All posts tagged Don

Vacation

by admin on June 21, 2010 in , , , with No comments

Before I talk about our holiday, I need to explain something.

My husband, as much as I love him, does not do ‘impulsive’ terribly well. In fact, if you could describe him, one of they very first words you would use would be “not” and the second would be “impulsive”. For all of his excellent qualities, he’s not what you would call… a go-getter. The man still has clothes in his wardrobe from when he was 16. And a $5 note in his wallet from 18 months ago. He’s not a spender either.

So when Jason walked into my office on Saturday morning and said “hey, we should go for a drive to Busselton and stay for 2 nights”, he may as well have said “I have decided I want to be a lady and I am going to go on tour with the drag burlesque travelling circus, k?” and I would have reacted in much the same way. OK, not really, I probably would have expected the second.

But, he suggested it, and we booked into the Abbey Beach Resort based on their website. On the beach? Wireless? Check. Mini bar? Check. Restaurants with room service? Check… and check. $600 for 2 nights? Well, if it has wireless and is luxurious and has room service and a spa, well… let’s just indulge for a little while. We have a funeral on Monday afternoon we’d rather not think about.

Let’s not forget, we have 3 children – all of whom are not known for being the most flexible on the planet. But, they roll with it as much as they can and are happy to come along. Which is just as well because we blew our load on the hotel room and can’t afford a babysitter. So, it was basically a choice between a holiday or being locked under the stairs.

But of course, it doesn’t take long for the feral to kick in and I feel the urge to do both.

We arrive at a $300 a night “beachfront” resort that has glimpses of the beach (if you look past the 3 tennis courts and the giant tree), no mini bar, no room service in the apartments. The wireless costs $10 for 2 hours, but doesn’t reach our apartment. There is a queen-size bed, which we can live with but we are not used to, and our children are that lovely combination of excited and cranky at the same time. So, about every 3 minutes or so the jumping around and screaming will be interrupted by crying. And then the baby will go straight for the dishwasher buttons, then the knife drawer… whilst Jason and I try to figure out how the hell we are going to have dinner in our room because the kids are too tired for the restaurant.

So I hit up the lounge bar with my laptop, check emails and drink a glass of wine whilst I wait for our takeaway dinners. Which arrive on 4 plates and a tray. I have a laptop. It should also be noted that the restaurant is roughly equidistant to our room and the lobby… and they bring me the meals to the lobby. Which was nice of them, but I a) don’t understand why they can’t just bring it to the room and b) I now have to carry 4 plates and a tray back to our room. I smile through gritted teeth. Confused, perplexed gritted teeth. Oh and some bright spark decides to wolf whistle me on the way which, you know, made me feel sexy. Fuckhead.

By this point the baby is screaming and won’t go to sleep. Mina and Mr J are basically ready to hit up the drawer with the baby and have a knife fight with each other, and I am at my wit’s end because I have had to carry food across a $300 a night resort with no wifi and am grumbling to myself how holidays are so much fun with kids.

We finally get the kids to sleep around 11pm and I decide to have a spa. A spa that, as it turns out, has a drain 2/3 up the side to prevent you filling it above that point. Apparently they’ve had issues with it flooding because people overfill it. And then it occurs to me that bogans ruin EVERYTHING. Then I think “hey, I’ll have one of these “indulgent” hot chocolate sachets they’ve laid out. Mmmm, powdery, lumpy, snotty cocoa.

Did I mention that the baby threw a spatula off the balcony yet?

We then go to bed for a very uncomfortable night’s sleep and wake up with the day ahead of us. Tired, cranky children but we manage to have a nice breakfast, where the resort redeems itself just a little bit. We stop by the resort playground, where the baby manages a triple somersault onto his face and Mr J throws a tantrum or two. We hit up the beaches, go into Dunsborough, have  look around and take some photos. The kids start complaining of dying hunger (despite having huge plates of ginger pancakes an hour and a half earlier), so we go and get them McDonald’s. Yes, the Brennan children are all about our lovely local Southwest cuisine. Sigh.

And then we head down to the Busselton Jetty and go for a walk. Mina and Mr J go down onto the beach and I take some photos. And before we know it, both of my children are in the water, in full clothes, having the time of their lives. And for a brief moment, I want to tell them to get out of the water, but instead I just roll with it and take pictures. And laugh. And relax and realise that they are having fun and so am I, for the first time in a very long time, and we just enjoy the moment.

And boy, did I get some photos.

We return to the hotel room (where I have managed to purchase wireless access from the Caravan park next door), the kids are happy, soaking wet, getting out of their clothes. They jump in that crappy spa, Moo goes down for a nap (after again trying to eat a dishwasher detergent block), the kids start whingeing and Mina gets belligerent.

But I go and have a nap.

I wake up to Mina complaining she’s bored and Mr J playing Angry Birds on the iPad. Jason and I then see fit to tell our children what OUR childhood vacations consisted of: poo in a bucket, showering from a bucket (at which point I said to Jason that I hope it wasn’t the same bucket), hanging around a holiday village where the most thrilling thing was a trampoline… and 7 people in one caravan. And our daughter was complaining that the resort playground was boring. Hum. The older two again start bickering and we endure dinner in the Brasserie, where they make so much mess it is embarrassing, I am wearing dress boots with tracksuit pants (because I forgot a bag), and the baby smears $30 seafood risotto all over his face. And the carpet.

I look over at the young honeymooners at the table near the fire and realise that we are that family that either ruined their honeymoon, put them off having children for the next 10 years, or if their wedding was because of a baby in her tummy already, scare the crap out of them that they are just a few short years away from wearing tracksuit pants in a restaurant, drinking wine a little fast, and barking at her kids to sit down every 45 seconds.

Naturally, we have to leave the restaurant and take dessert back to our room because the kids are tired and bickering… and we finally get them to bed at 7:30, get to enjoy each other’s company for a little while, watch the first episode of Mad Men on DVD and then off to sleep I go because I drank my wine a little too fast during dinner.

And this morning we’ll be having breakfast, where they’ll find new and creative ways in which to embarrass us with food smears and tantrums, and then we head home for my Grandma’s funeral and one of the hardest days of my life. But, in amongst all of this, I realise that this was the best idea ever and even though holidays are exhausting, frustrating, and sometimes downright disappointing, it really is all about this moment. This $1200 moment.

Busselton 11a

Busselton 10

Why I deactivated my Facebook Account (and will probably delete it).

by admin on March 14, 2010 in with No comments

It’s hard to imagine a world without hyper-connectivity. It started with mobile phones, extended into social media and at the moment, the biggest trend is telling people where you are, what you are doing AT THIS VERY SECOND AND HERE’S A MAP OF THE RESTAURANT I AM EATING AT.

I attended a Conference where people were lauding Facebook and Twitter (and related services) as a revolution in the way we communicate. Whilst this is partially true, I think that not enough attention has been given to the potential pitfalls of evangelising it.

With all of the geeky tech things like FBConnect & APIs aside, which are very exciting and allow for many possibilities, what is the real personal cost of hyperconnectivity?

This is something I have been pondering for quite a while, so for anyone thinking it’s just one event and want to say “OMFG WHAT HAPPENED?”… relaaaax. It’s not about you. Or you. Or you.

And I am not talking about the headlines that drag social media in, like “MYSPACE MURDERS!”, “TWITTER BLAH BLAH”.

What are the real, actual effects on your day?

For me, because I work in front of a screen all day and often in a browser, Facebook is just a streaming timeline of everyone’s day. Mine included. But it’s become more pervasive than that and I believe that it has started to affect my psyche. It dominates my day, it is integrated into my thoughts. It sometimes even completely wastes my day. And sometimes, I will admit that it affects me negatively.

But you know? I hit a point where I realised that at least 95% of the people on my list never commented, never contacted me, never showed any interest. And I hadn’t actually met. And I share my innermost thoughts with them more often than anywhere else. It’s not real.

And for the people that I *had* met… it changed the dynamics, where non-comments resulted in me assuming I had been hidden, or made me second-guess friendships, or made me think to end them altogether.

It’s a bit of a destructive force in the life of someone, like me, who derives energy from other people… who lives their life very much (too much) to please others, to seek acknowledgement from others… to have this medium that allows it to become my fuel.

So now, I have decided to deactivate my account for 30 days, as an experiment, just to see what happens. I am still contactable on Twitter, Email, and good old fashioned telephone. But I am just interested to see what happens. Don’t assume I have deleted you, because I haven’t :)

It will be interesting to see who contacts, who emails, who calls… not just as a dramatic exit and “I’m taking my ball home”, but as a truly intellectually interesting exercise to see if a) I can live without it b) any of those relationships continue outside of it and c) whether others join me.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this, too… assuming, of course, anyone reads blogs anymore (seeing as I am not posting this on Facebook! ;))

5 more things I wish I knew about the web design business

by admin on October 1, 2008 in with No comments

In my previous post, I mentioned that my list of 5 things had blown out to 10 things I wish I knew about the web design business. Well, here they are:

5. Don’t take criticism personally

All of the business advice and freelance blogs will talk about the idea of "you" being the Point of Difference when it comes to your clients. People approach LinkArtist, fundamentally, because they want me, the word about town is that I do excellent work and have a personal touch that not many other designers can replicate. My pricing is set according to people’s desire to have a site that has been designed by me. I don’t compete on price alone, and that is because I have a reputation as a designer that pours my heart and soul into my work.

But what happens when you have put all of this physical, emotional and mental energy into creating something, and the client rejects the work? Don’t take it personally. Yes, it’s really hard when you are selling yourself as the product, to distance "you" from "the work you do", but it is necessary to keep you from burning out from stress, or worse, being rude to a client and acting unprofessionally.

When a client approaches you for a project, more often than not, they want "you". Or, more specifically, they want you to help them look the way they think they should, and the unfortunate reality is that, sometimes, clients have a mental picture of what they want, and they expect us to pluck it out their head. We try our best, but, sometimes, we get it wrong, they change their mind, or whatever, and yes, it’s frustrating. But, it is also a big part of business.

So, remind yourself that yes, your business is you, your work is you, and that’s great, but criticism comes from the customer wanting a certain result – and does not mean that you are at fault. Of course, if a client if abusive, or is deliberately changing the spec of the project those are different things entirely!

6. Take risks

It is tempting to get complacent, earning the same money for doing the same things, over and over. But it is also very easy to get yourself in a rut. And even worse, get into a situation where you feel ripped off.

I recently took a very big risk. I broke up with my very first client. The person who supported me when I was nothing but an amateur designer and wannabe webmaster. The person who cheered me on when I didn’t think I could do it anymore. The person who became a very close friend. There were lots of very good reasons to stay.

I broke up with this client because even though they were ultimately very supportive and nurturing, there came a time where they were not prepared to pay beyond my entry-level rates, and were taking up more time than I could afford to grow my business. I started to grow resentful, and often felt as though my opinion didn’t count – much like that aunt that still sees you as a 10 year old: they couldn’t see that I had grown up and could no longer be bought with candy.

So, I made the risky decision to dump my highest profile and first-ever client. I was worried that I would be frozen out of the network somehow, or that I would stop booking clients. But, that didn’t happen. I took a calculated risk and it paid off for me. And, the friendship has remained intact!

I have increased my prices and billable hours 3 times in the past year. Each time I have felt it was risky and I have lost some clients because of it. But others have stayed, and I am attracting a higher level of budget than a year ago, and am building momentum.

So, even though some situations or decisions may seem risky, you need to assess what the payoff is. For me, it was actually having time with my children, or at least, if I was having time away from my children, being compensated justly for it.

7. Know when to ask for help

I have a tendency to think that, as a generalist, I can do it all.

I have also spent many a night going round and round in circles trying to figure out a solution to a problem that was then promptly fixed in 15 minutes by a programmer. I don’t do this anymore, of course, because I have learned that there are a hundred other things I could be doing with my time, and, for the sake of a few bucks, my sanity, self confidence and sleep are saved.

Start compiling lists of people you can contact when you’re stuck. I also encourage them to contact me, so it becomes a loose network of troubleshooters with particular skillsets. If you want to be on my list, email me, because I always need programmers to call on with half an hour’s notice for small jobs :)

Part of knowing when to ask for help, is also being able to identify when you aren’t coping with your load. I now let my phone go to voicemail to avoid interruptions, I do invoicing once a week (with some exceptions like deposits to commence work), and as soon as I can afford it, I will be outsourcing all of my admin. You can’t be expected to do it all AND be good at your work. It’s just not possible.

8. Don’t pretend to be bigger than you are

If you do this, people will expect certain levels of service and availability that one person just cannot provide. Even though it is tempting to talk about the "we" or big-note your "team" of people, this will come unstuck VERY quickly.

I have always tried to explain to my clients that I am small. Even though the personal touch makes for excellent service, the reality is that having to provide personal service to everyone at all times becomes overwhelming. There are many benefits to going with a freelancer over a bigger Agency, but one of the costs of that is that often, I may not answer my phone, or I may take a little longer to get those "5 minute jobs with a minutes notice" done.

Being honest about your size and your time will make your life easier in the long run, contrasted with any short term gain you may get by overselling your services and capacity.

9. Don’t befriend clients without knowing the risks

Freelancing, and especially freelancing from home, is very isolating sometimes. Despite working every day, I can go several days without actually speaking to anyone outside my family. I have plenty of friends, but because I am so busy, it is hard to fit them all in. It is inevitably those who are on Facebook, or take the time to email me, that stay in touch. It can be lonely.

Then, you get that client who is just like you. They too work at home, find it isolating, and are very chatty and personable and you have a lot in common. Your kids are similar ages and you talk about anything and everything. You don’t censor yourself. It’s all roses, the projects go well, they love you and you love them. You’re on a high, you cannot believe your luck of finding someone who finally "gets it". You go above and beyond for them, because that’s what you do with friends.

Then, there is a problem that needs to be dealt with, business to business, and it goes to shit faster than bad seafood, because you blindly went into a friendship without negotiating what it means to the client relationship. The boundaries were never negotiated, because you think "oh that person would NEVER treat me like that". And then they do. And it makes you question whether you even want to continue working in the business, and if only you’d defined some clear boundaries from the outset, and not befriended clients, it wouldn’t suck this much…

I just had a friendship and client relationship fall apart like this, so I am speaking from experience here. Tread very, very carefully when you decide to become friends with your clients. I talked about being too candid with clients in the previous post, but this one goes a step further. Be very, very aware of what can happen when a client falls out of love with you, or there is a disagreement over money, or you feel tempted to give them more than what they can afford in the name of friendship. Or, in this case, if the client starts to rely too much on you for stuff that is in their "too hard basket".

Think about friendships with clients like you would if you were going to have a pre-nuptial agreement. As hard as it is to think about, you need to consider the "what-ifs" if it goes sour.

10. Hosting just ain’t worth the effort.

If you are a web designer or developer and are tempted to sell hosting as well. DON’T DO IT. It is not worth the grief, the disruption or the small amount of money you will get. Clients will expect you to provide tech support, and this is a full time job in its own right.

Take it from someone who has been there and is currently trying to wind back from hosting… DON’T DO IT.

So, hopefully some of this list can help you with your journey, whether you are at the beginning, or partway through, like me.

Some more quality Mina pwnage, just for you, Rob…

by admin on August 16, 2008 in with No comments

Jason: “How come Mina gets so many parties? She’s had more than I have in my whole life.”

Lou: “heh, I dunno… last year didn’t really count as a party… but you can have one this year if you want one.”

Jason: “Yeah, I WILL. I am going to invite ALL my friends to my awesome party.”

Mina: “But you don’t have any friends!!”

Jason: “I will invite all my Facebook friends.”

Mina: “Don’t be silly, Facebook friends aren’t real friends”.

This kid is SEVEN YEARS OLD.