For The Scrapbook

The Meta Q, a great site with a focus on ExpressionEngine and design process from the folks at Q Digital Studio in Denver, has been doing a Q & A series with designers and developers within the ExpressionEngine community. It was recently my turn! If you’re interested in my own process, head over to The Meta Q and read my answers to a few questions about EE and web development in general. It was a great privilege to be involved with a site that I really enjoy reading! If you want to learn more about my (pretty opinionated) thoughts, buy me a beer some time. If you want to learn more with an increased peppering of vulgarities and trash talking, buy me four.

Some Truth.

Look, nobody cares about your Klout score. I don’t mean that in the abstract, I mean nobody cares about your Klout score. As a number, it means nothing. If I follow your stream and appreciate what you tweet, that’s all that matters. You could have a score of two and I’d still appreciate you.

Nobody cares about your Facebook fans. Again, not abstract. There has never been any point in time where I’ve thought “I need x service. I better head over to Facebook and check x’s Facebook likes to determine how they are as a company.”

Nobody cares about your inbound links. Obviously it matters but customers don’t care how many inbound links your site has, they care about how many inbound links their site has. Also, this number is easily gamed. Build sites? Throw your logo and a link to your site at the bottom of every page on every site you build. Is it organic? No, not at all but it gets you those links back. Is it ethical? I say no but I know there are those who disagree with me. If I’m providing a service to a client, my job is to represent and push their brand, not my own. I’m pretty firm on that because, you know, it’s my job. And I’m really comfortable with my business ethics.

So what does matter? What you deliver. Period. Do the right thing for your clients, deliver what they need and not what you need and let them spread the word for you. I’d much rather have you tweet for me and then, if it meant anything, I’d much rather your Klout score be high.

Full Service vs. Service Full

Preface: I understand that there are agencies that can provide the full spectrum of design services. Kudos to those that do it well. This post isn’t meant to examine those few that have the manpower and expertise to deliver as promised, it’s meant, as always, to clarify my own feelings on agencies that aim to offer full service but fall short. Further, I don’t believe that any agency aims to fall short and I understand that advertising, design and web design are competitive industries where a finger in every pie is almost a requirement in the marketplace. My only interest here is to ask the question: why?

There’s no shortage of small to mid-sized ad agencies that propose to offer a full range of design services. From advertising to branding, web design to social media marketing, agencies try to offer it all. From where I sit, there are a couple of reasons for this; a marketplace that puts pressure on agencies to provide these services (though I’m of the opinion that the agencies created this market) and/or an inability for agencies to relinquish any amount of control over the clients they serve. As I embark on my own practice with Happy Camper, my goal is to offer ‘full service’ but not be ‘service full’.

Full Service to me means offering as much as I can to a client within the confines of my discipline. If it’s my intent to offer web design services, my hope is to offer the full breadth of those services and not an inch more. Certainly, I could offer advertising, branding, and print design but each of these things is outside the scope of my expertise and I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to admit it.

Within my own town, there are innumerable shops set up to deliver these services and I’m stoked that they exist. If a new-to-market client came to me as their first stop, I wouldn’t hesitate to send them to a local shop that I respect first to get brand and collateral taken care of. I’d welcome the opportunity to work closely with an agency when there’s a mutual understanding that I’m not stepping on their toes and they aren’t stepping on mine. Each of us servicing a different aspect of the client’s needs without compromising the quality of our own work and each benefiting financially seems like an awesome proposition to me but I get the feeling I might be in the minority.

Theater

Just read Andy Rutledge’s RFP Theater which is…um…harsh. Just wanted to take a minute and throw down my own thoughts since it helps me determine/resolve my own goals as I approach my practice.

Personally, I’m not entirely opposed to RFPs. I don’t like the idea but I can see the benefit. If I’m at a restaurant and I see ‘Hamburger: $3.50’ I’m less likely to see any value than if I see ‘Hamburger: A quarter pound Angus beef burger flame broiled to your taste and served on our house-made sesame seed bun. We top this big boy off with two slices of bacon, fresh lettuce, hand-dipped onion rings and our savory hickory BBQ sauce. $7.50’ I understand what that means and I know what I’m getting. There is, however, another side to that coin. If we’re playing ball then that playing field has to be even. If I gotta pitch, you gotta pitch. To me, your pitch to me has to include answering any questions I have without hesitation…in writing. It means that your RFP has to be as well thought out as the proposal I’m going to submit. You’re RFP should indicate a budget if you’re asking me for an estimate. If I have to work, you have to work and the more reluctant you are to work for me, the more reluctant I am to work for you because it indicates you’re not really playing ball or at least you’re not playing fair.

Look, a portfolio doesn’t tell the whole story. Granted, a portfolio supplemented with case studies tells a better story but there are some things that can be revealed through the RFP process that might not otherwise be apparent. I don’t mind telling you my process and I don’t mind loose sketching my thoughts (yeah, no, not creative, just thoughts) up front as long as that field is level. If we’re both playing a game we should admit it’s a game and we should keep score. If I’m hitting home runs, I expect to see them on the board.

October 8th

Charlotte Elise Sakundiak was born on October 8th, 2010 at 10:19 PM. She is about as beautiful and perfect as a little girl can get. And she's got her moms lips.

little baby

Try harder

Seriously. We all have to try harder. Take the time, build/design/write for people. If someone is paying you, try harder. If no one is paying you, stretch a little. Just try.

Switched Up

Moved to a Media Temple DV, grabbed a hold of ExpressionEngine 2, wrapped it up in HTML5–The Markup Language, shit all over it with some -webkit garbage, went straight up @font-face on this mother and then set it out on its own into the world. Feed should still be the same, some links are missing but coming (for instance, an about page), and it really looks way more sharp in a WebKit browser (think Chrome, Safari or um, WebKit). Looks OK in Firefox and Opera and I could give a #$*& less about IE. Anyway, just wanted to pump one out before EECI2010 so I didn’t look like a total hack, just mostly one. I hope it’s a little easier on your eyes.