On the inside, it was a different story; a story full of contradictions. The dash was elegant with chrome trimmed instrument clusters and glossy, piano black paneling. However, the Recaro race seats were stiff and rigid but offered fantastic support, especially when surpassing 1+ horizontal Gs (which the displayed in your instrument panel—for your convenience). I thought Cadillac made luxury cars and I was getting the suspicion that this was something else.

This was confirmed once I discovered two very important buttons: Sport Mode, to stiffen the suspension via electro-magnets, and Traction Control off, which does exactly what you think it does; unleashes the power of a 556bhp supercharged V8 directly to the rear-wheels with reckless abandonment. I was correct, this was not a luxury car, this is a pissed-off, fire-breathing wagon.

Recently I was showing my 20-month old son, Carter, a short video on my mobile phone. The video contained a close up of him sitting on his grandfathers lap in their backyard. In this particular clip, Carter was slapping his grandfather in the face and then laughing hysterically. In previous showings of this clip, he would laugh just like in the video. But this time he didn’t, something in the video caught his eye.

As I watched his face analyze the video, I realized he was hyper-focusing on something, and it wasn’t the action in the foreground. He suddenly points to the small screen and shouts, “Ball!”

Ball? There is no ball in the video…oh, their is. A little blue ball way in the background.

I started thinking, what do children see that adults don’t. What am I missing out on? Children have new experiences all of the time whether it’s watching a video, looking out a window, or playing a game. They actually look for new things.

The video was a startling anecdote. Adults look in the foreground, we look at the action in front of us on a single flat plane. Children look at all planes, all dimensions and they see the fine details.

Perhaps we should start thinking more like children and welcome new experiences, new views, and new ideas.

Stuff I Love is sort of like Oprah’s Favorite Things without the freebies (sorry). This is part 1 in a multi-part series, we’ll post the next one when we have more stuff we love.

Freshbooks

I love Freshbooks because they took the mundane but necessary task of accounting and made it fun and simple. I tested a number of accounting/invoicing systems and before we decided on Freshbooks—I think they nailed it. Freshbooks provides the right amount of features for the right price. Xero was also a great system with a gorgeous GUI, but it was overkill when it came to the needs of our business.Ballpark and The Invoice Machine are elegant solutions, but a little overly simplistic for us. We wanted the ability to run a variety of reports and Freshbooks had a bunch of options. If you decide to try it out, use this sticker below so I get the credit!

Basecamp

Project Management is a major part of my daily work and it is critical that the entire team is on the same page, including the client. Over the years I tested many project management tools including ones that have to be installed on the server, however, nothing comes close to the simplicity and intuitiveness of Basecamp. In fact, I’ve been using Basecamp for over 4 years and are still just as happy with it as the day we signed up. And since it lives in the cloud, they are always making updates and enhancements to the service. If you’ve never used it, take it for a spin below and see what you think.

Website Grader

Have you ever wondered how well your website is doing or if it is search engine friendly? Website Grader from HubSpot offers a great tool that allows you to run a report on your website. It gives you key information regarding your page’s title tags, metadata, alt tags, and more. I ran this on our website a couple years ago and learned a lot about what we were doing wrong. I even use it to help our clients understand how they can make their websites more effective. Click here to try out the demo version.

I have many more things I love, however, I also love my work and must get back to my clients. Feel free to tell me about the things you love and I’ll check them out. Until next time…

It made me think; what other complex things in life can be simplified with easy visual instructions like these?

Happy knot making—don’t forget the dimple.

How to Tie a Four in Hand Knot

Tying a Half Windsor Knot

How to Tie a Necktie with a Kent Knot

How to Tie the Double Windsor Knot

How to Tie a Prince Albert Knot

Images courtesy of Bows ‘N Ties

Enjoy!

Over the last few weeks I started thinking about this a bit more. What bothered me about the ad was the suggestion that your site should be built and ready instantly. This seems like another example of “I want it now and I want it cheap”. In one portion of the commercial they depict a professional photographer in his studio and he states, “I hired a someone to design my website…5 months ago!” Ouch!

The message I got from this commercial is this: You don’t have to hire your nephew or a professional and you shouldn’t have to spend more than 5 bucks and 5 minutes for a web site. (I agree about the nephew part.)

I think this is irresponsible on Intuit’s part. Most of us can agree that a businesses website is a major part of their advertising and marketing, not just something to be hacked together on a whim. For small businesses, it’s even more critical to have a well defined image, including a website.

On the plus side, the service does give business owners a simple tool to create a quick website. I’m not sure this would be a good long term solution, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I have not even tried the service (they offer a FREE 30-day trial, but they do require a credit card).

I want to hear from you. Do others in the design and web community feel that services like this discounts the skills and expertise of a professional designer/developer? Is this another attempt to commoditize a professional service through software?

Today we have so many potential distractions like Facebook and Twitter, it’s easy to lose track of time and get caught up in reading posts or tweets. Even e-mail can be a “time suck” if it’s not used with discipline.

I decided to start a little experiment and track my entire day for two weeks in 15 minute blocks. This may seem granular, but what I want to find out is how much time all of those “little distractions” actually accumulate to. I have a suspicion that the sum total will be pretty high until I become more self aware of my tasks.

I also want to hear how others keep track of time? What tools or tactics do you use to stay on task? I’m providing the Time Use Matrix that I’ll be using for the next two weeks for those interested in also doing the experiment with me. I’m interested in hearing about your experience with it and if it helped or hindered you.

Previously, I wrote about Rules and Productivity which are core components to my how I feel about time management. Feel free to read those if you want to see where I’m coming from.

I will post my results after two weeks.

Good luck!

Download the Matrix Here:

time-use-matrix.xlsx

Another reason for sharing this with you is to help me organize my process and document it. It’s as much as a journal of my thoughts as it is a guide for you.

I once read the saying that went something like this: “A plan is God’s idea of a practical joke”. While I agree that you cannot predict or plan everything, no plan is planning to fail. More importantly, planning helps set my expectations for the year and becomes a great analytical tool that I can review and tweak as I go.

So let’s dive in, in no particular order:

Goal Planning 2010

1. Better Reporting: For the last couple years I wanted to move into a more thorough accounting system, one that I can access anywhere, anytime. After spending a ton of time researching different solutions, I settled on Xero, a fairly comprehensive, web-based accounting system that will allow me to view create invoices, track payments, and performs all of the functions your standard accounting package does. What I really liked about Xero was the ability to do reporting. If I wanted to see what percentage of my business was Web Design or Logo Design, I can easily run the report. Sure, I can do this in Excel, but why? For 2010, I will have better reporting. I will know how many clients I have, what projects have the longest payment milestones, which projects are most profitable, and more.
2. New Web Site: This year I’m overhauling the studio 22 design web site. My goal in the redesign is two-fold; provide a better experience for the visitor and make it easier to maintain for me. The most important area to redesign was my portfolio. I didn’t like that you couldn’t dynamically sort the portfolio by project type. This was an important feature as clients always asked me to see work relevant to their project. I wanted this to be easy for them, so I added in a JQuery script that allows dynamic filtering of the projects. It’s a slick feature that is actually quite usable. Another area I’m improving is my contact section. Currently, you have to click on contact to get phone, email, etc… The new site will have the contact info dedicated to the footer of each page including project form, newsletter signup, email, and social media links. This satisfies my goal providing better communications with my clients as well as more ways to connect.
3. Social Media: The jury is still out on how this will improve my business, but at the most basic level it will help me to interact with my clients, current and potential. And although best practices are still evolving, there is no question that it helps with branding and communications. I’m keeping an eye on this in 2010 and may do a more aggressive push in social media, but probably not until Q2.
4. New Clients: I have a very short and very specific list of potential clients I intend to convert to clients this year. Basically, my goal is to convert 3 out of 5 before 2011. These are big, bold organizations that I have a personal interest in and who, I believe, I can offer a great deal of value to. The benefit of having a short list is that it forces me to focus on making connections and building relationships rather than cold calling.

These are just a few select areas of my goal planning for 2010. Other areas include financial, new revenue sources, and scheduling goals which I’m still working on.

What’s included in your goal planning in 2010?