A good, quick read from Manton Reece on forging your project(s) ahead and possibly having to sacrifice some things to see them through. I particularly like this little nugget from Gary Vaynerchuck,
“Someone with less passion and talent and poorer content can totally beat you if they’re willing to work longer and harder than you are.”
Upon launching Note & Point last week, I did get a feeling of accomplishment and pride that I hadn’t felt in a while professionally speaking. The ability to take a project from concept to finish in a matter of a few weeks and get the kind of positive feedback we received, it made the idea of doing it again seem much more plausible.
Preface: I’m not in an active job market search. I’m always open to ideas or options people might throw out there. It’s similar to my thought process of “everything I own is for sale.” Certain things I own may not be for sale at a reasonable price, but there is a price point on it all that could outweigh replacement time/cost. And no, my wife and son don’t count as things I own. They aren’t for sale.
Onto my personal dilemma. I stumbled across a link this morning to a job description that may fit what I do better than I could explain it myself. Only this would be on a much larger and more public scale as for what is produced. The job itself is a great position, including the things I love: design direction, copy writing, strategy, communications, PR and development all rolled into one. It would put me in a position that I would thrive in, the ability to have a team around me that probably do any of the above better than I could but would allow me to bring them all together to produce some great products.
But here’s the rub, the job itself is for an organization that I don’t really believe in. Not that I don’t think they know what they’re doing, or that they’re a bad organization or are involved in inappropriate or criminal activities; but in a sense that ideally I view things differently.
Is there any chance I would be happy in a position like this? Producing great work, leading a good team and enjoying all the areas I would be getting my hands dirty in all the while not agreeing the message being sent out to the masses?
I think I know what my answer is, but I’d like to hear yours as well. Persuade me.
Back on my game with a condensed version on purpose. Loving the responses I have received so far, from those that have mentioned anything it seems like a portion of you might be digging AFT’s. Feel free to comment, disagree or send me an email if you’ve got something to say.
In anticipation of a slight cool down over the next few days, I went casual and fall-ish. The everyday wear.
Ted Baker Depict Zip Through Jacket
This jacket looks like it might be made out of the same cotton/material that sweatpants are. For $147, I would hope not. I dig the shoulder seam and the industrial zippers. My one fear is that jackets like this have a tendency to bunch up around the middle creating a nice little faux-belly. I don’t need any help.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my goals is to some day move in a direction that points me away from actual client work. I have nothing against clients – I am thankful for each and every one of you – but I’ve always got ideas and projects floating around in my head that I’d like to see come to fruition and a little less client work would be a step in creating time for those projects.
For a long time, I’ve been an Internet enthusiast and evangelist. I sing its praises, share its benefits and do my best to make a living off of it as a whole. But compared to many out there, it took me a little while to get into the whole, making friends on the Internet craze that some easily adopted. I’d never been one for chat rooms or message boards and never needed the services of any dating sites fortunately.
MySpace wasn’t my thing. Facebook even to this day isn’t either. But the one that did get me hooked was Twitter. Not knowing what to expect when I signed up, it took me a little while to get into it. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know one person using it when I signed up. But I tweeted anyways. And then I did some writing for other sites, and my byline had my twitter username (@christianross). I got some followers. And organically as I found others I wanted to follow, my count grew as well. Twitter did what I didn’t think I needed, it forged friendships with like-mindeds around the globe and fortunately in 2009 we don’t have to be ashamed of telling others we have Internet friends now. I’m not.
Enter Note & Point. Thanks to Twitter and some organic growth, one of the projects that was in my head made it to the big screen. Dave Ruiz (http://foundationsix.com | @foundationsix) is a phenomenal designer based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and one of which I would have never known with out the social networking site. Together we hatched an idea, fleshed out a great design and developed the first online gallery devoted to high-quality design work in presentation related areas (Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, etc) in less than three (3) weeks.
I might be a little biased, but I think its beautiful. Thankfully, others seem to agree. With a little love from Twitter and word of mouth, in four (4) days time we’ve been blown away at the success it has already seen:
Almost 20,000 visitors to the site
57,000 page views
Over 1,000 RSS subscribers
Over 325 followers on Twitter
And my personal favorite number: less than 5% of visitors using IE6
Even over a long holiday weekend, I am overwhelmed at the success we launched to. We know full well that traffic will level out but have been grateful for all the lovesharedacross the net and for each and every visitor that has taken the time to stop by and/or follow along.
Feel free to add yourself to the list of followers by subscribing to the N&P RSS feed and/or following along on Twitter.
As excited as I am about what we’ve done already, we’ve really only scratched the surface so far. We already have plans in place to make Note & Point even more usable as well as working on ideas for some new projects.
PS. Since our projects don’t actually make money yet, we’re both still available for contract work. Hit us up if you’re ready to play: Foundationsix & Christian Ross
