Meet my protégé > Ben Cooper

Having worked a little with Ben last year, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email asking if I’d be willing do some tutoring in the ways of javascript; what a major compliment! I’ve just returned from our first meeting at the Settle Down Cafe (notice the pointing dude behind Ben? Legend of a gent, another story), it has indeed been settled, we’re to meet every Tuesday in the name of javascript :-) I may have never met a more keen chap than Ben, he’s chomping at the bit and I am very excited to see how the tutoring comes along. Good times my friends, good times.

We (very quickly) skimmed over some of the obstacles and have decided to tackle a real-world idea I’ve had sitting in the sketchbook; it’s very javascripty, not overly complex, covers all the basics (DOM manipulation, asyncronous API wetwork etc) and at the end of it there’s going to be something to put our name to. After that? Who knows.

More blogposts when it happens :-)

Addendum: What’s a little odd is that when I worked with him I gave him the nickname padawan. Maybe I planted the idea many moons ago and it’s just come to a meaningful fruition? Magic.

Social Media Revolution

Another great video by Socialnomics; pretty thought provoking stuff!

How to write a perfect daily task list

I’ll announce the winner of the “weekend project” poll in the next post ;-)

These are the rules that I give myself when drafting my daily task list. Your task list MUST…

  • be the first thing you do every day
    I write mine after breakfast before brushing my teeth / showering etc 
  • use yesterdays list as a startpoint
    in case there’s anything incompleted or left-over 
  • fit on a small piece of paper
    I usually go for a piece of A4 folded twice, gives you 8 days of lists :-) 
  • have estimated times for each task
    this helps you stay on track as you work
  • have a bonus item at the end that you want to do
    only tackle this if you complete your list, gives you something to look forward to!

So for example, today I have:

“intentions” is a little idea I’m throwing about, if I create the wireframes I can happily file it away in my ideas box knowing that the soul of it is not lost should I wish to pursue it another day

Most of the rules cobbled together from a book called “The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking” which I read in the bath a few months ago - for serious workers I now consider it an essential read! GET ON IT FOLKS

on working with your Dad :-)

At the tender age of 13, as my friends were picking up paper-rounds I found myself picking up tomes of programming books - for the fun. My favourite hobby was trying to grasp something firmly outside of the normal school experience, programming and physics were the most exciting - there’s just so many boggling ideas to transcend!

Going back it makes a lot of sense; my Dad had recently moved from his shared office space in Washington to the spare room at home, as a result a plethora of books made their way back with him; technical guides, exploded isometrics, specsheets, pantone swatches, machine manuals, programming guides, interface conventions and buggerload of the other reference material that he collected over the years. Given my appetite for the extra-curricular I consumed many of these books with a passion - I put them into action when I “interned” for my Dad drawing technical illustrations in Flash 3 (anyone remember that?) for a kids game. Happy times.

Little did I know that it would be the start of a long and enjoyable working relationship; in the past 14 years 10 have been with Pappy King! How lovely is that?

I’ve been working with him for the past 3 months on a few large projects and I’m enjoying it more than ever! Our combined experience is so complimentary that it was a literal “head nod” and on to business.

So 3 cheers for Pappy King! He really is a jolly good fellow!

Seminar of sales-ness

Fun fact: when I was 17 I learned from my brother that you can just walk into random lectures at University and people probably wont notice, I did that for a few months and it was awesome. If you’re lucky it will be a good lecture :-)

So anyhow, yesterday was rather epic - Richard Lane, sales-dude extraordinaire, got my little neurons fired up about how we communicate and think about sales and after-sales processes and logic. Frankly a lot more than I can cover here (I have work to do) suffice to say it was very insightful, go see the man if you can! Why? This is why:

My journal writings are often a bit odd, mind I can usually translate it correctly…

Richard’s language and presentation style is incredible, he has just made an example sales pitch for NOTHING and I want to buy it. Whatever it is.

Brilliant.

One of the things he presented was a concept for sales Qualification called The Magic 35 Qualification Toolkit™, which reminded me of my Leads Profile Radar Diagrams (earlier blog post). So last night with an hour free I decided to knock up a “radar maker” that we can use to generate Lead Profiling diagrams and Magic 35 diagrams.

Ultimately I hope to add more presets for other stages of the sales process to make up:

  • Lead Profiling
  • Qualification
  • Requirement
  • Evidence
  • Acquisition
  • Closing

Hurray for brainwaves!

The perks of Working at Home

In my lunch break I get to CHOP-CHOP-KNIFE-FOOD-ATTACK

which turns into some tasty Egg-Fried rice

 

YOM YOM YOM!!

Mike Monteiro says “F*ck You. Pay Me”

I recently came across a most excellent video from Mike Monteiro (Web Designer Guru) focussing on the topic of getting paid by clients. It takes a very legal approach (his lawyer is with him onstage) and covers various topics such as kill-fees, your rights as a freelancer, using Intellectual Property as leverage for final payment and introduces several scenarios that are all too familiar with much of the audience.


It’s not as sweary as the title might lead you to think

The talk is a contributing factor to my ever growing interest in the legal processes of working freelance or in a small company; My “shitlist” for next week includes creating a legal timeline along with supporting documents, contracts, terms and conditions; I’m even speaking to awesome designer Graeme “grabbins” Metcalf about designing a gorgeous one-page infographic that illustrates the process. It’s gonna be gorge.

The view from my office window

I have always loved Jesmond Dene more than any other part of Newcastle and I’m no so proud to have it as the view from the new home and home-office. I won’t be getting bored of this anytime soon!

Not just on the grounds that it’s a beautiful place, but it’s also my cycling playground where I like to fall off my bike into mud. No really I seem to do that more than anything else there…

I freelance once more!

Hello world1.

After a 6 month stint with social startup happiest2 I find myself re-kindling my freelancing career, before I can begin touting for work I have a rather long list of due-diligence that must be completed, the meat of which comprises of:

  • Update oodavid.com to act as my portfolio
    something quick and succinct, with testimonials and a call-to-action
  • Update my legal documents and contracts
    I’m making some changes on account of recent lessons learned 
  • Formalise my agile processes for new clients
    I used to work on an ad-hoc basis which is fine when working with decent clients however the past 3 years of startup culture has brought agile to the table, awesome
  • Rebuild my network of freelances with whom I can rely on
    I last freelanced over 3 years ago and my little black book does no justice to the excellent freelancers and talents that I’ve encountered in my time away

I’ve given myself a fortnight to complete these tasks and I’m looking forward to each and every one of them! And with that I must big you adieu, I’m ahead of schedule and am starting to plough through my legal documents. Awesome… 

  1. All coders have to write that on a new blog, just the way it is :-)
  2. I’ll be writing about my work at happiest in another blog post in the future :-)