Aug 26, 2008 | blog
Have you had the pleasure of participating in a “fire drill” project? You know the kind, the ones that are rushed into being with such a flourish as to miss many (heck, most) of the components that make a successful project. I only mention this because I’m in the middle of such a project (again), and continue to marvel at how often it happens to any size company.
That is not to say that fire drill projects are always a mess, or always a failure, or don’t meet there objectives within budget or timeframe. Often, their outcomes are successful, mostly due to the determination and diligence of the core project team – almost always because they take ownership of their tasks, and even the project itself.
It’s this concept of ownership that interests me quite often. People who could otherwise be mere desk driving time punchers, believe in the project, product, process, or other outcome that the project is driving towards. It’s these people who make or break a project or a company. It’s not that they are indispensable – everyone is – but, they bring such a combination of work ethic and pride to what they do. They bring leadership and peer or team encouragement that is worth much more than their salary alone.
These are the people that make startups work, that can drive a simple idea to success through tireless ours of focused work and attention. It’s also these people I wish had more time to work on their own ideas and agendas, but that’s another post. Folks like these are the ones you want to have on your project, especially when one of the three key factors of your project has been removed from your control (namely time, money, resources). If you’re having to deal with a project that you can’t control all three components, you need to have more of the other two – mostly the best chance for success is to have one or two of those passionate leaders that will take ownership in the outcome of the project and work as hard as you are to that end.
For those working on their personal brand, one of the best things you want as part of your word of mouth marketing about yourself is that you see things through to completion. No matter if it’s through hard work or buy-in on the project, you want to be one of those passionate advocates for the projects you work on.
As for those fire drill projects – they can be as fun as they are frustrating, just make sure to bring a fire extinguisher.
😉
Photo credit: EgjishG
Jun 19, 2006 | blog
Ugh… There has been a bit of discussion on blog design lately, and I’ll admit that its not easy. I’ve been working on getting two new blogs ready for launch and the layout, design scheme, etc… is the hardest part.
Yes I will eventually hire a professional to give them an overhaul sometime in the future, but the sites will have to pay for that themselves, right now I need to create a compelling design on my own. Now keep in mind that I’m at heart a computer geek – a Windows computer geek – and you get the idea of how easy a time I’m having. 🙂
So in addition to learning a little about Linux, some about MySQL, a bit more on PHP, and quite a bit on WordPress. I now need to really get to understand color combinations, graphic elements and the like. Of course the technical aspects of all this makes complete sense, but the technical part is only one of many aspects of blog (and web) design.
For this site, I’ve stuck with a freeware template that I found out on the ‘net, and I’m fairly happy with it. I’ll update the design on this site sometime in the near future, and it’ll probably be my main experimental site for design experimentation and learning.
I must say thank-you to Chris Pearson for a recent post on the topic of web design pricing – it was a real eye opener. I understand completely because every job has its complexities, and that is why we hire professionals – so things come out looking right!
Apr 4, 2006 | blog
Wow, I’ve been doing a lot of testing lately. In the past week, I’ve had 4 operating systems installed on my system for testing, investigating and learning. So now that I’ve gotten that work done, I’m re-installing my base build (again).
Instead of using the image I made late last summer, I’m going to start fresh (again), but try something completely new. During testing, I limited the amount of software that was installed, and really relied on more online functionality. That is what I’m going to do this time around.
- Office 2003? Nope.
- MSN or Google Toolbar? Nope.
- Digital Image Editor/Library? Nope.
So what will I install? Firefox, Thunderbird for EMail, Pluck for my aggregator, WinZip, SnagIt, and very little else. I’ve got most of my “heavy duty” software on my main machine and simple “remote desktop” into that PC to run what I need. Its also my main Audio/Video “server” system and hosts some Virtual systems.
My day-to-day machine will remain a simple uncluttered computing device. My inspiration for this was my T-Mobile MDA. I’ve been using my MDA for several weeks and have found that I can do with a lot less! And the best part of all?? This new configuration is FAST.
Mar 4, 2006 | blog
What an intriguing solution – I finally made it over to 37Signals to check out their Basecamp product. After having heard quite a bit of buzz about the company and its efforts in simple easy to use solutions, I had to check it out myself.
While checking out the Basecamp site information, I bit and signed up for the free account to try out the service. My wife and I will run our upcoming home purchase as a project in Basecamp, and in the process, I will write a review both for the blog here, and for my department at work. The group I work with is really in need of a simple project managment application that is affordable, secure, and flexible – Basecamp appears to do this well.
So look back here later in the coming months, I’ll post bits & pieces as I find how Basecamp either helps or hinders our home buying process!
