First off, I should say that I do say yes more often than I say no. I assume some of that comes from the fact that people look to me for advice and I would never (intentionally) lead someone astray. Also, most of the projects I work on are word-of-mouth referrals so they come to me expecting to enjoy the process. These two things work very well towards creating good relationships and, hence, good outcomes.

But, from time-to-time someone comes to me with a bad idea or a bad attitude and, because I’m in a type of service role, it’s expected that I do what I’m told to do. The problem here is that I’m only interested in working on sites, scripts, and blogs that I’m proud of completing. If I’m in a service role then we’re not a team. If that’s the case then I have no sense of ownership over what’s being created and you’re simply not going to get my best work. That’s just not where I want to be and I’m going to say no.

So, here’s why I said, am saying, or will in the future say no.

1) The design you’re proposing is either unappealing or just gets in its own way

Design is relative in a particular way; different things look good to different people. The caveat? There is such a thing as good design and bad design. Just because something is appealing to you (and the 4 like-minded people you showed it to) doesn’t mean you’re on the road to something that is appealing to a wide range of people. You might be a “visionary” but trust me on this: if you can appeal to more people without losing the character of the site, do it.

There’s another piece to this as well. Design on the web is its own cup of tea. Because something works on a brochure does not mean it will work on the web. The web is interactive, served to thousands of different devices (not a hyperbole), subject to important standards, and should include (and avoid) specific things. There are accessibly, search, and usability concerns which can only be ignored at your own risk and potential failure.

If you can’t or won’t let me help you navigate these tricky waters, then I won’t build that for you. Sorry!

2) It’s more complicated than it needs to be

I know you want more; it’s OK, most people do. More in your sidebar, more on the navigation, more on a page, more in the footer… more links, more images, more color, more text. You want more pages, more options, more icons, more form fields, more keywords, and more animation. If it’s not there, they can’t click on it, see it, or read it, right?

But the problem with more is it actually ends up being less. More things to do means less people doing those things. I don’t just mean per thing, I mean less action total. Again and again it’s been proven that web sites with too many options will confuse and frustrate users to the point they will leave before they do anything. All those links and images and icons work against you by diverting people from where you want them to go (whether that’s a buy page or a contact form).

So keep coming up with ideas and keep adding things to the list but if you won’t let me help you vet some of those items, then I won’t build that for you.

3) Your idea is not sound from a business perspective

Hey, I’m all for fun and games on the web, really. I love to build things that won’t make any money and work on projects for the good of the project. Most projects don’t fall into this category, though, and if it doesn’t then I’m guessing it’s going to be a long, hard road. The specs will change over and over, the design will change over and over, and the scope of the project will ebb and flow like the tides. This is a terrible position for me to be in.

Here’s the deal: the web is not the same place that it was even a year ago. The idea that you’ll put something up, add a few advertisements, and the money will start flowing in is a myth. Unless you’re doing something very unique and putting A LOT of work into it then you don’t stand a chance to make a dime. Even if you are doing something unique (terribly hard to do nowadays) and putting everything you have into it, there’s no guarantee of success. You’re better off getting a second job if you’re looking to make money. Trust me on this.

If you won’t heed my advice and your goals change with the wind, then I just won’t build that for you.

4) You’re clearly not going to be easy to work with

I would say that I have a pretty good sense of people. It’s not likely that I will communicate with you in person before (during or after) a project but I can still get a pretty good read off of you via email, phone, or Skype. I’ve been very lucky to have worked with many kind, intelligent, and generous people over the years. Because of this, it’s also been easy to spot the problem children. I haven’t always turned them down and when I don’t, I’m always sorry.

Maybe you’re the type that likes to “get away with things” if you can (spam, underhanded marketing, deception). Or maybe you have no concern for copyright laws and want to steal people’s images and text without attribution. Maybe you think you’re god’s gift to [insert profession/industry here] and people owe you the traffic, accolades, and purchases. Maybe you’re just an asshole. Whatever your problem is, understand that your attitude is unsustainable and your hubris is hurting much more than it’s helping.

If you can’t get out of your own way and think it’s everyone else’s problem, then I won’t build that for you.

5) Getting paid is going to be tough

This is the softest rule of them all and it’s also the easiest for me to predict incorrectly. Like I said before, I work most of the time for people I know through someone else I know better. Word of mouth comes with an intrinsic “I vouch for this person” from the referrer so rarely am I concerned about a check coming through.

Still, I’ve come up against a few people that made it seem like paying me for what I do is a burden. After completing a project, the last thing I want to do is re-convince you the value in what I’ve created. I’ve also had people try to haggle me down from a very fair price, at times quoting another company who would do it for half as much. This is ridiculous; if you can already pay the price you want to someone else and you’re trying to convince me to take less money then you know the value of my work and you’re just being cheap.

You’re entitled to an explanation of my costs and you’re always welcome to go with another provider but if it sounds like completing your project will not be the end of my work before I get paid, then I simply cannot and will not build that for you.

Your turn

Are you a web designer/developer? If so, what did I miss? Am I being too harsh? Too easy?

Are you someone who needs a project? Am I being unfair? Why would you say no to me?

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I wrote a post a long while ago about spam. A conversation at a previous employer sparked my thoughts on the matter and, from that conversation forward, I became a nearly-militant anti-spam campaigner. My colleague argued that spam is just junk mail that people don’t want but how do you know if people don’t want it unless you try it out. My argument was that spam is email that was not asked for explicitly. It’s one thing to send a one-to-one email out of the blue, it’s another to send a bulk mailing to people who “probably wouldn’t mind.”

Just this last spring I decided I wanted to start sending out a semi-regular email to my clients, friends, and family about my business and how things are going. I wanted to introduce my impending new logo, notify everyone of my change in work situation, and rekindle a few business relationships. I also wanted a reason to comb through my Gmail contacts and classify like a crazy person.

It took me a while to get everything together for this MOMENTOUS OCCASION but I finally had the logo complete, the template written, and my contacts classified. Little did I know that this occasion would be a bit too momentous.

Spoiler alert #1: it was the contact list

That I was using this newsletter as an excuse to get extra OCD about my contact list sounds like a lame one but if you’re the type to do this then you understand. I have a long list of people I’ve worked with, pitched to, and Helped and I wanted not only to identify them (via category) but also “ping” them and make sure they knew I still existed.

So I combed and sorted and tagged and collated. As motivated as I was to stay in touch with a number of different people, I was also careful to vet anyone that I thought would be totally uninterested. I took out friends who wouldn’t care, family who might not understand, and leads that had long gone cold. In short, I was trying to only send this email only to people who I thought would want to get a one-to-one email.

Spoiler alert #2: it was the content

I was saving most of the designing and building for the end since I had not completed my new logo. I wanted it to match my website and stay very simple. I also had a lot of ground to cover and wanted to get everything across as quickly as I could. In the end, I wrote and built what I thought was a great way to connect and inform a large group of people.

Looking at the template, you might think that I made a mistake by putting the unsubscribe information in the most visible place possible. I wanted to be as completely transparent as I could be and use this list in the future if I had anything else to announce. To be confident that future mailings would only go to those who wanted them, I put an easy way out at the beginning of the message.

Spoiler alert #3: it was my intent (and theirs)

By the time I was ready to send this bad boy, I felt good about the content, really liked the layout, and felt comfortable with the list of people I was sending to. In my mind, anyone who had approached me for a project and had exchanged a few friendly emails with me would be happy to hear about what was going on with JoshCanHelp and want to see a few recent projects. Hey, maybe a couple would remember their project and approach me about moving forward.

It was all sunshine and rainbows… until a few days after I sent the email. I got a notice from Mailchimp that a disproportionate number of people had unsubscribed from my newsletter. This didn’t surprise me; I assumed a certain subset would not be interested and opt-out. I even made it really easy to do so. Unfortunately, after a certain ratio of unsubscribes to recipients, you start to become a spam suspect. My account was frozen and placed under review. Not only that…

I’m in more spam folders than a lottery announcement

I’m guessing it’s not that bad but I am getting routed to my DAD’S spam folder so the issue is serious.

Intentions mean nothing when you’re dealing with algorithms so follow my advice here and keep your email domain safe.

1) Never send bulk emails out to a group of people without first getting their permission.

My biggest mistake was using an email marketing program to keep in touch with clients and prospects like a regular email program. A forward to 50 of your friends looks very different to email servers than a full HTML, image-rich business message. Even if it’s a rare mailing, send out a subscription request before sending out a newsletter. More personal than that? Send a few at a time through your regular email program.

2) Just because you have an email address doesn’t mean you should use it.

This applies, of course, to those who think it’s OK to buy a list and send out marketing information but it also applies to those of us who keep track of email addresses for a long time. The only people this newsletter went to were people I communicated with. The problem, though, was that a few of these were over a year old (read: over a year since we communicated). Hey, I’m great and all but that doesn’t mean people remember me… and the new logo probably didn’t help either. If you want to send a business contact an email, do it one-to-one or not at all.

3) The road to spam hell is paved with good intentions

Because I wanted to keep in touch with people and also wanted to give people an out, my unsubscribe link was right at the top. See, my intentions were good! On the other end, I’m sure there were several people who knew who it came from, figured that they wouldn’t need my services for a while, and clicked the link to reduce the number of emails they’re getting. No harm done, right? In the end, all those unsubscribes combined together made all the difference in the world. I should mention that I didn’t get any spam or abuse complaints so no one officially marked me as spam.

Always learning

I’m sure everything will be fine in a few months and my good email name will be back to normal. In the meantime, I might lose a job or two because I didn’t get back to someone. Getting your domain marked by incoming email servers is nothing to sneeze at. Be careful, think twice, and validate those emails!

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In this issue: goodbye San Diego, stay connected, monthly website reports , other news You’re receiving this email because we communicated at some point about a website, a collaboration, or your business. I send emails like this very infrequently but if you never want to receive another one again, click here and I’ll bid you adieu. JoshCanHelp is changing location soon ( hint: ) The winds are changing direction and taking the wife and I to Europe… for a while. We’ll be in Paris, France starting the second week in August until the 2nd week in November. After that, we’re moving back to Seattle to continue the adventure. Though I will be online and working while in France, the local time will be 9 hours ahead of where I am now and I will be online much less of the time. I will absolutely be taking care of all current clients and outstanding projects but I’m not able to take on any large projects until November. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at 619-434-0903 or josh@joshcanhelp.com with any questions you have about this change. Again, I’m still working but less available than before. This gives you all the more reason to find new ways to… Stay Connected with JoshCanHelp I’m all about staying in touch. I like to hear what you’re doing and share what’s going on in my webby life. If you’re inclined to do the same, let’s link up! Facebook I update with client projects, useful websites, & nuggets of web wisdom a few times a week. Join us? Twitter Sharing links, making connections, and solving problems in 140 characters or less. Follow me? LinkedIn I’m a big fan of LinkedIn and intend to spend more time there going forward. Connect with me? Email You can subscribe to receive my blog updates via email; I post a few times monthly. Get more email? Are you interested in a monthly website report? I’m gauging interest in a potential new product from JoshCanHelp. It would compile numbers from your various sites and social networks – traffic, engagement, conversions – and put them together in a monthly report sent to your email address. There would be various levels of service as well as built in recommendations for changes. Interested? Help me by taking this one page survey. Other goings-on JoshCanHelp.com got a minor face lift along and a new logo. eWallstreeter.com went live a while back and we’re growing the site every week. SophiesArms.com is going live at the end of the month. Site is under construction but it is coming together very well! About to launch a big project… here’s a hint.

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1. Who are you trying to please?

It’s easy to say “I’m trying to please my clients” but I don’t think that’s a complete answer. My satisfaction as a designer, developer, and service provider comes directly from how well I’ve solved other peoples’ problems so, in the end, I’m truly trying to please myself. If someone is unhappy with their site or their logo or their blog then I take it personally and, for my own sake, do everything I can to figure out a better way or a new look.

I look for this satisfaction from the very beginning of a project and try not to take on anything that I’m not going to be proud of in the end. I like to make other people look good and I like to help other people succeed and if I don’t think I can do that (because of the starting point or the project or the person I’ll be working with) then I won’t take the project.

2. Are you trying to make a living, make a difference, or leave a legacy?

This question really made me think…

I know I’m not just trying to make a living, that’s been clear from the start (it’s been clear, at least in my head, since I went back to school 7 years ago). I try as hard as I can to make a difference, both in the way people work and in my industry in general. That’s been a big motivation to keep going but it’s also a big reason I keep blogging (and want to even more). If people can do better work, reach more people, make more money, and/or understand something better because of me, I’ve succeeded and I feel great.

But a legacy? I’ve thought about the business I want to own, the team I want to build, the office I’d love to outfit but it never really occurred to me that I would be building a legacy. In fact, in never occurred to me that I could. Though I’ve never really framed my activities as legacy-building, I’ve always been looking forward to creating jobs for people and building something that can stand on its own. So I guess the answer is yes, I am trying to build a legacy and I think this question just gave what I do a name.

3. How will the world be different when you’ve succeeded?

The world will be different in two ways:

1. There will be more business owners and individuals on the web who understand what’s going on around them and how to use the tools that are available.
2. There will be more attractive, easy-to-use, and well-coded sites and applications out there.

Not a particularly difficult goal for the most part.

4. Is it more important to add new customers or to increase your interactions with existing ones?

I don’t think I could choose one or the other and I work to maximize both (as much I as I can with my time limited to 168 hours a week). In many cases, I’m setting up sites and teaching people with the outcome being a site that they can maintain on their own. If I have to be a day-to-day part of the operations on a site I’ve built then I probably didn’t really do my job very well. On-going check-ups are one thing but content management has matured to the point where web novices can do great things on their own. I like empowering people to not need me.

I do, however, put a lot of energy into communicating with my clients and making sure they understand all of their options. I’m sure this is why I have so many word-of-mouth referrals and returning clients. I hate to burn bridges and I’d rather do the work and finish the project correctly than get paid for every minute of my time. I also put my current clients ahead of any leads I’m pursuing as it’s only fair to complete work you’re on the line for before taking anything else on. In that way, I inadvertently choose to put existing clients ahead of others.

5. Do you want a team? How big? (I know, that’s two questions)

I do want a team but the size is not something I’ve thought about. If I had to come up with a number:

1. One excellent designer who knows how to write code
2. One excellent programmer who understands good aesthetics
3. One excellent writer who understands SEO
4. One excellent finance person who understands sales
5. One excellent generalist who understands how it all comes together

So, count it up, I would say 5 great people who all understand customer service and how to have a good time.

6. Would you rather have an open-ended project that’s never done, or one where you hit natural end points? (How high is high enough?)

I like the idea of a project with natural end points that can be worked towards though almost anything can be improved so I’m not sure you can really categorize all projects into one or the other. Would building a business be an open-ended project that’s never done? What about a web application? I like a mix of both (building and maintaining JoshCanHelp and blog as well as starting and completing individual projects).

The “how high” question is a common one, especially as it pertains to a design. When is a design complete? I think a design is complete when it does what you set out to do and nothing more. This makes sure you’re always looking towards completion and leaves the door open for improvement if that becomes a goal.

7. Are you prepared to actively sell your stuff, or are you expecting that buyers will walk in the door and ask for it?

I’m understanding more and more the “art of the sell,” particularly as it pertains to my business. At first, my attitude was “if they want it, they’ll pay my deposit and we’ll get started.” This worked for the most part but I had a lot of people drop off or disappear before anything was started. Now, I try to make moving forward with me as easy as possible by:

1. Explaining the process and the technology as best I can
2. Making sure they hear that, yes, I can do what they need to get done
3. Providing a very clear path forward, whether it’s a bank of questions to answer, a distinct choice to make, or an easy way to pay the deposit.

My job as a salesperson for myself has much less to do with selling something than it is with getting people ready to go through the process. Building a site is just as hard for the client as it is for me; it involves tough decisions, a lot of work creating the content that will appear on the site, and a lot of time working with me to get the right look and feel. Helping people to understand what lies ahead and how I can help them get through it not only makes for a smoother journey but makes it easier for people to commit to moving forward with me.

8. Which: to invent a category or to be just like Bob/Sue, but better?

Easy: invent. I like to solve problems creatively and when you do that, you create new genres. Outperforming an incumbant, however, builds genres as well. Many people want the same old thing, a copy of a nice-looking site that they can call their own. Other people want something a bit different. When you start to re-think how a site can be built, you start creating new categories of sites.

9. If you take someone else’s investment, are you prepared to sell out to pay it back?

If I ever find myself in that position, I believe I would “sell out,” though I have a tough time understanding what, exactly, that would mean. If you change your product to appeal to a broader, more motivated, or more cash-flush market, is that always selling out? If you take a niche product and make it more broadly appealing, is that selling out? If you change something to make more money and you still like what you’ve got, is it still selling out?

I believe in investor value over personal satisfaction (I don’t see it as the pinnacle of importance, though) so if I ever found myself at a point where I didn’t like what I was making, I assume that there’s always a way for me to leave and hand the keys over to people that believe in it. I won’t work on something I don’t believe in so if it’s me or the product, I’m out.

10. Are you done personally growing, or is this project going to force you to change and develop yourself?

Done personally growing? That’s hilarious… I won’t be done personally growing until I’m dead and buried. I will continue to grow, change, learn, and develop through the rest of my life as it’s a big reason why I get up in the morning.

11. Choose: teach and lead and challenge your customers, or do what they ask…

I like to teach, lead, challenge, guide, resist, and sometimes annoy my customers. If they trust me and can voice their opinions and hesitations, we’ll do just fine. I don’t like to just build what people ask for, I like to push a few boundaries, look at a few options, and help people do their best.

12. How long can you wait before it feels as though you’re succeeding?

I’m impatient in general but I know that about myself so I can wait a while before I get confirmation of how well (or poorly) I’ve done. That doesn’t mean I’m not freaking out with the mic on mute and the webcam off but I’m not going to let that show. Everything in due time, I really believe that.

13. Is perfect important? (Do you feel the need to fail privately, not in public?)

I think perfect is important. I fail in public and I fail in private but I’ll shoot for “polished” before I’ll shoot for just “functional.” On the web, there is so much to consider before you launch a project – design, interaction, search engine structure, keywords and phrases, site speed, social media interactions – and to just complete a few is a dissevice. In the beginning, I would casually mention that we could do a bit of keyword research or I’m able to create a Twitter background but that leaves so much undone when people just say “no thanks.”

But I’m digressing a bit… in the end, I’m looking to create the most complete, best product for who I work for. Many times, this means launching at “close” rather than “complete” and I think the iteration and testing that comes once it’s live is a very critical part of the process.

14. Do you want your customers to know each other (a tribe) or is it better they be anonymous and separate?

One of my favorite things to do is to connect people that can help each other. To that end, I’d love to throw an annual party for my clients and get people together to network and chat. I’d love to see what I learn by bringing all these people together and hearing what they had to say about me and what I do.

15. How close to failure, wipe out and humiliation are you willing to fly? (And while we’re on the topic, how open to criticism are you willing to be?)

Failure is painful but necessary. Wipe out is scary but always on the horizon in this line of work. Humiliation, however, is frightening and, I would guess, completely avoidable. If I invest my time and money into something that sounds like a great idea and it falls flat on its face, I wouldn’t be embarressed if I could explain (to whomever would listen) why it seemed like a great idea at the time. I think humiliation would come from making a really dumb move without thinking about it or proclaiming something totally ridiculous on a whim.

Then again, aren’t failure, wipe out, and humiliation all just states of mind? If I went broke doing something I loved to do that didn’t end up being a commercial success, I might not consider that a failure and I might not consider my state, if I’m still surrounded by the people I love, wipe out. If I did something really stupid but I wasn’t embarrassed about it, can I still be humiliated? If I stick to my guns while people call me names, is it still a humiliation if I truly don’t care what they think? Something to think about….

16. What does busy look like?

Busy looks like having your hobby be overflow from your career. Busy means waking up earlier than others to get essential things done. Busy looks like Saturdays in front of the computer and Sunday nights preparing for the week. Busy looks like me.

I think the more important question is: where does busy stop? If I am answering emails on my phone while I’m at a restaurant with my wife, that’s too far. If I work all day without stopping for a whole week, that’s too far. If I’m juggling to the point where people are beginning to ask me 3 or 4 times for something to get done, that’s too far. If the quality of what I create is suffering because I have too much on my plate, I’m not doing anyone any favors, particularly myself.

A lot of what I do involves creating, either designing or building something. You can’t create very well if you force yourself to create 10 hours a day, several days in a row, it just doesn’t work that way. Also, it’s easy to forget that answering emails, chasing down paychecks, and talking to clients all count as work though, oftentimes, you can’t claim the time. This kind of work can eat up 5 or 10 hours a week sometimes and take up time you could be doing something more important: creating or resting.

I’ve been working very, very, very hard for the last 8 years working full time or more, earning a BS in Chemistry, and building this little business I have going. I have tested my limits over and over and know my limits pretty well. I’ll push it now and then but I always expect to pay for it in one way or another.

Thanks for listening!

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The session was led by Barbara Starr (@BarbaraStarr) and the information here is distilled from notes I took during the session. As such, attribution is appropriate. Thanks again, Barbara, for a great session!

WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)?

A great teacher once told me that you need to tell people what they’re going to get out of a learning session before you start. For this heady topic, I think this is more true than ever. Here’s what you should get out of this post:

1. A solid concept of what the semantic web is and what the key terms are
2. A realization that this stuff is going to change the web for the better
3. A path forward to learn more and begin taking the first steps towards using this powerful technology

What is the Semantic Web?

The semantic web is a web where the meaning behind the content is included in a machine-readable form. Having information being machine-readable is important because these machines (think: search engine algorithms) help us find what we need. If it seems strange that we would need to translate information from human-readable format (a quick description, say) to machine-readable so that humans can better use that info, it’s perfectly understandable. Just remember: your file system, you know, the one you constructed, has a search feature and you’ve probably used it before.

So we’re taking this human-readable content and attaching machine-readable data so that humans can better find it. Once you’ve wrapped your head around this, take the next step: machine-readable formats must be finite in number. This means  that you can’t just make everything up as you go along, there has to be a system. This system is basically a set of relationships that can exist between two “things” (for lack of a better word). You have two things and one relationship between them and this is called a triple (“Josh likes food” or “Josh created this post” or “Josh knows Anna”).

In order to understand how this works on the web, start to think about how relationships are made in your own mind. When we first meet someone, it’s in our nature to try and suss out as much information as possible from them. If you wanted to store this information so a computer could look it up later, you might assign each thing you learn to a simple structure. Let’s say you meet a guy named Dave…

Dave knows your friend Bob who he works with at Google. Dave drives a Karmen Ghia and you find out he belongs to the local VW club. Dave offers you some of his AleSmith Grand Cru beer and, because you love the stuff, you accept. You talk for a while longer and find out he’s married to Nicole, a woman you worked with several years ago at a tech company called NJN.

How many relationships can you count?

• Dave | knows | Bob
• You | know | Bob
• You | know | Dave
• Dave | works for | Google
• Bob | works for | Google
• Dave | likes | VW
• Dave | belongs to | VW SoCal
• Dave | likes | AleSmith
• You | like | AleSmith
• Dave | knows | Nicole
• Dave | is married to | Nicole
• You | know | Nicole
• Nicole | worked for | NJN
• You | worked for | NJN

Once these types of connections are made, context and information can be given to the relationships themselves and then a web of meaning starts to form. Because a machine has a finite number of relationships (“knows,” “works for,” “likes”), it can create connections between things it doesn’t know. This doesn’t mean that the machine has some kind of conscious, it just means that it understands when you ask a question like “who does Dave know?”

Think about this like Facebook for EVERYTHING (it shouldn’t be a surprise that Facebook is adopting this semantic way of processing). There are many things you can do on Facebook but it’s limited by what the software will let you do. You can friend people, like pages, like posts, say things, add apps, and more. Each action, however, is defined by the system. You can’t “not like” things, for example. There are a limited number of things you can do because you’re interacting with a machine.

This is a fairly basic description of the semantic web but I hope it helps you wrap your head around where this is going. If you need a bit more (along with potential downsides to this system), watch this excellent short film by Kate Ray:

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

Terms to know

I’m writing these definitions from my notes and my own understanding instead of regurgitating Wikipedia. This could turn out good or bad. I’ll include a link to more info at the end of each so if you don’t understand (or want to check my facts) you have a place to go.

Ontology

This is a language term used to describe the system of relationships constructed for the semantic web. It’s basically a dictionary of categories, a resource that determines what relationships can exist and what meaning they have. You could also say that an ontology is a schema, a model for constructing these frameworks of information.

What should be clear about ontologies is that they are the spine of the semantic web and without them, the concept is empty. There must be a way to designate and define these relationships or they couldn’t exist. Also important to note: an ontology is not hierarchical, there is no concept of parent and child relationships. More info: Wikipedia on Ontology

RDF/RDFa

This is a particular format of semenatic data that can appear in a web page. It stands for “Resource Description Framework attributes.” You’ve got a framework for describing resources (essentially the ontology) and RDFa are the attributes that describe the thing you want to add meaning to. Important to mention is the fact that RDFa is just one way of including semantic data but it happens to be what Google uses so it’s important. More info: W3C RDFa Primer

Triples

these are the simple 3-part relationship descriptions. “Josh likes Anna” would be a triple; you have a subject (Josh), a predicate (likes), and an object (Anna)… simple as that! Semantic data storage can be referred to as “triple-stores.”

OWL

This is the language used by applications that process semantic data.  More info: W3C OWL overview

SPARQL

An adorable acronym pronounced “sparkle” that is the query language for RDF. It’s the way you would programmatically search stored semantic data. Yes, like MySQL. More info: Wikipedia on SPARQL

What I think

I’m writing about this stuff as though it was set in stone and an impending global standard but, in fact, it isn’t quite that. The semantic web is a proposal, essentially, and just one method that might be used to help humans navigate the incomprehensible amount of information around us (watch that video above for the dissenting viewpoint).

To keep things brief (finally), I’ll say this: In a perfect world, this system would drastically improve how the web functions. In the real world, I’m not sure how we’re going to get there.

Also, a summary of a comment I left on a post that led me to the video above:

On the web, these semantic relationships would have to be almost effortless to create or else the only relationships that would be expressed would be ones surrounding the organizations that have the resources and the motivation to create these links, i.e. businesses that benefit from, say, the SEO improvement or organizations that did it just because it’s the right thing to do. The rest, blithely making connections, creating content, and generally adding to the web (just like right now) would not be bothered.

More resources

• Intro to RDFa by A List Apart
• Google explains how to markup content with RDFa
• How Enterprise 2.0 Will Enable the Semantic Web by Phil Simon
• Lotico Semantic Web Community

Tools and Apps

• WordPress RDFa plugin
• Fuzzbot semantic information Firefox plugin
• Franz – Semantic web technologies and development tools
• RDF XML Schema

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Brief back story: Gaping Void is the “brand name” of Hugh MacLeod, cartoonist, author, blogger, and general creativity muse. Hugh was the first blogger I ever started reading. I have no recollection of how I found his site though I’m sure it had something to do with one of his cartoons I found somewhere. This was several years ago and after that first encounter, I forgot about him entirely until maybe a year later (I’m guessing 2006 at this point) when I felt this strange need to find his site again. It took a while (I completely forgot the name, URL, everything) but I finally found it and when I did, I was elated. I started reading Hugh regularly and was particularly affected by his creativity manifesto, how to be creative. Since then, I’ve been a huge fan… bought business cards with his cartoon on one side, bought his book Ignore Everybody, and get his daily cartoon.

That’s the card I put together about 3 years ago. I was finishing up a Chemistry degree at SDSU, blogging about sustainable transportation, and felt like I had a lot more to offer the world. My blogspot address was on the back of this card so you’ll notice I wrote “joshcanhelp.com” on the top in ball-point. It was a transitional period, what can I say.

When I first tried to come up with my favorite Hugh cartoon, this is the one that jumped to mind. Problem is, I kind of feel like my business is a science project. It’s also ironic that I spent many years working with science projects and now I have a business…. totally unrelated to science projects. I also miss science projects, especially when I’m knee-deep in business. It was a strangely appropriate card.

I’ve since replaced my Gaping Void card with one of my own design (seemed like the right thing to do) and have also replaced this cartoon with two others as my favorites. If I had to pick one, it would be the second.

“Mediocrity now howls in protest”

I’m listing this one first because it was the thing that scared me immensely about being on the web at first and has since has since made it feel like a great place to be.

When I started designing and developing, I was always discouraged and demotivated by the really talented people out there making gorgeous things (sites, apps, interactive elements, images, missives, blog posts) on the web. It was maddening to see what I tried so hard to do but, at the time, just couldn’t. I avoid “inspiration” sites like the plague (I still do) and got angry every time I saw something beautiful on a page.

This feeling slowly (imperceptibly slow as I still retain some of the self-deprecation I’ve always had) changed into something much more palatable and closer to the truth. I had the two things that all web creators need: the desire to do well and the ability to try, learn, and try again.

It turns out, just like everything else in the whole, wide world, you don’t need natural ability to do well on the web. You just need humility and patience and passion and a good sense of humor.

Here’s where Hugh’s cartoon explains it all so succinctly: most people don’t have any of that nor do they care to develop it. This is why so much of the web is mediocre. I’ll take that a step further: this is why so much of what we’re surrounded with is mediocre. Mediocre movies, books, music, and magazines; mediocre blogs, articles, websites, and business cards;  mediocre marketing, applications, layouts, and clothing. There is so much boring and safe and “meh” out there right now that you wouldn’t be at fault for assuming most of what you haven’t seen is the same.

But, you see, the web has turned that around in a huge way. Sure, I can get bogged down in LOLcatz and “viral advertisements” but I can also very easily find incredible writers, brilliant artists, unbelievable filmmakers, and unforgettable emcees. Blow off that light, thick, airy layer of fluff and below you’ll find people and groups and output that can blow your mind. This stuff doesn’t immediately rise straight to the top but it gets the attention it deserves and the fans it requires.

So go ahead and be mediocre on the web, you’ll be in good company but don’t think for one second you’re fooling anyone.

“Intoxicated by Possibility”

When I first saw this, my reaction was “yeah, that’s me” in the sense of “how amazing is all this possibility?” Then I took a step back and wondered if the connotation was 100% positive.

See, Intoxicatin can be a great thing. Being in love is like being intoxicated. I’ve been intoxicated listening to incredible music and I’ve been intoxicated looking at a spectacular vista. I also love 10% Belgian beer and that brings about a bit of intoxication as well.

Possibility is shorthand for “the American Dream,” at least as it’s told in a historic sense. Possibility means freedom and choice, the ability to choose your own destiny… or at least just pick where to eat. If anything is possible then the best in life is right within your reach.

So, intoxicated by possibility could mean a state of rapture where the world is yours for the taking. Sounds positively dreamy!

But what about DWI, isn’t that intoxication? What about alcoholism? What about loss of control, declining personal health, and loss of productivity? And what about having too much possibility, too much choice? Hasn’t the grocery store become nearly overwhelming? Studies also show that people faced with too many choices simply won’t make a choice.

Faced with two interpretations of this cartoon, I split the difference. I think the intoxication comes from the gray area between the pleasure of having the freedom to choose and the bewilderment that comes from having too many options to consider. Having the ability to make web sites and connect pieces on the web is more fun than I would have originally though but it comes with a serious downside: what the hell am I supposed to do now?

You see, I have more ideas for web apps, start-up businesses, and online services than I could materialize in 10 lifetimes. Having all these choices is great but it leads to a very palpable feeling of being stuck. With so many things to do, all of them (potentially) commercially viable (IMHO) and even enjoyable to complete, where do you start?

The possibility is great but the intoxication is a little hard to handle at times. Thankfully, I’m a few decades away from the hangover.

Thanks, Hugh

Hugh has inspired me for a few years now and I’m guessing he’s got many more in him. If you’re reading this, I want to say thanks and you’ll see my print order just as soon as I can make up my mind.

"mediocrity now howls in protest" by Hugh MacLeod

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In an effort to help the content managers for SocialMediaToday.com (and sister sites), I came up with this quick guide to using GA. I believe that content managers should be able to answer 5 basic questions on a weekly basis. Additionally, if you own a content site but do not directly manage the content, this will give you a good sense of how “well” your site is doing (depending on the goals you have for the site). Please note that this information works for any analytics program though the screen names will, of course, be different.

First steps

The first few steps (after setting up Google Analytics on your site, of course) are:

1. Log into GA
2. Click the blue “Access Analytics” button
3. Select the account you want to view (click on the name)
4. Clicking “view report” next to the domain you want to view
5. You are now at the Dashboard screen which is referenced below. Default date range, FYI, is one month.

1) What is the trend on the site this month? This quarter? This year?

Each site has its own unique set of goals to accomplish and one key component to many of those goals is increasing “traffic.” Traffic can be defined many different ways but here I’m talking about visits (people coming to the site and clicking around) and pageviews (the actual number of web pages viewed). Increasing visitors is just a matter of getting more people to the site. Increasing pageviews is tied to visitors but can also be improved by helping the existing visitors to view more content.

Are overall visitors increasing month over month?

Dashboard (Visits): There are two ways to see progress since last month for visitors:

1. Change the date range to two or more months
2. Select “Compare to past” (pro tip: make sure that the current date range and the past date range start and finish on the same day of the week)

Are overall pageviews increasing month after month?

Visitors > Pageviews: Same as above, look over a long time period to add some context to what you’re looking at.

2) What content works?

This is the most difficult to quantify (and qualify) and one of the most important things you can try to understand. Where possible, look for emerging trends, sticky content, long-tail success, and trends to tell you what to publish in the future. You’re looking for key words that bring in search traffic, articles that bring in social media love, and pages that just perform better than others.

What are the top keywords?

Traffic sources > Keywords: This tells you what words and phrases are bringing people to your site through search engines. Have a top performer? Make sure that page is SEO perfect for that phrase to keep your ranking. Have a few slouches that still show up on the list? Improve the SEO structure and look for similar phrases that might work for that page.

What are the top stories?

Content > Top Content: This is a great place to see what content has been doing well over time. Look for the big winners and, using the drop-down at the top, figure out where that traffic came from. What you’re looking for is the source of that page’s success and how it relates to your other page. (pro tip: Are your top pages optimized to get people to where they want to go? If not, you’re missing out on potential sales/leads/revenue).

3) Where does the traffic come from?

Understanding the source of your site traffic can help you find good incoming links, possible collaborations, interesting trends, and good/bad publicity. The information here is, for the most part, value-neutral unless you’re working to increase a particular segment. Some sites have a good mix of sources and some are heavily weighted towards one in particular. The important thing is understanding where you have an influence and where you don’t (though that’s beyond the scope of this post).

Where does my traffic come from?

Traffic Sources > All Sources: This being a pie chart and all, remember that one segment going down means another went up. Again, this is mostly value-neutral but if one piece of the pie is 10% or less, you probably have a problem.

What sites are sending traffic?

Traffic Sources > Referring sites: This is a good way to keep an eye out for new and interesting sources. You’ll likely recognize most of the domains here but for the ones you don’t click the jump-off icon and explore. Did someone link to you? Make sure to thank them.

4) Any anomalies?

Anomalies are defined here as sudden spikes or dips in traffic. Spikes can come from marketing efforts, incoming links from popular sites, or extra-sticky content. Dips can come from an on-site technical issue, search engine penalty, or a broken automated process.

Are there any spikes/dips in traffic?

Dashboard (Visits) and Traffic Sources > All Sources: First, take a look at your visits for the last month or so on the Dashboard. If you see a big spike on a particular date, go to Traffic Sources > All Sources and set your date range from the day of the spike to a couple of days after and take a look at the sources. You should be able to see where it all came from.

5) Are my efforts paying off?

Manual promotion efforts should be tagged with 3 UTM codes at the end of the URL to make tracking what you’re doing much easier. Understanding how much effort you put into certain tasks and the return, in terms of traffic, of these tasks is key to figuring out your best use of time.

What promotions are working?

Traffic Sources > All Sources: Again, we’re going to take a look at what sites are sending traffic. Did you start a Facebook page? Then you should see an increase in traffic coming from facebook.com and similar (pro tip: scroll to the bottom of the All Sources page and type part of the domain name you’re looking for in the “filter source/medium” field and click “go.” Viola!). Set up a banner ad somewhere? There should be traffic coming from that domain.

Advanced: what promotions are working?

Traffic sources > Campaigns: This takes advantage of GA’s campaign tracking function (explained a bit here). If you’re doing manual promotions, banner advertisements, or SEM or any kind (like AdWords), you should be tracking your success (fingers crossed) with campaign codes. Once they’re tracked, you can easily see what’s working and what isn’t.

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Two kinds of typos

To be clear, I’m only speaking about one kind of typo here as there are two types:

1. Typos that cause problems
2. Typos that don’t cause problems

A misspelled word in your blog post, content page, or email probably isn’t going to cause a problem. What will cause a problem is a typo in a link, file structure, or code file. Additional problem-causers:

• Misspelled names (people hate that)
• Misspelled URLs (people hate that too)
• Misspelled word in headlines (might not cause a problem but it’s a big typo, literally, so it’s extra embarrassing)
• Incorrect date on a publication

A new name for a problem-causing typo: the F*CKING Typo

I’m calling that first type of typo above a “F*cking Typo” because that’s what you say when an hour of problem-solving leads you to a missing letter. It’s also what you say when someone publicly corrects your painfully obvious error.

The best solution: a reminder

To help myself cut way down on F*cking Typos, I’ve made myself a reminder that I printed and placed on my monitor. It occurred to me that everyone needs this kind of reminder so I’m offering it to you, completely free of charge, in two formats: the original version, vulgarity in tact, and a more PC, office version with an asterisk replacing a key vowel. Print, choose, cut, and tape it to your monitor.

Download the F*cking Typo reminder [PDF]

That said…I’m only human

The lamest excuse someone could give for making a dumb mistake is “it’s complex!” Working on the web is, in fact, complicated, but the reason errors are made is that humans are fallible and perfection is impossible. Ask anyone who has written a book and they’ll tell you they found typos even on the hundredth time they read the final draft.

I try hard to get things right the first time but it always helps to have a second (third, fourth) pair of eyes so I’m not embarrassed to submit (mock or proof) pages with a few errors. In my mind, I’d rather get it to you quickly and correct errors on the second round than spend an inordinate amount of time looking for slip-ups.

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In order to fix the leaky pipe, get the car to start, or, in my case, remedy an ailing website, you have to give someone the keys and stand back. We, the service providers, have to get up close and personal with the inner workings of your house/car/website/life to correct the problem. It’s this unintentional close examination of what’s broken and the surrounding area that can tell a distinct story to the people who want to listen.

This idea of service provider intimacy isn’t new (is anything anymore?) but the point was made very clear to me recently.

Greatness up close

I recently traded cash and time to a friend who creates amazing art with aerosol paint (the piece above). One of the things he asked me to do was to trace a few of his sketches and convert them to vector format.

I’m still honing my pen tool skills in Adobe Illustrator so I was glad to have the practice but, for the most part, this is a tedious job. What I didn’t expect, though, was just how incredible it was to see the lines and shapes that make up his work.

It wasn’t until I got into the groove on the second drawing that I started to look beyond just the vector lines over scanned pencil and see what made each piece so beautiful and natural. Pose2 has this amazing ability to create very organic drawings and paintings in any medium he chooses.

The job went from something I was doing for trade to something I was honored to have a part in. The vector files are going to be turned into jewelry so they had to be “corrected” to make sure they could be cut out of metal. I found it very difficult to correct anything on these pieces because the first pass, the pencil drawings, were so gorgeous.

The care, skill, and mastery that Pose puts into his art is the same kind of love and expertise that some people put into their business. I realized, adding anchor points and stretching curves, that I have this kind of relationship with every individual and business that I work with and it’s easy to see when people care about what they do, who they work with, and who they serve.

What it takes

You see, I know all about greatness because I exude it every second of every day. Well, maybe not every second. What I do have is the knack for recognizing it in others, even when I’m not doing it myself.

Look closely, you can see a level of care and skill in the way great people conduct themselves:

• What they say is kind, honest, and conversational. You can see this in their email, on their website, and in their social interactions online.
• They are anxious to learn more, even if it threatens what they already know.
• They are more scared of staying the same thing than they are of changing, growing, and improving.
• Their output is not always perfect but it shines in a very unique way.
• Knowing them and interacting with them makes you want to improve what you do and who you are (thanks Stephanie!)

The opposite of greatness

If greatness is expressed through the actions I listed above, then what does the opposite look like?

• A pattern of dishonest, negative, or unnatural communication
• Desperation to hold on to entrenched truths at the cost of expansion and growth
• A fear of change and experimentation, even if the current methods are not working
• Output is cold, templated, unoriginal, and safe.
• Their presence hardens your own thoughts on the world, particularly things you already know to be false

How are you great?

I want to know, how are you great? How do you recognize greatness in others? How do you find and retain great people in your life?

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"mediocrity now howls in protest" by Hugh MacLeod

Without sounding overly simplistic, I think there are 3 types of businesses on the web, each with their own web philosophy:

1. Ones that try to milk or exploit the web (think spammers, Zynga, the “make millions on Google” crowd). These people aren’t always dirtbags nor are they breaking the law but they’re looking to take everything they can get without giving much back.
2. Ones that just see the web as another medium to conduct business. Decisions on the web are made the same way any other decision in the business is made. Should we change our health care provider? Should we move our office to another city? Should we invest time in a Facebook page?
3. Ones that have a sincere passion for the web and what it can do for people. These are people who contribute valuable work to open source projects, manage vibrant communities of people, and write about these things because they can’t help themselves.

I whole-heartedly fall into the third category; I love the web and everything it can do. I’ve been using this crazy conglomeration of pipes and nodes since its birth and have been contributing and building for at least 5 years in various capacities. The breadth and depth of humanity expressed on the web never ceases to impress me and I’m proud to be a part of this amazing global community by giving where I can and helping others do the same.

Being a designer/developer, I have a unique perspective on the web compared to other small businesses. I know what it looks like under the hood and can tell the difference between a Yugo and a Lexus. I know what works most of the time, what doesn’t work any of the time, and what needs to be explored and tested before putting it in place. I’ve also worked with many different businesses in many different industries and can appreciate different needs and approaches.

I took a hard look at what I’ve learned about being on the web and wanted to share my complete web philosophy. If you’re reading this on my site, I invite you to add your own pieces here or address anything I’ve said here in the comments. I’d always rather have a conversation than a broadcast.

1) Look for the path of least resistance

The best way to build something on the web is rarely the most expensive and never the most complicated. If it seems insurmountable then you haven’t done enough exploring. Every great developer will tell you that their most valuable tool is Google. I’ve found solutions to problems I didn’t even have, saved them, and found a use a year later. Finding the path of least resistance is simple with a few questions:

• Does what you want to make already exist? This is for anyone with a web-based business idea that revolves around a tool or a site. If you think you have a great idea for a productivity tool or a web application, it’s time to do some major research on what’s out there. If it doesn’t exist, are you looking hard enough?
• If so, are you sure you’re not the only one who would use it? It might be hard to be objective about a great idea you came up with so ask around and make sure that what you want to make actually needs to be made.
• If it does exist, does it need improvement? If so, does it need major improvement? Breaking into a segment with existing products is going to be tough if what you’re offering isn’t a big jump ahead of what is there. If your potential competition is open source, can you contribute instead of starting something new?
• If it kind of exists or exists in a partial form, can you extend or customize what’s there already? If you want to build a site with a lot of different features and functionality, you’ll need a starting point. Custom-built software starts around $20,000 and can easily cost 10 times as much depending on what you want to do. Check out Drupal, WordPress, Ning, Facebook, PHPBB, Joomla, Magento, and KickApps.
• For those looking to sell products on-line, who is your competition? If you want to sell shoes on-line you’re going to be contending with a big dog, Zappos, so you better be offering something very unique. If fact, that advice goes for anyone wanting to sell anything on the web. If you’re not standing out in some big way, you’re wasting your time.

2) Have a goal in mind

This is the first thing I ask everyone I start working for: what is your goal with your web presence? For many, this seems like such an obvious question but there is usually more than meets the eye.

If, for example, you’re a dentist, you might want a site for people to read about your practice and call you to set up an appointment. Sounds pretty normal but is it really a phone call you want or would you rather have an email with a bit of information? Are you looking to increase the number of appointments or improve the quality of your inquiries? Are there common questions people have about a service you provide?

Being clear about why your site should exist makes every decision down the road a matter of returning to your goal. If a feature or function doesn’t support what your goal, don’t implement it. Having a fun, exciting, pretty site is great but if it makes it harder for people to buy your product or contact you then you’re doing everyone a disservice. Be clear about what you want to do so you don’t buy yourself into non-performing site.

This speaks mostly to business websites, i.e. one that promotes a product or service but the same idea goes for community and informative sites. Even if you’re not selling anything your site still has a function to perform. If you’re providing information, then your structure should be simple and well-thought-out. If you’re building a social site then it needs to be easy to sign up, get started, and contribute. If you’re promoting a cause then you need to make your message clear and give people easy ways to take the next step (donate, volunteer, sign up for more information). Don’t fool yourself: every site has a goal.

3) Always consider performance

The more I construct on the web, the more I understand how important this piece of the puzzle is. I was tempted to put this first since it is so often overlooked but making something work well isn’t going to help you if you’re building for the wrong reason and don’t have a goal in mind. Also, a great idea with a well-designed but poorly-performing site can be corrected.

I see three major components to web performance. These are measurable and correctable and can make the difference between success and failure.

1) Page load speed – This is the low-hanging fruit of most sites. I’d estimate that 90% of the sites I come into contact with could have their loading speed improved (mine included but it’s in the upper percentile :) ). A faster site has been proven to increase the number of pages a visitor views (people are more likely to click around and stay on a site that moves quickly) and increase the likelihood someone will share a site with others.

Page loading speed comes down to how many things you’re loading on your page and how large those things are. The less your load, the faster the page. Keep your code small and combined into as few files as possible, optimize your images in an image editor like GIMP or Photoshop, and load as few external scripts (like share buttons and widgets) as possible and you’ll be in good shape. If you need an analysis of what can be done on your site, contact me.

2) Search engine optimization (SEO) - Another piece of web site performance is how well it’s constructed for search engines. On average, about a third of your traffic should be coming from search engines (more if you’re a content-based site like mine). If you’re under 20% then something might be wrong and you may need an analysis.

SEO is a set of rules dictating how a site needs to be structured to allow the search engine spiders to do their job. It’s also a strategy that comes from picking the right words in that structure and content to appear as high as possible on the results pages. Though there are outstanding questions on the finer points, there are also agreed-upon standards and it would behoove a business owner to understand the basics.

3) Conversion rate - I’m talking more and more about this as time goes on because I believe it to be the most important metric for any site that’s selling something. Your conversion rate, put simply, is the number of people who do what you want them to do (buy something, sign up, submit a contact form) divided by the number of unique visitors to your site. If I get 10 contacts a month and I have 1000 unique visitors then I’ve got a 1% conversion rate.

It’s really tough to say what a conversion rate should be and how, precisely, it should be calculated; it’s different for every site. What is universal, however, is having a sense of what your rate is and where you’re potentially going wrong. Conversion rate problems I’ve seen very typically come from an unclear path to the goal, convoluted verbiage leading to a confused user, and too many steps to take to reach the goal.

A final note on site performance. While it’s something that needs to be an important part of a site’s initial build, your performance, particularly in the areas of SEO and conversion, need to be monitored and re-visited. People change over time and so does what you offer. Collect data and watch the patterns and you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve with what you already have.

4) Put your best foot forward

If you’re talking to a designer, this is the only thing that matters. If you’re talking to a developer, this doesn’t really matter very much at all. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between. Aesthetics are, for the most part, relative though there are a few general rules to good design that should always be considered (alignment, grouping, negative space, and balance to name a few). That being said, there are some important things you can do to put your best foot forward on the web. These rules apply to everything from your Facebook page that you have fairly minimal control over to your own site that has few limitations.

1) Check your spelling and grammar. The web is rife with juvenile spelling and painful grammar errors (just look at all the pages devoted to calling them out). Because much of the web is informal communication, it isn’t efficient to spend a lot of time editing and proofing your blog comments, Facebook status messages, and you IM messages. But, on the important stuff, an obvious error could turn off potential customers, employers, or connections. Marketing content, slogans, emails … re-read at least once before sending and you’ll put forth a much more professional air.

2) Check your pages thoroughly for errors. It seems like the web just wants to break. As entropy in the world increases, so do the number of broken links, server errors, missing images, and layout problems. Finding an fixing errors on a web page, unless your a complete nerd like me, is tedious and feels unrewarding but it’s a very important part of upkeep. Click around your site on a regular basis looking for text that shouldn’t be there, missing page titles, broken links, and embedded code that doesn’t work. There are also tools to help you like Xenu for broken links and missing images.

3) Pay a WEB designer. This shouldn’t sound too strange from a designer but it’s a rule even I follow for certain projects. Design is unlike many other disciplines in that it seems like anyone can do it. In fact, anyone can do it since Photoshop and Illustrator don’t require a license to use. What some people fail to understand is how much work actually goes into a professional design. Designing for the web takes into account human interaction guidelines, information architecture, business goals, branding conerns, performance, eye movement, and so much more. Before you call your nephew in high school who just took a digital art class, talk to a professional designer about your project and what it would entail. You’ll thank me later.

4) It needs to look good to you. I say this knowing some people have a very strange idea of what looks good and what does not. I’m of the belief that there is always a sweet spot that can be found between someone’s person taste and a designer’s eye. This sweet spot can be exceedingly hard to find, so much so that there is usually some compromise. If you hire a designer (I should say “when”), take their advice but make sure you feel good about what they made. A web site is your face to the world and you should feel proud to show it off. Bonus tip: ask in the beginning of the process how many revisions are allowed.

Am I missing anything? I welcome your feedback and insight in the comments below.

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A little internet research, typically the cure for any random issue you can’t seem to explain on your own, did not do much to allay our fears that something – something terrible – was happening. There were a few anecdotal reports of traffic drops but I could not find anything that allayed our fear. We crossed our fingers, took some time off, and hoped for the best.

Turns out that the significant down-turn cleared itself up by the first non-holiday week in January. Here are the visitor graphs to illustrate:

As you can see, the sites saw a big dip in traffic that came on slowly and recouped immediately after the last holiday weekend. We were quite relieved.

But, still, there was the question of how to potentially prevent this problem in the future. I wanted to figure out if there was some kind of obvious pattern that this dip was following so I looked at the traffic sources for one of the sites (the last graph above). It confirmed my suspicion that we were just seeing an overall decrease in web use:

Visitors from direct traffic

Visitors from referring sites

Visitors from search engines

The fact that the drop was across all three (actually four; our campaigns showed a similar pattern) was bittersweet. Sure, we weren’t doing anything wrong or suffering some sort of Google penalty but there also wasn’t any obvious recourse. We were prepared for next year with an explanation but not a way out.

I read a Chris Brogan article (or was it a video? I’d link to it if I could find it again) that made me feel bad (which is rare) but I got his point. He said that everyone slows down around the holidays so that’s the best time to kick ass and take names. While everyone drinks and eats and gets their merry on, he’s making videos, writing blog posts, and generally crushing it. I felt bad because I think I watched/read on vacation.

Point being, we slow down during the holidays and we should slow down if we need to. Incoming content slows down, traffic decreases, people spend time away from the glowing screen. This is a good thing from a human standpoint but is there a way to mitigate it? I see a few options:

• If possible, start tuning your content towards the people that are active on the web at this time: shoppers and the researchers/media that follows them. I see so many “what I’m thankful for posts” and that’s cute but I’m not motivated to read that at all. What I do want to know is where the good deals are. For a blog about business finance or social CRM, this just doesn’t make sense. But what about retail spending analysis? Improving online sales? Bumping up customer service during these months? The people that are producing are dying for timely content and the holiday season makes it too easy.
• Another option is a holiday-specific event like a webinar or conference. The problem here is that your general attendance might be low so the return on the time invested may not be worth it. If it’s vital to keep those numbers up, it needs to be done.
• The last option is to accept the hit and concentrate on other things. Let go of a few things and concentrate on cleaning up broken links, old site sections, social networks you’re not using. Change the pace and the focus to switch things up and give yourself a break from the usual. Catch up on your RSS feed and leave several comments across the ‘sphere.

In the end, if you’re starving for work, you can find it. Just make sure you understand the limitations of the season and set your expectations accordingly.

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But, like always, reality stepped in fairly quickly and reminded me that the days between showers are unpleasant, coffee shops are expensive, and working from home has some subtle pitfalls that make it much less of a paradise than one might expect. Since my month (or two) of adjustment, I’ve learned what makes me a happy, successful, home-based cog and what can turn me into a grumpy, malnourished, pain in the ass. Some of it is attitude but a good portion comes from the right tools for the job.

Desktop and Web-Based Software I Use and Love

Certain people and companies deign to describe productivity nirvana through a perfect app. I’ve tried many, many of these incredible apps and have found about a 5% retention and success rate. That means 19 of 20 things I think will help don’t help and only get used a few times. A few, however, have stuck around for whatever reason.

InstantBoss: I would call this a critical addition to the tool belt and it’s why I’m listing it first. InstantBoss is a very simple Windows application that allows you to set working and break time spans so you have something to remind you to shift your eyes and get off your butt. I set 15 minutes of work with 2 minute breaks and make sure I stand up and walk away for that time. The best thing to do is to drink some water and do a quick set or two of a good compound exercise (see below). It might not seem like much but it truly makes the difference between a good day and a bad one for me.

Gmail, Gdocs, Wave: Yes, Wave. The Google Apps suite is something I just couldn’t do without. Honestly, it’s mostly Gmail and Gdocs but Wave is really helping me in a number of ways. I’m not going to go into too much detail since I’m probably preaching to the choir but I’ll say this: if you’ve never tried Gmail before, give it a shot. it really takes email to a new level.

Dropbox: To me, this is another one of those no-brainers. Dropbox is 2 gigabytes of data that you can put on any computer. Install it on two computers and they each share a file folder that stays synced. You can also access your files from their website. And that’s all it does. But, man, it does it well. I’ve never had a problem with their software and it’s never slowed my internet connection down. I love Dropbox, period. I even wrote about it already.

iTunes and Pandora: Between iTunes radio and Pandora, I’m always listening to something high-energy and potentially annoying to my non-existent cube-mates. I used to use Pandora exclusively but when they started to limit listening to 40 hours per month, I had to switch back to iTunes every now and then. Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with their pricing structure, in fact I was considering paying for the premium version. What happened, though, is that I discovered a whole new host of stations on iTunes (Beat Basement being one of them) that blew away what I was hearing on Pandora. As smart as Pandora is, it’s still algorithm controlled and tends to revert back to the same songs. I still use Pandora every now and again, but iTunes really takes the streaming cake for me.

Keepass: KeePass stores and organizes all of your passwords in one place. it’s very secure and open source so there are developers creating plugins and add-ons. I just use the regular install and it makes my life much easier. I have a whole slew of client logins, passwords, and other information that I can’t just keep on a stack of post-it notes. I put everything into KeePass and just need to log in with one password when I need any of them. Joy. Combine it with Dropbox and your passwords can be synced across multiple computers.

FeedDemon: This is an interesting little RSS feed organizer that I started using a few months back. The one thing that caught my eye is that it plugs into Google Reader so there is a “cloud backup” of sorts. It also means you don’t have to install it everywhere so you can still use Reader on your laptop or phone and everything will stay copacetic. Feeds are easy to read, it has a built-in browser, and it’s fast and bug free (in my experience). Freeware gold.

Desktop Software I Still Use But Hate

So those are the applications that are a pleasure to use and make my life better. There are, however, a few that I use that I would love to just get rid of. Each one holds a special, dark place in my heart.

TweetDeck: My problem with Tweetdeck is not really the software itself (or the “why did we need this platform” Adobe Air it’s built on) but how easy it can fritter away a day. With enough followers (probably a few hundred will do), you have a constant, urgent steam of signals and noise (mostly the latter) that can distract you almost immediately. I use Twitter and I love Twitter but Tweetdeck makes it too easy.

Skype: Skype is the opposite of Tweetdeck in that it’s an application I hate which does things that I need to do. I really, really don’t like Skype for a number of reasons. Skype is the only IM client that I’ve ever used that I get real-time spam through which, to me, is quite disconcerting. Skype has the most annoying Fisher-Price interface I’ve ever had the displeasure of using (though the sounds are mostly pleasant), an interface that’s changed at least twice since I’ve started using it and has not improved even incrementally. Skype’s telephone function (dialing, sending tones, etc) does what it wants, sends the tones it sees fit, and only lets you use the num pad when it wants you to. If I could use something other than Skype, I’d do it in a second but taking calls through my computer is essential (audio quality is actually pretty damn good) and everyone seems to be on there so, what can I do?

Adobe Creative Suite 3: Adobe had been on my bad side since they took 2 weeks to tell me via an (automated sounding) email that they wouldn’t help me with my Illustrator problem because they had already moved on to a new version. I’m one of probably 20% of people using their product that actually PAID for it rather than downloading it but apparently I should have already bought CS4. Their knowledge base moved around causing 404 not found pages from Google and their product decides not to work at really inconvenient occasions. Their products do amazing things, I’ll give them that, but when I heard Steve Jobs call them lazy, I found myself smiling and nodding. You can’t be at the top forever.

Hardware That I Use and Love

So, we covered all the applications that make my life better, how about the physical stuff?

Good mic + speakers: I got a new set of Altec speakers and an inexpensive Logitech microphone (both are Amazon referral links) for Christmas and I’m kicking myself for not upgrading long ago. The music I listen to is fairly bass-heavy and typical all-in-one speakers were not doing the job. As for my VOIP set-up, I was using speakers but had a headset around my neck that I just used the microphone on. Classy. With the desktop mic, people can hear me clearly, I have a big, light-up mute button right in front of my for sneezes and profanity, and voices come through clear as day. All this for under $70.

Weights: Exercise, you need exercise. Well, I sure as hell need exercise and if you’ve made it this far, you probably need it too. I have a set of Powerblocks (another referral link) that I got a while ago and they do the job very well. I stick to mostly compound exercises (several muscle groups at once) and, because these don’t get really heavy, go 8 to 12 reps on what ever I do. Check this site out if you need some help coming up with good dumbbell exercises.

Good chair (see above): Who knew that spending 12 hours a day in a chair would require something more than a creaky, armless IKEA chair? I was using a fairly nice one before, actually, but it was over a decade old and started to lean the bottom pad forward so I always felt like I was going to slip off of it onto the floor. I picked-up an Aeron last year and have been very happy with it. It’s one thing to be supported properly but my main concern was ventilation. I was used to an air-conditioned office and now I found myself in a non-insulated office facing west with very fickle breeze. The mesh back and bottom of this chair was a very nice change of pace (read: temperature) which I highly recommend.

iPod + Nike+ (you know the drill): Uh oh, starting to sound like an advertisement all-of-the-sudden. Still, what can I say? Some companies make great product. For the most part, since learning about their use of child labor long ago, I’ve been a Nike boycotter. Not the type to stop people at the store, just the type to vote with my wallet like everyone should. Recently, I tried to find out whether they had absolved themselves and moved on but wasn’t able to see anything concrete. In the absence of evidence, I remain an abstainer… except in the case of the Nike+. when I was able to run (damn knee), this little thing really motivated me and gave me the data I needed to see how I was progressing. It was, and still is, very addicting to see your distance increase, your pace improve, and your goals get tracked. It also seems to call my name in the middle of the day… like “hey, buddy, there’s a new This American Life podcast and it’s sunny outside. What say we take a break and get some air.” That’s a good friend.

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The whole review landscape has changed for the better lately. What used to be just lazy one-liners have turned into a type of creative outlet for people with something to say about the things they consume. The more I research the more I find people taking their own time to really give back to people they’ll never meet. Also, with the proliferation of Twitter and Facebook connect, reviews have gone social. Reviews have gone from an anonymous thumbs-up to a network-wide recommendation.

It’s easy to forget that this valuable information comes from real people taking their own precious time to construct helpful and sometimes very creative reviews to help others avoid pitfalls and find the best [insert anything here] available. There are people out there with nothing better to do, that’s true, but so many reviews (mine included) come from a strong desire to give back to a community that caused the discovery of something great. It’s more about community than ego, more about making sure this system stays healthy than just quenching boredom.

So I’m here to remind you in the nicest way possible to get out there and write reviews about the stores and products you can’t live without and the ones you want to annihilate.

Write a Review to Help Out a Buyer

There are a disturbing number of options out there just waiting for our approval (watch this great TED talk about how the massive proliferation of choice has actually made us less happy). There are a million meal choices, thousands of different car models and configurations, and hundreds of individual options for each consumer good we decide to consume. Honestly, there are too many choices to make.

Take, for example, buying a printer. First, you have to decide how you’re using the printer. That will help you determine how the image should get on the paper. Now, do you need color? For photos? Do you need to scan as well? How about faxes? How fast should it print? How many ink cartridges? Do you have a brand preference? Is size important? Do you need wireless? At every turn you’re faced with a cacophony of pros and cons making you feel less and less capable of making a simple decision for yourself.

Here’s where product reviews come in. Pick what you have to have, choose a price range, and pick the best rated model. If you don’t have as much trust in an anonymous community of people as I do, this, at the very least, can help you narrow down the choices. I certainly wouldn’t pick a printer that 10 people gave a 1 star rating, would you?

In order for this great system to work, we all have to give back. So…

1. For every product you buy before of user ratings, go back and review that product on the site you used. Even if there’s already 100 reviews, add one more.
2. If you’re head-over-heels, write a love letter. If not, just give it an appropriate number of stars, add a couple sentences of explanation, and leave it at that.
3. If you’re going to take the time to write something, explain your rating. Stars are great for the aggregate but it’s the comments that really help us all decide.

Write a Review to Help Out a Business

One of my prime motivators for writing reviews is the small business that I’m helping because of it. I’m all about giving back to the digital community but I love the idea of a small Thai restaurant or an auto body repair shop or a bar getting the credit it deserves because of something I said. Allow me to explain using two recent experiences.

At one favorite place looking at another

I drove way out east to eat at a Thai restaurant a few months back. It is called Thai Taste and it gets great reviews on Yelp. We had eaten at (and enjoyed) all the Thai places in our area and wanted to try something different so we went to Yelp. It was a longer drive than we’d usually make for a quick bite but the reviews compelled us. The place was almost totally empty but the woman who took our order was very friendly and the food was quick. I was talking to her while paying and told her that we came because of Yelp. Her face lit up and she told me how nice the people were on there and how it had driven a good amount of new business. She seemed so delighted and surprised that these strangers would say such nice things about her. The food was great and we’ve already been back again.

I’m selling my car to make way for the 2010 GTI being shipped to me from Germany (sorry, had to mention, I’m really psyched about it). A couple years of street parking had scuffed the bumpers up fairly bad and it needed a professional scrub-down. I found a place called Bumper King just by searching the area but needed more than just a website with pictures. I called and got an estimate but wanted to shop around a little. I went to Yelp to check him out and saw one good review from a returning customer. I also found a ton of great reviews on Google so I made the appointment. Not only was the owner about the nicest guy I’ve ever worked with, they came and picked up/dropped off my car two different times, were incredibly flexible about the times they came by, and did a fantastic job. I returned the favor by writing a great review on Yelp which caused someone to message me to tell me they were using him because of my review. This guy deserves all the business he can get.

Businesses are people too. Give back to the great ones…

1. Write your review as a sales pitch. You really are marketing on their behalf so make it count.
2. Assume that the business will read your review. Help them understand what was great and, more importantly, what could be improved. Even good reviews can include an improvement suggestion (if applicable).
3. Don’t be a troll. If you had a bad experience, write honestly about what happened and if it seemed like a one-off thing (poor service on a busy night, say), give them the benefit of the doubt.

If You Don’t Research Before Buying, You Should

With things like doing a search before asking a question and using on-line applications like Gmail to manage and backup your contacts I find it tough not to assume everyone just does it. Same thing goes for on-line research; I can’t make any move involving the exchange of currency without consulting The Oracle (read: Google). But not everyone does and I’m here to help so here are a few times.

• For consumer electronics, there is no better place to go for reviews (or, typically, prices) than Newegg.com. There is a core cabal of super-users, IT professionals, and gadget freaks that don’t hold anything back. If you’re in the market for a cell phone, a computer part, or a digital camera, this should be your first stop. If you’re still stuck after Newegg, try reviews.cnet.com or Amazon to augment.
• I mentioned Yelp but, for those not in the know, Yelp is the best place to find anything in your area. Want a great place to eat you’ve never heard of? New to an area and want to see the best stuff? Just can’t decide where to go? Start here. If you’re a business, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with starting your own page and asking your customers to post a review.
• For reviews on anything and everything else, try Amazon, they probably sell it, other people have probably bought it there, and some of those people probably left feedback about how it turned out.
• Looking to find the straight dope on a particular car, new or used? Try the Car Lounge forums at forums.thecarlounge.net. The on-site search function is not fantastic so the best way to find your answer is to use Google to search the site. On the top right, you’ll see a link “Google Search.” Click that and try a few queries like “2010 GTI” or “used Outback.” You’ll get a lot of results back unless you’re specific but it will be real-life information (combined with a little silliness and probably some arguing).
• Google seems to be compiling quite a bit of reviews these days which makes perfect sense since it’s where most people start when they’re looking for something. Whether it’s product reviews on the shopping site or local reviews on Google Maps, there’s plenty of information to be found and a lot of feedback out there. Watch out, though. Google doesn’t require you to have an account to place a review so I find them a bit thin at times and not always the most useful.

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But I’m not going to talk about increasing WordPress speed, I want to show you how to improve you page load speed by cutting down on the number of external scripts you’re loading on a particular page. We’re going to do this by hard-coding share buttons into your theme.

Share Buttons Work… In A Way

Share buttons on your post help your content reach a greater audience by creating easy channels to social networks. By placing a “share on Twitter” button or “post on Facebook” icon, you make it easy for readers to bring the page to their network and increase your traffic.

The problem with most of the share badges out there is that they load a Javascript file from an external source which can take several seconds on a bad day. Depending on where you placed the badge, your content could be held back while the script takes its time and your readers bail.

Javascript calls are an easy way for Facebook and StumbleUpon to put their links on your page but most networks also have a way to share through a URL. Just hand over the link to your page and, in some cases, a title and you’re presented with a simple form to complete and submit. Your content gets to the share site just as it would with the Javascript, sometimes even faster.

Adding Hard-Coded Share Buttons

All we need to do is display a nice icon and a link to the social network that includes a link back to your page. For my site, I made a few icons using badges I’ve found around the web which you’re welcome to download and use (please don’t link to mine, right-click, save-as, and upload for yourself).

The code for each site is very simple:

Twitter:
<a href=”http://twitter.com/home/?status=[[SHORT TITLE + SHORT LINK]]” title=”Post to Twitter”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/twitter-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

Plurk:
<a href=”http://plurk.com/?status=[[TITLE]] [[URL]]” title=”Post to Plurk”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/plurk-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

Delicious:
<a href=”http://delicious.com/post?url=[[URL]]&amp;title=[[TITLE]]” title=”Post to Delicious”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/delicious-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

Digg:
<a href=”http://digg.com/submit?url=[[URL]]&amp;title=[[TITLE]]” title=”Post to Digg”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/digg-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

Facebook:
<a href=”http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=[[URL]]&amp;t=[[TITLE]]” title=”Post to Facebook”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/facebook-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

MySpace (I think this is right but I don’t have a login to test it):
<a href=”http://www.myspace.com/Modules/PostTo/Pages/?l=3&amp;u=[[URL]]&amp;t=[[TITLE]]” title=”Post to MySpace”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/myspace-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

Ping.fm:
<a href=”http://ping.fm/ref/?method=microblog&amp;title=[[TITLE]]&amp;link=[[URL]]” title=”Post to Ping.fm”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/pingfm-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

StumbleUpon:
<a href=”http://stumbleupon.com/submit?url=[[URL]]&amp;title=[[TITLE]]” title=”Post to StumbleUpon”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/stumbleupon-icon.png” alt=”"/>
</a>

LinkedIn:

<a href=”http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&amp;url=[[URL]]&amp;title=[[TITLE]]&amp;source=[[DOMAIN]]” title=”Share on LinkedIn”>
<img src=”[[PATH TO IMAGE]]/linkedin-icon.png” alt=”"  />
</a>

Place these anywhere you’d like on a static page or in the WordPress theme file that controls single posts (typically single.php). You’re about halfway there but the next few steps differ depending on what platform your site uses.

Specific Steps for Static Sites

For each page that needs share links, you’ll need to paste the HTML above and replace replace everything with double square brackets with the information from the page.

1. Replace [[TITLE]] with a short description of the page
2. Replace [[URL]] with the direct link to the page
3. Replace [[PATH TO IMAGE]] with the direct path to the folder where your share icons are being stored. Also, make sure the image names here are the same ones you’re using.
4. If you’re using Twitter, replace [[SHORT TITLE + SHORT LINK]] with no more than 140 characters including a short description and a shortened URL (go to bit.ly to get a short URL). The savvy Twitter users bill include their Twitter handle and leave enough room for RTs.

Now load the page and test that the images appear and that each of the share links takes you to the right place.

Specific Steps for WordPress

What we’re going to do is use built-in WordPress functions to hand over the current URL and title to the links you created above. We need to replace everything with double square brackets above with functions that will automatically add the required info. Make sure to follow the next section if you’re using Twitter.

1. Replace [[TITLE]] with <?php the_title(); ?>
2. Replace [[URL]] with <?php the_permalink(); ?>
3. Replace [[PATH TO IMAGE]] with the direct path to the folder where your share icons are being stored. Also, make sure the image names here are the same ones you’re using.

If you’re using Twitter with WordPress

Sending the URL is simple for sites like Facebook and LinkedIn where the brevity of your message is not an issue but for Twitter we need to save characters where we can. Though a Bit.ly or Tr.im API call could handle shortening the URL for you, I prefer to create one before I post and add it as a custom field. This lets me track click-throughs for Twitter in one place (for me, on the bit.ly site). You’ll need to manually create a shortlink each time but, boo hoo, it takes 30 extra seconds.

First, we need to add a little snippet to grab the short URL and create a short title. After the loop starts…

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

…paste this…

<?php
$key = “shortlink”;
$shortlink = get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);
$shorttitle = urlencode(substr(the_title(), 0, 79));
?>

You now have two varibles, $shortlink and $shorttitle, that can be used when creating the HTML for the Twitter share badges. $shortlink is taken from the post (I’ll show you how to add it later) and $shorttitle is a shortened and URL-encoded version of the post title. These come together with your Twitter handle (below) to create a concise, complete Tweet. Now, just replace [[SHORT TITLE + SHORT LINK]] with…

RT%20@joshcanhelp%20<?php echo $shorttitle . ‘%20…%20′ . $shortlink; ?>

… and change “joshcanhelp” to your Twitter handle and you’re ready to go. What we’re doing is creating a tweet with the shortened title and URL that mentions your handle so you get Twitter credit.

When you create a post, you’ll need to create that shortened URL before publishing.

1. Click the Save Draft button on the top right, then the “View Post” link in the yellow bar that appears at the top.
2. Copy the URL out of the address bar and go to bit.ly (or similar).
3. Paste in the URL in the field and click Shorten (or similar). You’ll be given a short URL.
4. Copy this short URL and come back to your post  edit window. Scroll down to the bottom of your post to a section called “custom fields.”
5. Click Enter New and type in “shortlink” into the field that appears. Now, paste the shortened link into the field on the right.

Click add and you’re ready to rock & roll. Now load the single post and test that the images appear and that each of the share links takes you to the right place.

Edit: This was published and enjoyed on Smart Data Collective to the tune of over 600 views and 14 retweets. Some of you might be aware that I’m contracted by the company that manages that site but I have no sway over published content at all, FYI.

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In the summer of 2008 I was given the opportunity to learn from a very talented and enlightened individual, Daniel Hopkins aka Pose2. Pose is a graffiti artist with decades of experience in his craft and since taking his class, he has remained my teacher, became a good friend, got on with Josh Can Help as a client, and soon to become immortalized on my wall.

Pose travels around the world taking on projects, teaching people, and spreading knowledge. He also does amazing things for global communities like beautification projects and teaching kids how to express themselves artistically. This time, however, he’s taking on a very important issue in a way that only he can.

I’ll let him explain this inspiration:

One day as I was driving…I stopped at a traffic light and gazed into the eyes of a homeless man and my feelings related to what I saw. He was impoverished physically, mentally and spiritually; every aspect of him was wretched. I felt his pain, despair. I was attracted to his pain, but wanted to ignore him. I was drawn to his loneliness but wanted him to disappear. I just wanted this moment to end; I wanted his presence to stop reminding me that I was alone just like him! He needed help and I wanted to RESPOND but not with money. This time I felt something deeper, a connection. Yes, his sign, all I could focus on was his sign and suddenly the Artist in me awakened and I said to myself, him and his sign are one. Just like any other business the sign is the representation of the business, RIGHT?  I thought, what would happen if artists created  signs for the homeless? Big, bright colorful, energetic signs with empowering words?

Introducing RESPONSE ABILITY

My overall Goal for this project is to organize an army of Artist, world-wide to create and sell 144,000 signs for the homeless. The distribution and sales of these elaborately painted signs will take place on the walls of international Art Gallery’s. Each show will be a one night only engagement and each painted sign will sell for the maximum price of $50.00. Here’s where it gets interesting. Each person who purchases a piece of art is encouraged to give this gift of art to a homeless person!

This act of engagement is the fuel and intention behind this entire project. It begins with the homeless and their despair, the artists recognizes their condition and responds with these powerful signs. The Art Gallery’s provide the space to sell these signs. Then its up to us, we the people, to purchase these works of art and ultimately offer them as gifts, to the homeless.

Addressing a problem as big as homelessness takes more than just money, it takes love, compassion, and understanding. Pose2 wants artists across the world to express themselves for a greater good. Let’s come together as a community and address this real problem.

Calling Artists of All Types

We want artists to use their talent and passion to make a difference. If you’re ready to do something for a greater good, listen up:

• Each contributing artist will be asked to do up to 3 signs for the exhibit.
• Each sign should be elaborate in color and content.
• The content should be short, to the point and inspirational.
• Think about portability, legibility, and dignity.

Get your signs ready and contact Pose2 to submit your work:  Daniel.pose2fx (at) gmail.com or 619-278-1735. DUE DATE IS JANUARY 14TH.

Ready to Make a Difference?

We need everyone on this one. The vision is global but we must first start local. The first launching of this exhibition will take place on Saturday, Jan 16th, at Voz Alta Art Gallery, 1754 National Ave, San Diego, CA 92113.

Update: a few photos from the event:

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Why can’t I come up with an idea like that?

The insinuation here is that all of us are just one fantastic idea from fame and fortune. I believe this to be true. The more subtle insinuation here, however, is that it’s only the lack of a great idea that’s keeping us away from the success that is rightfully ours. This part is totally ridiculous.

Guess what…

Your ideas mean nothing.

I wrote a post about this before, about how an idea is only good as far as you’re willing to take it. The great (or crappy) ideas that remain in your head do no good (or bad) and just serve as an annoying reminder of your lack of time, motivation, or both. As such, the success that you’re apparently owed (I suspect this is a primarily American belief but have not gone far to prove it) isn’t being held hostage by a mental deficiency indicated by your lack of Golden Egg ideas, it is, in fact, just your lack of desire to make the idea happen. This is good news, I promise.

You see, ideas are merely step one of a one million step process and, as such, are just simple, albeit painful, indicators that your life is going to get harder and your free time will suffer a devastating loss. To most people (this off-hand majority calculation was formed by calculating how many people I know have had a great idea and acted on it to success or failure), this terrible beacon is just the scare they need to file the idea under “no thank you but I reserve the right to bitch about it when I see someone else do it.” This is a very common state of mind and it’s probably fine that way.

Your obsession means everything.

To some, this “idea as a starting gunshot” concept is familiar. It still marks a long road of hard work ending in potentially catastrophic failure but the fear that this causes is more closely related to a roller coaster than it is to a serial killer (with the understanding that some of us have similar issues with roller coasters as we do with serial killers). This fear becomes a challenge and our strong desire to meet this challenge comes in the form of obsession.

There’s more to idea-based success than just obsession but it’s the first thing you’ll want to look for when you’re evaluating the probability of your success. If you have an idea (any idea) and an obsession with making it a reality, the road ahead will be as clear as it possibly can be. Your task isn’t easy and your sucess anything but guaranteed but the car is packed, the tank is full, and the kids just started a movie. Pick a good route, stay alert, and stop regularly and you’ll have a nice trip.

Meet the insane idea.

The family road trip metaphor explains the majority of ideas that we get. These ideas are like, for example, a great new way to store vegetables or a unique content distribution method or a product to clean a dashboard. These ideas are helpful, address a pain point, find a gap in the market, and succeed or fail based on decisions made throughout the process.

But there’s another type of idea that plagues us. This idea is like a non-stop, 8 Red Bull marathon drive from San Diego to Miami. This idea might not seem so good at the start and might not be well thought out but it has a champion, the driver, that infects others with his enthusiasm. This is the insane idea.

This idea is so loud and so bright and so sudden that you forget about the hard work ahead and the obstacles in the way. All at once, the idea becomes monolithic: you can’t move it and you can’t get past it, the idea must be dealt with. You’re left powerless but ecstatic, happy to hand over the controls of your life to something ethereal and unsure but so promising. Your life as you’ve known it is over.

The insane idea is the great equalizer.

Whether you’re the type to file your ideas away or grind through each one methodically, you’re completely susceptible to the insane idea. All that differs is how you react to it.

The idea-filer’s primer to the insane idea.

The first thing you’ll notice is this strange tingling in what feels like the absolute center of your body. This is your obsession germinating like a bean sprout, touching very strange, metaphysical parts of you. It’s also the mark of your eventually complete loss of rationality. Don’t be alarmed.

Next comes frantic planning. We’re talking drawings, sketches, late-night to early morning typing, writing, and researching. The idea isn’t fully formed yet so it feels incomplete. You’ll add features and benefits and add-ons and bells and whistles. There’s no sense of how the idea will come together or if it is sound, just frenetic, unfocused activity.

At some point during this planning stage, you reach a stage that traps many, many people (for good reason). All this planning has brought you to where you need to actually take a step forward to make the idea happen. The problem is multifaceted: there are so many steps to take and so many ways to take each of them. If you had the domain experience to generate the idea, you’re probably missing the necessary business, marketing, and technological acumen to nuture this idea to maturity. Conversely, if you’ve got the goods in the acumen department, you’re probably missing the domain knowledge about the market you’re charging into headlong.

The decisions you make at this step plant the seeds for success or failure (remembering that your idea is a failure right up to when it succeeds). Read more than you think you can handle, discuss things with a broad range of people, and take advice from people who have been down this path before. Paramount to that, don’t make decisions until you have to and, when you do make them, follow through. Nothing will derail you faster than ignorance combined with indecision. Hang on tight.

The idea-farmer’s guide to the insane idea.

You’ll also notice the obsession germinating but it will feel more familiar to you, if maybe a bit stronger than you’re used to. You’ll go through the same planning phase (like you have many times before) and face the same multitude of decisions (like you always do). But you have a different problem to contend with.

Since you’re all “been there, done that,” you have a starting point, previous experience to draw upon, and your own advice to follow. The insane idea, however, doesn’t give a flying dingleberry about any of this. The idea has control of the car and you’re just in the back seat yelling impotent directions and fearing for your life.

What starts to become clear is that you’re not out of control, you’re just playing by a new set of rules. The idea at the wheel may not know how to drive but it shares a goal with you, the frightened passenger: to see the light of day.

So just stay calm, respect the maniac at the wheel, and enjoy the scenery. The idea has no directions and no map but it has a destination and it needs your help to get there. Your idea might change it’s mind, make a sudden turn, or hop on the wrong freeway and it’s your job to remind it of where you’re both headed and guide it back on track. Remember the lessons you’ve already learned but also remember that the rules have changed. Hang on tight.

Bonus section about me: Insane ideas make life worth living

Sidenote: I’ve noticed that blog posts that talk about the author as the main character can come across, at best, as boring and, at worst, as terribly self-centered. As such, I’m trying to move relevant but non-essential personal information to the end of my posts so you can choose to just ignore it if you’d like. You’re welcome.

I consider myself, for the most part, an idea-farmer. I like good ideas and I typically know what to do when I get one: abandon it (see this great video with Ira Glass on abandoning ideas). I have have exponentially more ideas than I have time to implement them but, inexplicably, I’m always ready for another.

I’m currently working on a nice, normal good idea and my obsession with bringing it to fruition (along with a co-obsessor) is making sure it will see the light of day. This idea is fun and has become more of a hobby than a 3rd job.

I have, however, lived through two insane ideas, both of which were sudden, drastic career changes. I call them insane ideas because…

• I had no choice but to follow them through
• I had no idea what I was getting myself into
• My lack of experience did nothing to dissuade me from chasing after them with gusto

My insane ideas changed my life, twice. I consider myself lucky because both changes were very positive and both saved me from intense boredom, abject dissatisfaction, or worse. The first insane idea, to get a chemistry degree and work in sustainable transportation, was only good because it lead to the second insane idea, abandon most of my formal education to work on the web. They work in mysterious ways these ideas.

I’m always looking for people with insane ideas who either need a push forward (that part is free) or need hand-holding throughout (that part isn’t but let’s talk). There’s nothing I like more than exchanging ideas with motivated people. Maybe I’ll spark an insane idea or maybe I’ll talk you down… you never know until you ask!

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The most annoying part about using tracking codes, however, is creating the URL. You need to append at least two (and up to five) query strings to your URL to use this function in Analytics and making this happen while tracking what codes you’re actually using is frustrating enough to make you rethink this whole thing in the first place. Google provides a cute little tool to help you but it’s still a pain in the ass.

Google Docs to the rescue! Using similar code as my simple Google Docs CMS, I created a script that parses a spreadsheet full of tracking codes and turn them into usable URLs that you can then copy and paste. It makes it easy to keep track of the campaigns you have while quickly creating error-free URLs. See the Google Docs UTM appender in action.

Download the UTM URL builder (updated 8/31/2010)
What you’ll need:

1. The file from the big, green link above
2. A Google Docs account (it’s free, you can sign up here)
3. Access to a web server or a local host that can run a PHP program
4. A site using Google Analytics

Step 1 – Create a new Google Docs Spreadsheet

Easy enough… go to docs.google.com and log in. Click the Create New button on the top left and select “Spreadsheet.”

1. When the spreadsheet loads, look for a Share button on the top right. If it prompts you to save the document, type in a nice descriptive name, click OK, and click Share again.
2. In the menu that appears, select “Publish as a web page.”

1. Select “Sheet1″ from the top drop-down, then click Start Publishing.
2. Under “Get a link to the published data,” select “RSS” from the first drop down then click the Cells radio button.
3. In the text box at the bottom, you should have a URL like “http://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/cells/tFjKofPSUgX5PSPJhEuH7Dw/od6/public/basic?alt=rss.” Highlight the whole thing and copy it, then click Close on the window.

Step 2 – Add your Google Doc link to the script and upload

The config.txt file that this package comes with points to the URL of the feed that creates the sample page above. Simple open config.txt and paste the URL you got in Step 1 in between the quotes (replacing what’s there).

rss feed “[paste your feed here]“

If the link is correct, the script should be ready to display the Google Doc. Unless you have a server instance installed locally, you’ll need to upload this script to a public web server. If you have your own website, just upload this file to any public folder. If you’re confused, email your IT department or your tech-savvy niece/nephew.

Once the file is uploaded, you’ll want to test it out to make sure everything is working. Go to the file you uploaded (http://[your domain]/[the path to the folder you used]/link-append-util.php) and you should see “UTM coded URLs” at the top. If you see “Invalid feed!” then the link to the Google Doc was not made. Make sure the URL is correct and in between the tick marks after $feedName=.

Step 3 – Update your spreadsheet with the tracking codes

Once the script is functioning, you’re ready to input your URLs and tracking codes.

The spreadsheet needs to by laid out properly to make sure that the script can read and display the information in the right order. Here are the rules and you can see a sample of a functioning Google Doc here (it’s the one I use to create the example here).

• Cells A1, B1, C1, D1, and E1 will not be read by the script.
• Cells F1, G1, H1, and I1 determine the name of 4 additional custom references that can be added.
• Column A after row 1 is the name of the link. This can be anything.
• Column B needs to be a valid URL without pre-existing query strings (meaning that there can’t already be a “?” in it)
• Column C is your utm_source code
• Column D is your utm_medium code
• Column E is your utm_campaign code
• Columns F through I can be any other reference code you’d like. Again, the name will be taken from the column header. Leave these blank if you don’t want to use them

A few things to keep in mind:

• The source, medium, and campaign codes are required meaning that they are always pulled. If you leave one blank, it messes up the rest so make sure you always have a value in there. If enough people want to eliminate this requirement, I’m happy to offer an alternative, just comment below.
• If you’re not using the custom reference codes, you can leave them blank. If you are using them and each URL will have one, then you’re good to go. But if some URLs need one, others need another, make sure to put an “x” where you don’t need one. For example, if the first URL is using reference2 but not reference1 and the second URL is using reference1 but not reference2, make sure there is an “x” under reference1 for the first URL and under reference2 for the second. Hopefully that makes sense. Again, comment if you’re confused!

Step 4 – Reload the script and fire away

Once your codes are loaded, refresh the script and you’ll see them listed nicely in a row. In order for each one:

1. The first thing listed is the name from column A for that link.
2. Next you see “Paste into form field or if in doubt.” This is the not-validated version of the URL . This should work everywhere and is the safest choice. If you’re not sure what the hell I’m talking about, use this one. There is a “test it” link that tries it out.
3. Next is a field with the URL. Just click once to highlight, copy it, and paste it where you need it.
4. After that you’ll see “Paste into code.” Use this for HTML and PHP that is not validated (i.e. within an application file or static page).
5. The validated version of the URL appears in the text field. Click to highlight, etc.

Step 5 – Comment, Share, or Tweet if you like it!

That’s all I ask!

Please leave comments, questions, and suggestions below. I hope this saves you as much time as it save me!

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Having said that, it’s terribly easy to use email poorly. Email is a disconnected way of communicating which makes it tough to get just right. It’s also subject to abuse in so many ways.

Because email has been my primary method of communication over the last several years, I want to share with you a few things I’ve learned about communicating via email. I’ve learned these tips by making mistakes, hearing from other people, and just practicing over time. Hopefully I can help you like others have helped me before!

Note: though several of these apply to personal emails, I’m speaking generally about business email. I write long, pointless, unfocused emails to my mom and have no shame in admitting that.

Answer everything that is being asked

I’ll be honest: this one comes from a pressing desire to eliminate this vile habit in other people. There is nothing more frustrating than asking 4 questions and getting 2 answers back. Is the person mad? Are they avoiding the question? Did they forget? What the heck?

When I respond to a long email I type my reply first, then I read the original email I’m replying to a second time, then I re-read my own. I make sure each question asked has an answer and that I’m providing all the information needed for my recipient to make their next step. Emails are like meetings: unless you know what to do afterward, you’ve just wasted a bunch of time.

Use numbered bullet points to organize your questions/answers

Bullet points are the weapon of choice for web content writers the world over. There’s no better way to present several distinct, discrete pieces of information than a list of bullet points. They let you deal with each piece separately and make the document you’re producing much easier to scan.

Here are a few great ways to use bullet points:

• Assigning several distinct to do items (bonus points for numbers indicating priority or chronological order
• Providing multiple points of feedback
• Answering or asking several questions (again, numbers provide great context)

Also, don’t be scared of multi-sentence bullet points as long as each one is a distinct point. Bullet points can suffice for paragraphs if the separation between each idea is great enough.

Strike a balance between complete and succinct

When you’re a long email writer like I am, you regularly reach a point during composition where your instinct kicks in and you hear “hey, buddy, too long… seriously.” I probably hear this little voice more than most and try to be very cognizant of its warning. A too-long email is both inconsiderate (you’re asking someone to take their valuable time to digest your myriad words) and can lead to unnecessarily delayed replies (long message = long reply).

On the other hand, a too-short email can seem terse and incomplete. Striking a balance is tough but it’s just a matter of     saying what needs to be said and hitting send. Answer all that is asked, include all pertinent information, add enough niceties to indicate a good tone, and fire away.

Think about your subject line as a headline

I think I’m more cognizant of this than other people because of the number of emails that I write and because I use online forums a lot. Posting on a forum is like creating a tiny wiki entry: it’s easily findable by Google and it could be a very important piece of information for someone. As such, I try to be as descriptive as possible in my titles.

Email is the same for many people. Gmail’s organization is a combo of user-created labels and a strong search function. If the word I need is in the subject line, it’s much easier to find what I need. It also helps me know if I need to open the email right away (“SH*T! THE SITE IS DOWN!”) or I can wait (“Do you have some extra time on your hands?”).

Reply quickly

There’s one slight caveat here: don’t follow this rule if you hate communicating over email. As I mentioned before, I like emails, particularly for work requests. Because I want people to use email as much as possible, I try to reply as quickly as possible. This creates a great reason for people to send me an email next time they need something.

Besides that, it’s just a polite thing to do. When you wait 4 days to reply to an email you’re sending a distinct message: I don’t want to communicate with you (whether you mean it or not). If you’re too busy to reply completely to someone’s email, send a note setting expectations (“got your email and I’ll send you a complete reply soon”). This is better than leaving what amounts to a pregnant pause.

Mind your tone (or complete lack thereof)

I learned a very important lesson about email tone when I was about 23 years old. At the time, I was working as a corporate trainer for a large wireless company and was very green the whole management gig. A group of the new employees I was training had scheduled time off during the six-week long session and I was left making exceptions and changing the very strict schedule. Admittedly, I was pretty angry about the whole situation but I composed what I thought was a rational explanation and sent it to all the managers I worked with. As it turned out, it WASN’T a rational email and there was a subsequent price on my head for a few weeks thereafter.

It’s much easier to read an email in the tone which you intended rather than in the one that it could be taken. I use a very simple rule now: if there is even a chance in hell that I could be misinterpreted, I re-write it. Sarcasm is hard to detect, humor is tough to convey, and a misplaced sentence could easily change a neutral–sounding email into a thinly-veiled attack. When in doubt, delete and try again.

I hope these tips help you communicate a little better over this wonderful medium we know and love!

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I always like sharing my interactions with people here on my blog. Partly because it adds a really human side to my business and shows prospective clients that I’m more than just an email address. The main reason, though, is it creates a much deeper understanding for me when I write it all out and re-experience the conversation. Like many, I need to iterate to understand and it’s easy for me to forget an important insight I came across while interacting with someone else if I don’t work it through after the fact.

"network cables" by pascal.charest on Flickr

So, this is a “conversation” I had with someone about networking. By conversation I mean it was a transcript of a monologue on his side and an email reply on mine. Quotes are, for the most part, complete and without editing.

With all this networking going on by different business owners you would think we’d all be highly successful. The truth is I don’t think networking works at all, and if and when it does, it is in very few circumstances.

I think traditional networking, exchanging cards at dinner, etc, is dead and not likely to come back unless we just call it socializing  rather than essential for business. “Networking” in a bigger sense, however, has really combined with marketing and branding to become “interaction” (if we can even ascribe words to the awesome social stuff that is going on right now). Take Southwest Air for an example. Look at their twitter: http://twitter.com/SOUTHWESTAIR. Do you see all those messages that start with “@?” That’s directed at someone on Twitter, one person. They are marketing their product, talking directly to people, and creating a consistent and fun environment. Are they networking? Are they marketing? Are they branding? All of the above… they’re interacting. Grey areas abound!

The reason I say that has to do with an observation that came to me. I’ve always wondered why most businesses with ideas that a good or bad always seem to [get to a] certain level and stay there. I surmise that this is because of the business owners network of people that he knows directly or indirectly. His business can only grow as large as his network.

That’s disturbing to me but it makes sense and fits into my experience. It seems like so many companies are willing to stay frozen in one spot, repeating the same mistakes, and chasing after the same customers. Zero innovation, zero real experimentation, zero perceived risk, and, consequently, zero or negative growth. Certainly not the rule but easy to identify when it’s going on.

Under most circumstances, networking is highly inefficient, time consuming, and the return for input is miserable if not totally useless. Over the last four years, I can remember two people that referred more than two clients to me over that period. One of them was an attorney that I had never met. The other is a woman who owns a catering service and is really into networking. But that’s it for me.

I can say at least half of my business now has come through interaction through twitter or person-to-person email. I have great word-of-mouth, a big virtual network, and people who know me as the go-to guy. Did I network to get them? I’m not sure but I certainly didn’t advertise (in the traditional sense) or market (again, traditionally). I’m branded as Josh Can Help and I answer every question people send me through Twitter or otherwise. Interaction.

The only way to gain scale for a business is to have a method to get it out to a lot of people that you’d don’t know. It used to be mass mailing and now it’s the Internet. But with as many eyes and ears that can be reached by the Internet people still do not use it effectively because of a lack of understanding, the time involved, and the expense. That sounds like me.

Absolutely but the rules have changed and change again almost daily. Marketing isn’t one-way anymore just like media isn’t one way anymore (think the decline of TV and newspapers lately). Now, the key is to get yourself into the hands of the early adopters, the bloggers, the twitterati, the people who tell people. Bring them a phenomenal product and ask for their honest opinion and you’re golden. The bar is raised, however. Now you actually have to have something great. Apple makes great products but they’ve only seen their incredible growth and market share grab recently (last 5+ years) since people have become so vocal about the products they use and enjoy. You can’t ignore millions of screaming fans whether it’s music or technology.

Let’s take about all that. Individuals will do with the most comfortable with over and over again even if it doesn’t result in the objective they seek. We want to be comfortable not successful. Being successful requires thinking and acting outside of the box. That requires change that requires uncomfortable, unknown circumstances.

I want to be comfortable and successful. What then? :)

People will do the most comfortable thing, that’s totally true. I think the key to success these days is looking for something that doesn’t work well and then looking for the rules to break to make it work better. That’s what I’ve been thinking about lately, hence the iteration thing above. What if you could predict the outcome of an iterative process? What if your iterations were massive improvements each time? I think Google is the best example of this. They know SO FREAKING MUCH about how people use online tools that they can’t help but to put out incredible products all the time (this is IMHO). I’m hard pressed to think of software I pay for that works as well as free Google stuff. I couldn’t have a better email program, calendar, document sharing, chat program, web site analytics…  each new product is a giant iteration on their last amazing product.

Now I bet the networker spends more time and more money than he ever would for a simple website that is simply targeted to what that networker is trying to sell. Networking is an ongoing highly ineffective use of resources for a value that has an unjustifiable net present value!

Hence, I say, that networking is a total waste of time. And going into next year, 2010, I expect to do little if any of it from here on out.

Traditional networking is lame now only because it lacks focus. Now, you can interact with exactly the people you want to exactly how and when you want to do it. The barrier to entry is low, time taken is low, and, since you can read about someone on-line, you choose to interact only with the people you think are going to bring the most value (in whatever terms you define).

I threw the question out on Twitter (“Networking is dead… what say you?”) and got a great perspective from David McKendrick, owner of Fused Network.

@DavidandGoliath

That’s a damned lie. :p
Resulted in me being a half-millionaire. //shrugs.
Least on paper. :D But really, networking is everything.
And I don’t mean walking around at dinner parties handing out business cards, either. Or handing out any business cards.
Sitting on twitter *is* networking.
The ROI of word of mouth is limitless. Problem is it can bite back in the same way.
And really, it’s a better way to spend time than IM & facebook ;)
Marketing is worthless. Ads don’t get clicked. Branding & interaction pay off.
Sure, but ‘traditional’ is dead. Again, what we’re doing now is networking. Here, now, twitter.
Life isn’t about making money. Nor should that be the sole reason to meet people, that’d be a boring life.
Me on the beach has more ROI than handing someone a business card.
The problem with traditional channels is there’s too much time spent moving. Instant, scalable and doesn’t interrupt life.

What do you think about this whole thing? Do you attend events? Is it productive?

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The Google Docs CMS

See the GDocs CMS in action!

For those not in the know, a CMS is a Content Management System, a web application that lets you add and edit live web content. WordPress, the system I use over-and-over (for good reason), is a CMS and a great one at that. But, in some cases, it is a bit over the top. What if you just needed to publish information without a lot of regard to the intricacies of presentation? That’s where this system comes in.

The Google Docs CMS lets you publish and manage information on the web using just a Google Docs spreadsheet published as RSS (easy to do, I’ll show you how). The script takes each row and turns it into its own page then creates a list of pages on the left. A site example (which serves as documentation) can be seen here: Google Docs CMS.

How do I use it?

All you need to do is download the package, follow my directions to create a spreadsheet, put a line of information into the script, and upload it to your web server. The script takes the Google Doc feed, parses the information for each page, and displays it a certain way.

What can I do with it?

In an effort to make these sites as easy to manage as possible, I restricted the number of built-in content to 4 types:

• Regular paragraphs (which can accept HTML)
• Headings (h2 tags only)
• Images (can pull automatically from your server or an external source)
• Links (creates  its own line and doesn’t support link text [yet])

Just indicate the content type in one column and the content itself in the next. It’s all in the documentation.

Can I customize it?

I created an external stylesheet that can be used to change how the page displays (you’ll need to know your way around CSS). I also built in a few configuration options in the beginning of the file to change a few functions. I am very much a beginner with PHP so the code should be simple enough to understand for those in the know.

Questions? Problems? Issues?

Please go ahead and leave comments below if you are having trouble or want to know how to change something. Also, if you’re a PHP developer and have some feedback for how this was implemented (good or bad), I would really appreciate it.

Download the GDocs CMS

As an aside…

This is my first attempt at a self-contained (and remotely useful) programming project of any kind. Like I mentioned, I’m a PHP beginner but use it a lot between WordPress customizations and static sites. I really enjoy using the language and the documentation on php.net is really, really impressive (the user comments are amazing). I try to use it as much as possible and I think the only reason I’m not much better with it is that I don’t give myself (read: have) a lot of time to practice.

Anyways, this was a very eye-opening exercise and one that I enjoyed very much. Truth be told, I wrote this during a long weekend I spent back in Seattle, so, essentially, on vacation. There was a little bit of frustration but a lot of “oh wow, cool!” – enough to keep me plugging away at it. String functions in PHP are fantastic and it’s amazing how easily XML documents can be parsed with just a tiny bit of code.

I’m looking forward to putting out little piece here and there, including a WordPress plugin in the future (I think that’s just to say I can). As I mentioned above, your feedback is very important to me, particularly if you’re skilled enough to find problems in the code and can tell me how to do it better.

Thanks!

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