You control your calendar

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make in business is letting other people control the flow of their day. What usually happens is numerous managers, product owners, project managers, vendors, employees, and executives can unknowingly destroy someones day, and thereby the work that they intended to do.

They don't mean to of course. They just set up a meeting to discuss a few things with a few people, and very likely these are things that do indeed need to be sorted out. The problem is, if you don't control your calendar, everyone else will.

And when other people control your calendar you're very likely not going to be nearly as productive, or effective, as if you controlled it. So while it may seem difficult to decline that meeting, or tell a vendor that you're not available at a certain time, you're actually doing a huge favor to whoever is paying you (whether it's a customer or your employer) if you take special care to control your day.

Likewise, this extends beyond days and into weeks and months. If you're a sales person that travels often, are you really going to give a great presentation if you haven't seen your family for two weeks? I don't think so.

Everyone has certain periods of the day where they're likely to be very productive, and other parts of the day where they're more likely to be checking email, reading blogs, chatting with co-workers, or whatever else we do with our time. And we're all different.

The key is to identify which parts of your day shouldn't be touched by other people.

If you're really productive in the morning, or if you're not a morning person at all and you function better by sleeping until 9, then it's very important that you're not interrupted at 8am. Same holds true if you're most productive right after lunch.

Most people don't ever say no though because they're afraid that they're going to upset someone. In reality, if you tell someone you can't meet at a certain time, they'll most likely just say "okay" and reschedule, or better yet they'll just say that they'll cover for you and bring you up to speed later.

And any meeting where you can be brought up to speed later is a meeting you never needed to attend in the first place. Another key thing to realize is that people are not trying to ruin your day, or interrupt you too much, or steal too much of your time. They're simply trying to include you. Tell them you don't think you need to be included and they probably aren't going to mind.

Control your calendar, control your day, control your productivity. Lose control of your calendar and you lose control of your very self; and no one can function that way effectively.

Yes, no, or not yes?

A little while back I wrote a review about Linchpin, and I've been thinking about this book and the message it contains a bit more lately. One of the central themes is about taking initiative, not asking for permission to do things, and doing incredible and remarkable work.

I've noticed something lately that ties into this whole theme and it's around when ideas are kicked around and shared on a team. I've realized that the most common feedback you'll get sometimes is "not yes". It's not no and it's not yes. It's just "not yes".

It sounds confusing at first - but really it makes a lot of sense. Because if someone says either "yes" or "no" to you - they've just put themselves on the hook. Or more accurately, you have put them on the hook. If you fail, now it's not your fault, it's the fault of the person that gave you permission - or told you not to do something. This too is a theme in Linchpin where Seth Godin writes that very rarely do people actually say No.

It's interesting because if you start looking for this not yes "answer", you'll probably find that you get it all the time. And while at first this may frustrate you, it's actually a huge opportunity. Because what "not yes" really means is "Do whatever you want - but own it."

That's a great answer because then you can do your great creative work, make something happen, and do something amazing.

There's another opportunity here too though and it's when you're giving feedback instead of seeking it. If you think someone else has a great idea - say YES! - and own it with them. Help them make it real, help them implement it, and help them be successful. The world we live in today is amazing because just two or three people can truly accomplish awesome things. And if your motivation is not to get credit for something - but is instead to help someone implement their great idea, you'll be doing great work, and having a great time while you're doing it.

Likewise, if you think something is a terrible idea, have the courage to stand up and say NO! What if the CEO of an investment bank said NO - we're not doing Credit default swaps? What if a construction worker said NO! - we should't build another McMansion right now - and convinced the owner of the business of that reality? Think they'd be out of a job right now? I don't.

Looking back, none of this is new. People say "not yes" all the time. It's just crystalized in my brain a little more lately; maybe it's because I've been reading a lot of good books such as Linchpin, REWORK, Delivering Happiness, Drive and Flow.

So when you've got a great idea, or a new feature to implement, look for the "not yes" answer. Then, own it and go do something amazing.

Tools Matter

There's a bit of a meme going around about how tools don't matter, which, in my humble opinion, is completely and totally wrong. Or rather, it's incomplete. It should be called "tools dont matter when youre getting started."

The idea behind this "tools don't matter" philosophy is that you shouldn't use not having the right tools as an excuse for not doing something. The argument being - you want to be a photographer? - pick up whatever camera you have and start taking pictures. This, I agree with completely and think it's great advice.

There's a certain point however when tools are in fact critically important. Ask a designer to use a windows machine instead of a Mac and tell them their tool of choice doesn't matter. See how hard they laugh at you.

Could a surgeon slice you open with a steak knife more effectively than I could use a ten blade? Of course. But that doesn't mean she should be performing surgery without the right tools for the job.

Tools, and the ability to make and use them, are in fact a central component in our evolution and are what allowed humans to ultimately rise to the top of the food chain. The ability to create tools is something that only few animals possess, and those that do make more comfortable lives for themselves.

We reach a point in our work where tools not only matter, but that using the right ones has an enormous impact on our productivity which in turn, as I just read in Delivering Happiness, has a real impact on our overall happiness.

If you're the CEO of a 100 person company, and you start using tools that make everyone 10% more productive - that's the same thing as hiring ten more people. Go ahead - tell the business owner that just saved $1 Million in salaries, 401(k) contributions, healthcare expenses and taxes that tools don't matter.

One of the reasons I love working for myself is that I can usually use whatever I please to get a particular job done. I truly feel bad for people when they tell me that they want to use a certain piece of software for their work but aren't able to do so. Because it's akin to telling a chef that they can't use their favorite knives, or a baseball player that they can't use the bat of their choice, or a guitar player that they can't use their favorite strings.

Tools Matter.

So yes, get started on whatever it is that you want to do with whatever you have available to you. At some point though, you will start getting better and you should treat yourself to some new tools.

Because the right tools will definitely help take you to the next level.

Advice for recruiters

Like a lot of people, whenever I'm looking for my next project I'll often times work with recruiters to find my next gig. Some folks, especially in the tech world, tend to shy away from working with recruiters because they've had so many bad experiences with them.

I don't mind working with them by default, because if they can help me find a project to work on that I would enjoy, I'm more than happy for them to take a cut of the pay. I simply look at it as a commission that I might otherwise have to pay a sales person.

Sure, I'd rather have companies come directly to me or find these opportunities myself, but I'm only one human and there's no way I can know about all the great opportunities out there - nor can I expect everyone to know who I am.

The problem though is that a LOT of recruiters are absolutely terrible at their jobs, and only a few are really great at it. This surprises me though because there seems to be a really great opportunity for people who are genuinely interested in working in that profession.

The problem most recruiters (and recruiting agencies) have is that they haven't changed the way they're doing business. Most of them seem to think that their job is to cast a wide net, pull in a bunch of resumes, sort through them, and pick out the ones they think their client may like.

The problem with this approach is that they're simply acting as middlemen. The value they're bringing is acting as a collector and a filter. I suppose this is still working a little bit right now - but it won't for much longer.

I had two completely different experiences with recruiters recently that have had me thinking about this a lot. One recruiter brought me into their office to talk about a project with a company in Chicago. After a pretty good conversation, he brought in the "account rep", who is the person that manages the relationship with the client and she started looking at my resume.

I should point out that I never only send someone my resume. In fact, I try not to send a resume at all but sometimes I give in. When that happens, I always send a link to my bio so they can check out my blog, the apps I've made, my company, my podcast, etc. Admittedly, my resume is probably pretty terrible, and it likely reflects my belief in their value.

The first thing she said was something like: "you know Andrew, when I look at your resume I get all confused. I mean, the first thing I see on here is 'founder' and I don't know - that says entrepreneur to me and my client needs a project manager - not an entrepreneur."

Apparently, never-mind the fact that the company I started was a project management company. She went on to show me an example of a resume she worked on for what their client would want to see. IT WAS AN 8 PAGE RESUME!

So I asked them, you know that link I sent you, did you click on it? Answer: no. So you haven't seen my blog? No. You haven't looked at the companies I started? No. You haven't seen any of the applications I've made? Nope. Not the Android one? No. Not the Rails app? Nope. How about Duarlander, you know, the application testing service? Nope, not that either. Did you take 20 seconds to even Google my name? No.

So you mean to tell me that you brought me out of my office, into your office, losing an entire half day of productivity to meet with you and you didn't even take the time to get to know me at all? Yep, that's right. Keep in mind, this isn't a hiring manager with 1,000 other things on their plate. It's their job to find people for their clients.

That is a bad recruiter, they insulted me, and it's what almost everyone in the industry does.

Contrast this with another person I've been working with, and who's project I'm joining. Before even speaking with me, they talked to someone else that I've worked with, they checked out my experience, they looked at some of the applications I've made, and based on that, they thought I may be interested in, and be a good fit for, their project.

Turns out, they were right. It's a great project and I'm thrilled to be working on it and it's going to be really interesting for me.

So here's the lesson I think a lot of recruiters should take. Don't think of yourself as a recruiter; think of yourself as an agent. Can you imagine a sports agent representing a ball player without knowing their batting average, or on-base percentage, or number of home runs they've hit?

Of course not.

If all you're doing is shuffling resumes around, you are becoming more irrelevant with every minute that passes. And, by the way, you're doing a huge disservice to the company's that have hired you.

But, if you're getting to know some great people, understanding what their interests are, and matching them with opportunities that they'd be interested in that they might not otherwise know about, you'll rise to the top as the rest of your industry crumbles.

Out of order

I've been thinking lately about the steps we (often) go through when we want to learn something new. It's the way our schools educate our kids, the way we prepare for jobs, and sometimes learn new hobbies. Usually it goes something like this:

1) Decide you want to do something

2) Learn how to do it

3) Start doing it

I've realized that these steps are out of order though - at least for me, and probably for a lot of other people too. Instead, I think it's much better to flip the second and third steps. Decide you want to do something, start doing it, and you'll inevitably learn how to do it. Sure, you'll mess up a buch along the way but who cares.

Want to learn French? Do you really need to take a french class - or would it better to just start communicating with some friends that know the language and watching some French movies here and there? Want to learn how to build a website? Sure, you can get a book about HTML, or you can start building a website on Blogger and go from there. Want to be a better writer? Start a blog and get to writing.

I think a lot of us use the need to "learn" something first as an excuse to not actually do anything. So if that's the case, forget about the learning and just start doing it. You'll learn.

Four months ago, I didn't know Ruby on Rails. But now I have two Rails applications to my name. I still wouldn't say I know it, my code is a mess in many parts, and certainly don't consider myself a programmer. But I'm learning - because I started doing it.

So if there's something you want to learn, but you're finding that it's just not happening, maybe it's because you're thinking is out of order.

Decide you want to do something, and then start doing it. The learning will come from that.

Introducing Notifire.me

I'm really happy to announce today that I'm launching a new web application called Notifire. It's an add-on to the web-based group chat software Campfire by 37signals, and it's a great way to add live chat support to any website.

So, what does it do?

The best way to see it in action is to check out the video at http://notifire.me/videos, but it's essentially a way to constantly monitor a Campfire chat room and get an IM or SMS text notification when someone enters the room. The IM includes a link to the room so you can just click on it and immediately begin chatting with the person that entered.

Why this app?

A little while back I started looking for an easy way to add live chat support to my website. There are a lot of solutions out there, but they're all really robust solutions for larger companies that are almost more like call center clients - tracking when people are on and off line, who's available, routing IM's, etc. These are fine, but they're more than I really needed, require yet another chat client, and are usually at least a couple hundred dollars per year.

Campfire makes it really easy to set up a public chat room, but I would sometimes forget to open that room in a browser window. Or, if I had the window open, I would miss the little sound notification that appears. And that's really the "problem" I set out to solve. All I really needed was a slightly better notification for when someone entered a public Campsite room.

Notifire does exactly this, and if I do say so myself, it does it brilliantly.

The technology behind the app

There is one portion of the application that constantly monitors your campfire chat room. When someone enters, it sends an IM or SMS message by leveraging Tropo, an absolutely awesome single API by Voxeo that lets developers integrate Voice, text messaging, and "normal" Instant messages (Gtalk, Yahoo, AIM, MSN, Jabber and even Twitter) into their applications.

Basically, Notifire constantly monitors the room, and when someone enters the room, uses tropo to actually send the message to people that have been set up to receive them.

Behind the UI design

This is the second Ruby on Rails application I've built, and I'm really happy with how it's turned out. (If you follow this blog, you know I've been leading software projects for years, but just recently started learning Rails). I purposely made a very minimalistic user interface on the application, because the idea behind this app is really to make your existing UI's (IM client and Campfire) work just a tad bit better for you.

This isn't to say I didn't spend time on the UI. In fact, I spent a lot of time trying to get the main page of the app where a user sets up a robot (a room monitor) just right. I worked very hard to only show relevant information to the user, while also not requiring them to move in and out of a lot of different pages.

I also borrowed heavily from some concepts that I love on the iPad - that sometimes the best way to tell a user what to do is with words - not graphics. I'm certainly not the only one to notice this - and there's been a bunch of discussion on the web about it. So, I challenged myself to create a UI that used only words and text fields. No graphics allowed. (John Gruber wrote an article about studies that Apple has done on UI design that I wanted to link to but couldn't find. Know where it is?)

Special thanks to Voxeo

I was only able to build this app because of the great team over at Voxeo, the company behind tropo. Voxeo has been a client of mine for years, and I've always really loved working with them. When I told them about my idea and the app I wanted to make they loved it, and played a huge part in helping to make it happen.

The whole thing with tropo is that it helps developers make their applications better. Because Voxeo wants people to use the Tropo platform, they're happy to help developers with their apps. A guy named Mark Silverberg was assigned to my project - and working with him was just awesome.

I know I'm not exactly impartial. I have a relationship with Voxeo that goes back over five years. They were one of my first clients when I started Ideal Project Group and they remain a customer today.

But I wouldn't put it on my blog if I didn't mean it. The gang over there is great, the technology is awesome, and if you're a developer looking to add voice, sms, or IM's to your apps, you should really check tropo out.

It's version 1.0

The hardest part about launching an application is doing so knowing that some bugs are going to pop up. There are a few more tweaks that I'd like to make, and there are some things I know need to be done slightly better. Specifically, I want to add some javascript to one page to make activating a robot a bit smoother that it is now. We've also got to work a bit more on constantly maintaining a stream to Campfire. It's working great, but there are occasions where a connection has been lost and not restored. We're working on perfecting this - but I still felt the app was ready for a release today. In the meantime - trust notifire - but verify it's working every now and then.

I'll be working hard to fix any issues that pop up, so if you check it out and notice anything funky, please send me an email at andrew@idealprojectgroup.com.

A final word

Anyone who has read this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of 37signals. I recommend their products often, I've read their books, and they've inspired me in a lot of ways. I've listend to Jason Fried give talks about business, I've watched videos of Ryan Singer teaching web design, and I've taken to heart advice given to developers by David Heinemeier Hansson.

Because of this, part of me is worried that my application will just look like a cheap knock-off. As if it's just me trying to copy them and failing to do so. I hope instead though that people see an application that was inspired by them, but is still very much me. And, if introducing this product helps tell more people about their products that would make me really happy - because it'd kind of be a way for me to say thanks.

What this project represents to me is that very often the best way to make something new or better, is to simply connect a few things that already exist.

By connecting 37signals, tropo, and popular chat networks, I truly believe that I've introduced one of the best ways to add live chat support to a website.

I hope you like it.

Remembering Cameron

Two weeks ago marked the one year anniversary of the death of my cousin Cameron, who was killed in a tragic bus accident down by Eastern Illinois University.

My family is very close, and his death has obviously had a huge impact on all of us. At about 11 years my junior though, our age gap was just beginning to close, and so my personal relationship with him wasn't particularly close. Certainly not in the way that his good friends or siblings are close to him.

I've always had a soft spot for, and been close to, his parents though. His father, my mother's brother, was the youngest of my Aunts and Uncles. When we were growing up he was always goofing around, cracking jokes, and basically acting like one of the kids.

A couple years ago, I asked him one thing that he knew now that he wished he knew at my age. His answer: he wished he would have known how fast the years between 30 and 50 go by.

I've been thinking about all of this lately because it represents the paradox of our lives. On the one hand, pretty much whatever we're doing probably doesn't mean all that much. Not when compared to the relationships with those that we're closest to.

Yet, at the same time, whatever we're doing matters a lot. Because it's what we've decided to do with the limited time that we do have. And to waste this, to "muddle through" with anything, is a complete waste.

How many people are still spending two or three hours a day in a car just so they can sit in front of a computer? How many people are settling for "careers" that make them miserable and steal time from their families? How many people aren't taking a chance because they're afraid to fail, when all failing means is that they then get to try something else?

When Cameron was alive, he had the generosity to register as an Organ Donor. As a result, when he died, countless lives were changed. His heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and other organs all went on to save others. And of course, that meant that still others didn't lose someone they might have otherwise.

How would we live our lives if the heart that was beating in our chest was that of someone else's child? What would happen if we lived that way now?

All us are prone to getting stuck at times, to losing some direction, and are tempted to settle for mediocrity. For me, the only way I can honor those that I've lost, is to remember that the time we have is extremely short, to take the lessons of loss seriously, and to remember them constantly.

So remember, whatever you're working on, it doesn't matter. But also, it matters a lot.

If you're not already registered to be an organ donor, you should be. It takes only a minute and you can do it online at http://donatelife.net.

Podcast Episode Seven - What can a project manager learn from an author?

In this episode of "What can a project manager learn from x?", I interviewed Tracey Bianchi, author of Green Mama - The guilt free guide to saving the planet.

I'm really grateful that Tracey joined me on the podcast.

We had the opportunity to talk about the creative process involved with writing the book, the path she took to get the book published, and some of the main things she learned along the way. You can check out Tracey's website at TraceyBianchi.com and follow her on twitter at @traceybianchi.

As always, you can check out the podcast in itunes or listen directly on the site by using the player below.

(Note: you'll need to give the player below a few moments to load up.)

Thanks again Tracey.

We're all to blame

We've entered the second month of the oil gusher under the Gulf of Mexico spewing somewhere between 25,000 and 100,ooo barrels of oil per day into the water. And while there's plenty of blame to lay at the feet of BP, I fear we are losing site of the bigger picture of this disaster and what it really means.

Again, while there is plenty to blame on BP, we need to really understand what's going on here. In the same way that a drug addict will do anything to get their next fix, the United States of America is truly addicted to Oil.

Directing your anger at BP for this mess is akin to a cocaine addict getting mad at a straw for blowing out the bridge in their nose.

The hard truth is that we're all to blame. I'm to blame, you're to blame, and just like the drug war has done nothing to stop demand for drugs, punishing BP (while they should be punished) will do nothing to stop future disasters from occurring.

Is BP really more to blame for this mess than government subsidies that have been given to the oil industry, interfering with the free market and artificially driving down the cost of oil?

Is BP more to blame than the people in Nantucket who don't want wind energy farms being built off their cost?

Is BP more to blame than Ronald Reagan, who removed the solar panels from the White House that Jimmy carter installed in 1979?

Is BP more to blame than a nation of people that purchased SUV's that get 12 miles per gallon?

Is BP more to blame than the executive who could institute a work from home policy two days per week for any employee that works in a cubicle, saving huge amounts of energy, but doesn't because they refuse to embrace new technology?

No, they're not.

It feels good to blame BP because it means we don't need to blame ourselves. It means we're not at fault. And it means we don't have to change.

Here are the facts. The United States of America consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day. The world consumes about 85 million barrels per day, which means about a quarter of that consumption comes from the United States. And it's estimated that the reservoir under the Gulf holds somewhere around 50 million barrels of oil.

This represents about 3 days worth of oil for the USA.

Think about that. We're willing to put an entire ecosystem at risk, drilling a hole 3.5 miles into the core of the earth, and a mile deep in the ocean, for what? For a three day hit on our addiction.

We should punish BP, but that's not going to fix anything. So every time you want to blame someone for this mess, say it's the fault of "BP and me". Because that's exactly who's fault it is.

This disaster must be our nation's rock bottom. We need to enter rehab, and we need to enter it now.

A little consolidation, some new services, and a redesign

I just launched yesterday a completely new site for Ideal Project Group. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The old site looked good visually to me - and a lot of people told me that they liked it - but it wasn't working any more.

First off, inquiries were nowhere near what they should have been considering the amount of traffic I get on the site. So from that standpoint, the website was literally not working correctly. The other problem is that the site no longer did a good job of representing what I do and what my company does, so a major update was needed. Lastly, some of the things I've been working on have caused my company's presence on the internet to be completely fragmented. This is okay - because I've been doing a lot of stuff - but it was time to do some clean up and consolidation.

For the new site, I had a few key objectives in mind.

1) I wanted one website to present all the services my company offers. This now includes project management services, website building, product development, and general tech type services. (More on the last two in a bit)

2) I wanted the site to include - not just link to - the products that I've created. This includes the Android application GoFind, and the free web application I released earlier called ThirtyDayProject.org.

3) I wanted to tie this blog into my company site much more tightly and also link to my podcast, twitter feed, and a few other things in a way that made sense.

The Consolidation

Previously I had the main Ideal Project Group site (old), which was all about the project management piece, a Version one for Everyone site that talked about building websites and providing tech services, and then there is still this blog. So, I combined the V1 site and the main IPG site, and also pull in this blog's 10 most recent posts via Feedburner. I may end up integrating this blog even more tightly at some point, but I still need to make a few other decisions with Duarlander and personal blogging before doing so. For now though, I was able to style the feed and it looks really nice inside the new site.

Showing off my products

The GoFind page still exists for now - though this is likely the next thing to be changed - and ThirtyDayProject.org is a stand alone web app. So, I created a product page where I give a quick blurb about what each of them are, and link to their respective sites where people can get more detail if they want. This is much better than simply providing a link.

Some new services

In the past, small businesses would call from time to time asking me if I could create a certain piece of software. I would explain that I focused exclusively on Project Management and could lead a team of theirs but that I didn't have developers of my own.

I'm no longer going to turn down this kind of business, and am in fact going to be eagerly seeking it out.

I pulled together a team to create an Android app that was built and launched in six weeks. I built and launched my first Rails app with help from a bunch of people in under two months. I have great relationships with a number of developers and there is simply no reason that I should shy away from providing custom development for small businesses.

I've always lead software projects, and that's what I'll still be doing. The only difference is that sometimes I'll be working with a client's developers, and sometimes I'll be working with developers that I pull together. More flexibility, more freedom, more speed, and more business. All good things.

Very lastly, I'll also be working to help get small businesses set up with all their little tech needs. Maybe a shopping cart solution, maybe just getting a website and email up, or maybe helping a brick and mortar business get online with a podcast. This won't be how I make most of my money (I don't think) but I've worked with a couple brand new businesses lately to get them set up online and it's really fun working with these people.

You know who wants to get stuff done and move quickly? Someone that just started a new business.

So that's the story behind the new site. All my services in one place, a page to highlight things I've made, and tighter integration with things like this blog and the podcast.

Check it out at www.idealprojectgroup.com and let me know what you think. I'd love some feedback.

The high dive

You may or may not know this about me, but I was a springboard diver for about 10 years - from about the age of 12 until I graduated from the University of Iowa. I've been thinking lately about the sport and some of the lessons it taught me, most likely because my parents recently moved out of their house of 25 years and have steadily been giving me pictures and other things I left in the house.

In particular though, I've been thinking about how when we push ourselves to another level, it almost immediately makes us better at what we're currently doing. Obvious right? Maybe.

In the sport of diving, there are three levels of competition: the one meter springboard, the three meter springboard, and then the ten meter platform. I was almost exclusively a springboard diver, with an occasional exercise happening on the platform. One thing I recall very clearly is how much easier the one meter seemed once I started practicing on the three meter. Maybe easier isn't exactly the right word, but less scary for sure.

Smashing face first into the water or waxing out on your back isn't a joy on the one meter, but once you encounter that on the three meter it's really no big deal. Most importantly though you begin to overcome a lot of your fear, which in turn gives you a lot of confidence. And once you have less fear and more confidence, good things are bound to happen.

The problem I think we run into sometimes is that we mistakenly believe we shouldn't go to the next level - whatever that level may be - until we master what we're currently doing. Thinking things such as "I'm not going to write that novel until I've perfected my short stories", or "I'm not going to talk in front of 100 people until I've mastered speaking in front of ten", or "I'm not going to start my own business until I have another year of experience."

Here's the secret: you don't master any level until you push yourself at the next level.

Any great artist, great athlete, great thinker, or great worker is great at what they do now, because they found a way to push themselves at whatever their next level was.

DJ Phillips may not love every song he's writing in a 30 day period, and Cheryl Sterling may not like every self portrait she took for 30 days, but I guarantee that a year from now when they go to create something, it'll feel easier.

So whatever it is that you're working on, if you want to become better at it, look for the next level. It's okay if you don't master it. Just by practicing in that next space, you'll become much better at what you're already working on.

Go on, jump off the high dive!

Seth Godin is coming to Chicago

If you read this blog regularly, you know how much I think of Seth Godin. Well, he's coming to Chicago on September 16th. All the details are here: http://squidoo.com/sethroadtrip.

I went to a similar event in New York last year and wrote about it here. Not much else to say. You should go.

Finding comfort in contradiction

When you run a small business, it's easy to get caught up in other people's opinions. There are countless blogs, videos, books, podcasts and other things that entrepreneurs publish about what's worked for them, what ideas they think are good, and what they think is terrible.

But you don't need to look very far before you can find two people you respect that disagree with one another and have conflicting points of view. Seth Godin writes about the importance of failing often while Jason Fried says learning from failure is over rated.

Some people argue that you should focus on learning a skill while others believe that in an age of Mechanical Turk and off shore development that you should have others build your ideas.

My favorite contradiction is where 37signals contradicts themselves regarding what you should think about your competition. Here's what they wrote in Getting Real in 2006:

Keep Up With the Joneses

Subscribe to news feeds about your competitors.
Subscribe to news feeds about both your product and your competitors (it's always wise to know the ways of one's enemy). Use services like PubSub, Technorati, Feedster, and others to stay up to date (for keywords, use company names and product names). With RSS, this constantly changing info will be delivered right to you so you're always up to speed.

Now here's how they open an essay on competition in their latest book REWORK, which was just published in March:

Who cares what they're doing?

"In the end, it's not worth paying much attention to the competition anyway. Why not? Because worrying about your competition quickly turns into an obsession. What are they doing right now? Where are they going next? How should we react?"

And then later...

Focus on yourself instead. What's going on in here is way more important than what's going on out there. When you spend time worrying about someone else, you can't spend that time improving yourself.

They both sound like good pieces of advice to me.

Both of these books are fantastic by the way, and even if you don't work in technology you should get REWORK, because it will inspire you.

It doesn't bother me in the least bit that there's contradictory advice here, and that's the point. It's comforting. Because the truth is that pretty much anyone writing anything is doing so based on their unique perspective at that moment in time.

Things change us, and they change our perspectives, and we learn and we grow. Sometimes we change our mind. And sometimes both things can be true.

Read what other people have to say, let them inspire you, take the good advice. But remember, it might be wrong and it might change.

Or, it's coming from an expert and you should really pay attention to what they're saying.

Introducing ThirtyDayProject.org

The first thing I'll say is that if I've done my work correctly, most of what I'm about to write here is more clearly and accurately described by visiting www.thirtydayproject.org.

With that out of the way, on February 19th, in response to this post by Andrew Dubber, I committed to making an idea real by May 1st. All I knew at the time was that a man I had never met was going to publish one idea a day on his blog for thirty days starting on March 3rd.

As someone that works on a lot of projects, I pride myself on being able to get things done. I didn't know what the ideas would be, or what I would have to do to make one real, but I figured that there would be at least one that I could run with.

I'm very happy to announce today the launch of ThirtyDayProject.org, an implementation of Andrew Dubber's 5th idea in his series of 30 ideas in 30 days, the numberless calendar.

I really loved this idea because of the simple, but powerful idea that doing something every day for 30 days seems achievable at the outset, yet still requires enough of a commitment that it can have a lasting impact.

In order to implement the idea, I learned enough Ruby/Ruby on Rails and CSS so that I could build and design the application, and enough git so that I could share my code and so that I could deploy the application.

By no means am I an expert programmer. But I sure know a hell of a lot more than I did two months ago.

The end result is this: a simple web application where people can start their own thirty day projects and view the projects of others. I took Andrew's idea and added to it the inspiration from Seth Godin that I talked about in this post - that shipping things and sharing your work, your art, is vital.

So the site I built allows people to start a project, mark each day off as "done", and if they choose to do so, they can ship whatever it was they did that day. "Shipping" something is as simple as giving a day a title, and providing a link to whatever you did.

When someone provides a link to their work, I chose not to keep a viewer of that work inside the site I built, but instead just take them directly to whatever link was provided. The reason for this is simple. There was no point in me trying to make a website that stores photos better than flickr, or videos better than Vimeo, or music better than Bandcamp. Plus, there are too many sites in the world that are trying to confiscate people's creativity. I wanted to project it.

So the site I built is about the idea of what can be done in thirty days. If you want to take photos for 30 days, you should get a flickr account. If you want to write something every day, you should have a blog. And if you don't have one you should make one. I didn't want to fight that reality, I wanted to preach it.

I tried as best I could to tell the story of how this project got started, infuse some inspiration that I've received along the way, and encourage people to make something and share it with other people.

My hope is that people will be creative with the site. Maybe some people will ship something every day, while others may build a reputation for only shipping one thing at the end of thirty days. Most of all, I hope people use the site because I truly want to follow people that decide to do something every day for thirty days.

I want to see what they share. I want to see what they make. And my hope is that this website, and the story that it is a part of, will continue to inspire people in the same way that it inspired me.

I'm not trying to sound dramatic, but deciding to work on this project, and being a part of this little dance, has been really wonderful for me. I'm able to do things now that I couldn't just a couple months ago. And so my real desire is that maybe, someone will end up doing something positive that they wouldn't otherwise have done because of something I made.

That would truly make me feel pretty good, so I hope you check out www.thirtydayproject.org and think about whether there's a project you've been wanting to work on.

I'm really happy with the site, but I know it's not perfect. So let me know what you think I did well, and tell me what I need to change. I would sincerely love to hear your feedback.

Airplane mode

I was at the Shedd Aquarium with my family over the weekend, and I realized that I've been occasionally doing something with my phone that some others might find useful. Or, maybe you do this already.

If you're anything like me, you have some sort of smart phone that gets your email, twitter feed, RSS reader, and a few other things that command your attention. I've even caught myself taking out my phone to take a picture of my kids, seen that I had an email, and then started to read the email!

How terrible is that? A few times lately I've just put my phone into Airplane mode.

I figure, when I get on an airplane I'm not worried that I'm out of touch for a few hours. So why not do the same thing if I want to hang out with my kids? I'm all for being connected, but if it starts disconnecting us from the people closest to us then that's not a very winning proposition.

I was just talking to another small business owner tonight and I think doing the same thing can help us with anything we know is important. If you need to be working on a design or recording a podcast, forget about just turning off email - why not unhook from the internet completely for three hours?

Next time you're feeling like you should be focused on something, maybe the best thing you can do is pretend you're getting on a plane and go into airplane mode.

Why companies shouldn't pay contractors hourly

It's not that hourly pay is bad, I used to charge hourly too. It was the way I knew and it was how I thought things worked. Now though I believe there is a better way for companies that hire contractors and other businesses that provide services. And once you know of a better way, then that's the path you should try to go on right?

So why is a flat monthly fee for services better for a company that's bringing on some type of contract worker? Quite simply, because you're then paying for the service you needed and not the number of hours it took someone to provide that service.

These are two entirely different things.

In my line of work, sometimes the absolute best thing I can do for a project is sit down with a VP or the CEO and have a difficult discussion to set a project on the right path again. It may take all of 30 minutes, but it may be where a ton of my value came in for a given week.

Compare this with a PM who simply isn't willing to have a difficult discussion. They'll keep "working" on a project, checking their email, writing up documents, and having hallway discussions that are doing absolutely nothing to fix whatever is broken with a project. Yet, they continue to rack up their hours and the customer pays for it.

What if you're paying someone 40 hours per week for work that someone else could do in 20? Maybe you turned that more efficient person down because their hourly rate was 25% higher. Wait - that doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

The other thing that's nice about paying service providers a flat monthly fee is that it allows you to, if the need arises, negotiate a price based on the service you're going to get - not on an hourly rate.

If you pay contractors for some of your projects, instead of asking yourself "what hourly rate am I willing to pay?" try asking "How much am I willing to pay for this service each month?" $10,000? $5,000? $2,000? $500?

Then, try to get someone to provide that service each month for that dollar amount. There's a good chance you'll find that you can get better service and pay less for it by caring more about the results and less about the hours.

* = Not really

We've all seen the ads, articles and commercials. Something like "Get one month free!*"

Of course, the month isn't free and before we even read whatever foot note we're supposed to read we know that the little star means "actually - not really".

So why do so many companies use this tactic? Does it really work?

If you're writing an ad, or a promotion, or describing something on your website and you find yourself putting a * in the text somewhere I think that's big trouble.

Instead, why not just say "Get one free month when you pay for two months" or "Get $5 off the book as long as you're a member of our book club."

Whatever the purpose or the promotion, it shouldn't be necessary to put that little star in there so much. And, you'll likely find that you're writing is better and the description of your promotion is clearer, more concise, and may even be more effective.

Next time you're inclined to put a * somewhere, just remember it means "not really" and try to describe what it is that you actually want to promote.

First impressions or lasting impressions?

I'm not sure we can worry so much about our first impressions if we want to have lasting impressions. Making a good first impression is great, I just don't think it should be a primary concern on places like a blog.

The problem is that when you write to make a good first impression, you do so at the expense of not creating stronger connections with the people who are already visiting you.

It's a little bit of a challenge to think this way because it's true that on any given day someone new could visit your blog, and whatever article you happened to write is going be their first impression of you. And usually we want to make good first impressions.

I don't think we can have it both ways though.

The alternative is to write in a way where you simply accept that some new visitors will not stick around because you didn't make a great first impression. That's fine. Because what you're doing instead is appreciating the people that have already decided to give you their attention, and strengthening a bond that already exists.

This creates a lasting impression, and when you make a lasting impression with someone they're far more likely to stick with you and be a fan. You may not get as many page views, and you many not have a bunch of mentions on twitter, but I think ultimately it's a much better strategy because the visitors that you do have are likely going to be more passionate about your service or your product.

The opportunity is that most people don't do this.

It's a lot more difficult to measure passion and loyalty than it is to measure page views, clicks, and unique visitors. And since it's easier to measure that's what more people do. They can see the impact some article had, it looks like they're being effective because more people came to their site, and it makes them feel good because there's more immediately tangible evidence of what "worked".

But just because something is easier to measure doesn't mean it's more important. In fact, it's probably the opposite; the harder something is to measure the more valuable it probably is. (I read an article arguing the same thing that I wanted to reference and I can't find it. I'll keep looking.)

I do concern myself with first impressions on my main company website, because part of the reason it exists is to get people to want to learn more about me and my company. My blog however is where I want to make lasting impressions.

Not surprisingly then, I find my blog to be a much bigger asset.

Thirty ideas down, thirty days to go.

Andrew Dubber came out with the last idea in his 30 day series of ideas today, all of which he's given away on his blog for anyone to do with what they want. Fittingly, today's idea was a website where people could give their ideas away for anyone to use. It's another one of my favorites.

What's great about Andrew's ideas isn't just that he did what he said he was going to do, but the way that he wrote about them. He made a real commitment to writing thought out posts about his ideas each and every day. Hopefully you've been keeping up, but if not, you should really check all of them out.

And now, because he executed on his project, there's all this other stuff going on that I wanted to share. As you may know, I am executing on his 5th idea, the 30 day numberless calendar. It's going to be a website where people can put their calendars, and if they want, also share what they're doing.

Originally, there were twelve people that joined my project space when I opened it. The only commit people had to make was that they'd write one blog post a week about it. Other than that, they could do as much or as little as they wanted with the project. Exactly half have opted to say in, and half have opted to bow out.

To understand why I asked for that commitment, you need look no further than Joan Lee's blog post titled Diligence. Joan is one of the people that decided to stay in the project.

There are no hard feelings at all by the way with people that chose not to keep going. We all have things we need to do, priorities change, and sometimes we just lose interest. It happens.

But, I knew it was going to be important for me to know who really was in to the project and who wasn't.

Deb Walsh started a facebook page for the project for anyone that wants to join, and has put up a new website at OneBeforeMidnight.com (it's still being built) where she's publishing sound tracks with her on the piano for a 30 day project. If the first one is any indication of what's to come, we're in for a treat.

Cheryl Sterling has been writing about a 30 day project of portraits, and in our project space she mentioned she has paints ready to go. The anticipation is killing me.

Simon Fowler came up with the great little visual to explain the whole first follower thing, and has been thinking about what he's going to do. It sounds like he's decided though that any project is going to make him better at something he's doing already.

Aaron Brown has decided to do 30 days of gardening. He blogs at Moot Pt. where you can also check out some of his music.

And DJ Phillips, another musician, one of the funnier people I've met lately, is going to be doing something with his music.

I'm really happy that I'm working on this project, and having these people along side working on their own projects is really awesome. So thanks to Derek and Andrew for getting this thing started, and you should have some cool stuff to look at come May first.

We're always the hardest on ourselves

One of the many things I like about writing regularly on my blog is the feedback that I'll at times get from some people. It can really help me see how other people are interpreting what I'm writing and how I can communicate better.

Last week I wrote about my new pricing model and some of the challenges that come with it, and a few people sent me some emails and IM's. A couple folks just asked what happened, others told me they thought it was great that I was sticking to my new approach and trying to be innovative, and still others told me that basically they thought I was nuts and making a mistake.

The feedback has had me thinking a lot about how we can be really hard on ourselves, and maybe sometimes unnecessarily so.

When I first started my business I had a two month project that started and ended in about the expected timeframe. When it was over I started another, and that continued for a while. Then I worked on another, and so on.

In the three and a half years since starting Ideal Project Group I've formed great relationships with a number of companies, built a mobile application, created a new service to build websites for small businesses, started a community to test applications for the Android operating system, and began producing a monthly podcast.

My point is, my company is probably in better shape than it ever was the first year or two I was in business. And after all, part of the goal of my new approach is to get paid a smaller amount of money by a larger number of clients. So then why do I feel compelled to write something like "hanging by a thread" when I'm encountering a challenge that in many ways I expected to face at some point?

I think it's because we're always the hardest on ourselves. At least this can be true for me, and it hits me in two ways. First, I tend not to look at where my business is and where it came from, but where it is and where I'd like it to be. These are two entirely different perspectives of course and certainly impact my view of things.

Couple this with the fact that if all I'm doing is talking about the positive things happening with my business, but none of the challenges, I feel like I'm lying by omission. That would only be sharing one part of the story, and I think it would be a disservice to anyone reading this blog. So I'm regularly asking myself whether I'm sharing enough - am I being as open as I should be? Of course that's usually followed by the question - Am I being too open?

What I've realized though is that I'm probably just being hard on myself. I could just have easily changed the title of my post to "Laying the new foundation" and that would have changed the tone entirely. And maybe that would have been a better way to talk about it. I don't really know, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

The other thing that's become clear though is that I do need to do a much better job of explaining why I have moved to my new pricing model, and why I think it's better for everyone. I haven't done that quite as well as I should so I'll be making a point of talking a bit more about how it benefits my customers as well as my overall business strategy, and give more reasons as to why I think it's where the future lies for service companies.

In the meantime, I'll try not to be too hard on myself for not having done so already.