are two things I want to touch on with this post. First — UI is very important for your site. Second — your site is the face of your company.
UI is very important
I cannot stress enough how important it is for the visitors of your site to be able to find information easily. If a visitor comes to your site and its either too complicated to use, or horribly laid out, they’re not going to stay long. Visitors require a site to be easy to use and visually appealing. Plus, content has to be appropriate and to the point.
There’s a local organization that I’ve been courting here lately, that suffers from this exact issue. I’m meeting with them next week and I’ve put together a proposal similar to Dustin Curtis’. This is something their organization has needed for a long time. I hope to help them create a better experience for the visitors to their site.
Your site is the face to your company
Too many organizations and businesses don’t take their websites seriously. They don’t understand how much a poorly designed website can effect prospective customers and clients decisions about their product/service. If you haven’t taken your site seriously, I guarantee you’re losing customers/clients because of it.
Moral of the story – your website is your organizations’ most important advertising/pr/corporate branding tool. Take it seriously.
I was doing some research on billboard advertising the other day and I read something that struck me as very poignant. The article I was reading said that everything in a billboard advertisement needed to be simple — because people driving by only had a certain window of time to read the ad — which is true — they don’t have much time.
Doesn’t this really apply to all advertising? Except maybe radio and television – but I’ve seen some TV advertising done really well – Comcast for example.
In our society we live in today, all advertising should really follow a simple set of guidelines — guidelines that focus more on the viewer, rather than the content of the ad. For instance, the article I was reading went on to recommend a guideline that stated: no more than one image, not a lot of text, and get to the point. That’s all you need in any form or advertising, really.
I don’t know about you, but it takes a lot for an ad in a magazine, or newspaper, to get me to stop from flipping the page. It’s got to have something that grabs my eye, text that’s simple and to the point, and the design has to lead my eye. That’s what I need to stay on that page.
Also, advertising should entice the viewer to want to learn more about a product or business. Relying too heavily on the advertisement to sell your product or service will only confuse and frustrate the viewer. It will leave a negative impression with them — and in turn — a negative impact on your business.
The moral of the story kids — don’t get caught up in content. Too much can be harmful for your business.
It’s amazing how specialized social networks can be. With social networking platforms like Ning, SocialEngine, and Elgg that allow developers (and novices) to build whatever kind of social network their little hearts desire, it opens up the floodgates for all sorts of specialized clubs and organizations.
I’ve been racking my brain for the last six months trying to devise a way to leverage one of these open source social networking platforms for use in the healthcare field. It’s not gone too well. The problems not the idea, it’s the plethora of choices healthcare professionals have in the way of social networking. There are tons of SNSs out there that cater to individuals in the healthcare field — especially for nurses. Go to Google and type in “nurse social network” — it’s amazing how many sites pull up. Honestly, most of those sites are horrible – badly designed, terrible UI, and the developers obviously had the wrong motivations behind creating the sites.
This brings me to where I’m at right now. Last week I contacted an old professor of mine to ask him a few questions and get his advice on some issues I was having with another project I was working on. While I was on the phone with him I mentioned my plans to create a SNS for nurses. He basically told me I was a dumbass. He reminded me about how many choices nurses had out there – as far as SNSs go – and that if I wanted to reach that audience I would be better off investing the time and money in leveraging the existing social networks to reach individuals in the healthcare community. This is especially is true for Facebook.
Why would I want to recreate the wheel when the nurses I’m going after are already familiar with the Facebook interface? The conversation I had with my old professor made a lot of sense to me and it really opened my eyes about where I need to be focusing my attention.
The moral of the story kids — listen to what other people have to say. Ask questions. Get peoples opinions. And especially don’t rely on your judgment alone. In most cases its probably wrong.