Cody Robert — design, code, freelancing, productivity, LIP, travel

That’s some solid advice. Although it’s very contradictory to what I’ve been told most of my life.

Our parents tell us to think things through before we act, which in many respects is a very valuable skill. Pausing to think for a second can help us to avoid many mistakes. If I had stopped to think about what I was going to write for this post and actually thought it out, I’m sure it would have been a hell of a lot more grammatically correct and none of my words would be misspelled.

But had I stopped, planned a little bit and then started piecing together my work, I wouldn’t have finished writing.

I was an editor for my highschool newspaper and during that time I can’t think of once where I planned out a story ahead of time, or stopped to think about what I would ask my interviewees, or even thought about what my page would like before I placed all the stories and photos.

Planning and thinking takes time. Time I do not have.

If Bill Gates had thought and planned, we wouldn’t have the Microsoft empire that exists today. He would still be tinkering with his Altair running BASIC.

Microsoft thought may be the biggest example I can give. They act before they think. Ofcourse they make mistakes, often. More mistakes than many of us would like. Were they to plan out every detail of Vista before they actually started working on it, we’d still be running Windows 98.

Action is what moves us forward, advances us in our pursuits. You can only do so much thinking about action before you’ve thought all that you can.

There’s only so much thought that can be put into planning a project for a client. If too much thought is put into it, that client may pass you by. The world runs on a clock and if you can’t match the speed at which the world operates it does pass you by.

If you’re going to think and muse you might as well sit on the sidelines and let someone else do the hard work. The action. Movement.

But I want you out in the battlefield. Fight for what you want. Don’t think about the fighting. Don’t think about how you’re going to increase your income.

Find ways to accomplish what you want and don’t think, do.

Let’s be honest: you are a freelancer to make money. This is your income. The goal of your work should be to make a living using the skills you own and love. But what are your client’s needs? Do those needs and interests match your own?

I was reading Freakonomics this past week. One chapter struck home in a business sense. The chapter talked about realtors and how, even though they may seem to be looking out for your best interests, that’s often not the case.

Realtors are just like any other hard working business man: they want to maximize profit over time. They want to sell your house as quickly as possible for as little as possible. Eventhough you hired them to sell your home, their job isn’t to get your to most bang for your buck, but rather to get your home sold fast so that they can get their commission as quickly as possible.

That’s often why when selling your home realtors will suggest that you start marking down the price on your home. The home is of no value to them unsold.

Likewise as a freelancer, a design, or project is of no value to us unsold. But even when it is sold, it’s of less and less value if more and more time has to be put into making changes. In that case, we freelancers can be very much like the realtor that was looked at previously.

How then can we align our interests with our clients?

As a freelancer, I strive to offer quality service, amazing designs, and usually at a reasonable price. Although what if I am charging too little for my services? It’s possible that I could increase my rates (which I have several times over the years) to allow a greater budget for myself, while continuing to provide the excellent service and design that I strive for.

But thinking about it like that doesn’t suit most clients. As a business, a website or design is only as useful as the value it provides them. Whether that value is in the form of increased sales or greater brand identification.

If I can create a design or user interface that effectively increases sales of a business by $50,000 annually, wouldn’t that work be worth 50%, 25%, or even 10% of that amount?

My job then is not to simply choreograph a pretty website, but to design a website that increases sales. Because if my client makes money, I make money.

And my interests, are then the same as my clients interests, which makes this whole business easier for the both of us.

Does anyone really know what Web 2.0 is? Honestly and down to earth has a good idea of exactly how all of “this” fits together? Sure, there are a lot of ideas, but they all seem to deviate from a deeper core.

“It’s about allowing the people greater control…”

“Web 2.0 is the freedom of information…”

“It’s flashy graphics and pretty interfaces…”

The French Revolution was about giving control to the people. The constitution was built on freedom of information, specifically, freedom of the press - to be able to spread information. And I’m pretty sure I saw enough flashy graphics in the 1990s and early 2000s where we had poorly designed websites and myspace “glitterz”.

None of these things are Web 2.0 and I describe us, the people of Web 2.0 itself, as an awkwardly-pubescent girl because that’s exactly how we’re thinking. We (Web 2.0) want to be so much with so little that we fracture ourselves and split off in too many directions.

I had a few friends in highschool that fit this bill exactly. They wanted so much out of those four years, that they sought to join practically every club and publication, as well as taking as many advanced courses as possible. They were part of Literary Magazine, Newspaper, Yearbook, Theatre, FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), Honor Society. The list goes on…

But they didn’t really know what they wanted to do, because they tried to be too many different things.

I propose one thing that Web 2.0 is:

Quality over quantity!

Take social networks for example (Facebook, Bebo, etc.) They’ve succeeded for the most part, in deriving quality from your networks over quantity. No longer do we have to live with the likes of Hot or Not, Match.com, or True.com. We can network freely knowing that if we want a good, quality hookup, all we have to do is turn to our network and announce our available and seeking status.

Gmail has brought forth the same concept in email. Although you may be mistaken, it’s not about Gmail’s 6GB of email storage that you can get. They’re all about providing you with the best, user friendly features to increase your productive use of email. Better spam filters, threaded email conversations and more should only be the beginning.

What to do about this Web 2.0?

Don’t get me wrong, the web is amazing. But it’s not all about the web! More likely, I would say it’s a playground for experimentation in business on a larger scale.

Recently I’ve seen a large transformation in the food industry. America as a whole, has become very unhealthy. We’ve sought quantity over quality for ourselves for the past century as a result of the industrial revolution.

These last few years though when I go into Safeway, I’m seeing more organic foods on the shelves. Foods made with quality ingredients that are good for your body. I’m not suggesting that Web 2.0 caused this change, but rather it’s the same change that we see so vividly on the internet.

People want better food. They want quality food. They’re now willing to give up their Big Macs and 64oz Cokes for a good-for-you meal that also tastes good.

The automobile industry is making similar changes. People want a better driving experience. They want to be able to control their ipod using voice recognition. It’s much safer to drive and alot easier for the driver. Enter Microsoft SYNC.

SYNC is a good product, but not good enough. I call that when I’m in my car and I roll down the windows, SYNC should automatically turn up the volume to balance out the ambient noise of the wind rushing past my head. If an ambulance is in the area, SYNC should be able to hear and recognize where it is and tell me to pay attention for where it’s coming from.

It’s about quality people. Stop touting the amazing features your business has and start catering to the consumer’s needs. They want to be pampered, not overwhelmed.

There’s a reason that guy came to you (or you went and got him, but they still picked you!) It wasn’t because you blew them away with your coding knowledge or reasonable prices. It wasn’t even because of that cool logo you had designed by your sister-in-law.

Businesses will hire you because you’re human. They want that perfect combination between what they perceive to be the nerdy geek needed to complete the job and the cool mac dude that knows how to befriend everyone.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy…

My mother works for a construction lien company. Their “computer guy”, I’ll call him John Doe for argument’s sake, created and operates the company website.  I couldn’t tell you how he was hired other than assuming it went like this: the owner’s friend highly recommended his sister-in-law’s husband without really knowing how good he was or if he would be a good match for the company.

Needless to say, I have a fairly low opinion of John Doe as he’s performed well for the work, not the business. Yes, they have a functional website and it’s also fairly attractive. He could have done much better for them though. The work is average and I’d hope that they’re not paying more than an “average” pay for it.

It’s not because of the average work that I have a low opinion of this man. He’s just an example of the average good worker. Which means that he’s perfectly acceptable to the “average” business. But when we’re looking to achieve excellence, and trust me, most businesses you work with are attempting the feat, you have to perform as an excellent individual - not a good, hard worker.

Businesses are made of people. In a lot of situations the person is the business. Take a look at a lot of the professionals in any field and you’ll see names as brands rather than brands as names. It’s the difference between Louis Vuitton and CARP (China’s Average Retail Product). If you’ve ever tasted carp, trust me, it ain’t pretty. It’s grainy and full of garbage that you don’t want to eat. There are much better fish in the sea.

All this comes back to say that businesses prefer working with people. If they wanted robot with no personality, they could just as easily outsource their work to India and pay half as much for the same result. And to be honest, a lot of those Indians have better personalities than many of your “average” workers.

John Doe is that robot. He works from home, by himself, and most likely has no social life. He has odd mannerisms that tell you he is socially inept and doesn’t know how to deal with people. He definitely knows how to deal with computers. Businesses are a “tiny bit” more than just a computer.

Your client doesn’t want a John Doe, or a Chinese knock-off. They want the Louis Vuitton and Swarovski of the web world. It honestly probably makes little difference if the actual work is done by you or an Indian outfit as long as it is done well.

The client won’t see all the work that is done behind the scenes. What they see and want to know are good and kind are you. They want to be able to put a friendly name and face to the business they are working with. A face is something identifiable, a personality, a thought or idea, a kind smile.

Show them that face and personality. Become more than simply a service that they’re using. Make them your friend and associate with them. Businesses want to feel like they know you and have developed a relationship with you. That’s exactly the same thing as you want because that means trust in your brand (and continued work!)

Be friendly and compassionate and show them that you’re someone to be had as a friend rather than an acquaintance.

I made a guest post at Joyful Jubilant Learning yesterday that was very fun to write. If y’all would like to take a few minutes to head over there and read it that would be awesome!

For anyone finding this site from JJL, welcome! I’m glad to have you here. This is a fairly new blog so you can probably whip through my content pretty quickly although please comment and start a conversation with me or send me an email. I’d love to talk!

Nearly four years ago I swore off any and all future work for myself online because of a client. We’d figuratively played a game of chicken and I lost. For about a year after that I stuck to that decission and didn’t take any more freelance work.

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I’ve finished coding the first release of Plurkify Me. I had a couple suggestions for a name change on Plurk earlier although didn’t want to take a lot of time choosing a different name.

For now, it sticks. Although if you have any ideas, please drop them in the comments. I’ll be posting a poll later to let y’all decide the name. You are going to be the ones using it!

This release is by no means a full release. It’s very much an alpha version, especially considering I only spent the last day coding it. This was an all out 24 hour coding marathon.

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If you haven’t already heard of Plurk, take the plunge and sign up today. Plurk is more or less like Twitter, a microblogging service although I’ve heard it better described as a take back to the awesomeness of the IRC days crossed with Twitter.

You could call it a hybrid of sorts.

Today, Plurk released an unofficial API to start developing applications with the service. I’ve been working most of the time since then on a small project, Plurkify Me.

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Networking is the only reason I continue to receive freelance work.

I don’t cold call. I never could call a business/person and just starting selling myself. It feels like I’m pimping myself out as something to be bought and used rather than a service or product separate from me. It’s not me and I don’t want to be presented as such.

I also don’t apply to job listings anymore. It’s too much of a hassle considering the often low ROI that is often attached.

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We’ve all had or will have a client at some point in our careers that simply doesn’t perform for you. They might be overly needy or their personality plain doesn’t mesh well with your own.

But they are your bread and butter. They’re your bed partners as well. They’re your source of income so they can’t simply be shrugged off and ignored. They either have to be worked with or dropped by the wayside.

Rather than struggling through an unworkable situation, the better option is almost always to drop or break-up with them. This post is going to define the description for that client so we can better be prepared for these circumstances.

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