Tanabata, Plus Groundhog Day Resolutions Review Day 5

Today is Tanabata, a Japanese Star Festival that falls on the 7th day of the 7th lunarsolar month. That's actually 2007-08-19 this year according to wikipedia, but 7/7 also corresponds to the fifth Groundhog Day Resolutions Review Day, on which I review my Groundhog Day's Resolutions and figure out how things have been going. It's particularly nice to celebrate Tanabata because the festival has a tradition in which you write down wishes related to bettering yourself. Afterwards you hang them in a bamboo tree, where presumably some universal force will notice and help bring them to fruition. This is very compatible with GHD Resolutions...we can all use a boost.

Last year I made some printable streamers, which I again printed out and wrote wishes upon. I didn't choose specific wishes, but wrote down forces that I would like to have more of right now; I'm trusting the "universal wish-granting force" to handle the implementation details for me---how's that for effective executive delegation? The wishes themselves were just single words describing what I'm in the mood for:

• Camaraderie
• Silliness
• Receptiveness
• Delight
• Resolution

Then I hung them on the tree. I'll burn the wishes at midnight on my grill, as I understand the tradition to be.

PICKING OFF FROM LAST MONTH

The basic premise behind Groundhog Day's Resolutions is this: Make resolutions on February 2nd instead of January 1st when we're caught up. Check your progress every "month plus one day" (3/3, 4/4, 5/5, and so forth).

My three main 2007 resolutions:

1. Make Money from Writing and Making Stuff
2. Build a Sustainable Social Network
3. Sell a Product This Year

Last month I had stumbled slightly and not gotten my action items done. This month, the same thing happened: I completely blew off my action items, which were as follows:

• June 13: Get the ETP Printed, Dang It!
• June 20: Put the HUB statement on the website.
• June 27: Create some original content, like a booklet or number of thoughts, and sticking it up on Lulu.com or Blurb.

I had forgotten to schedule these on my Google Calendar. It was a pretty busy month from both a business and personal perspective, and I dropped the ball. Although a lot did get done, the whole point of having a resolution is to really make a change, deliberately.

Here's the current status:

1. Getting the ETP Printed!

This is the new pre-printed emergent task planner sheet I had designed, for selling as an actual product. Convenient, beautiful, affordable...that's the idea! And, this is a way to dip my toe into productive development without risking too much.

I did draw up an initial plan on how to get this launched, and talked to my friend Scott to get it priced out at various area printers. It's been taking longer than expected with my busy schedule. My next action item, once we have the pricing figured out, is to put up some kind of order page for "pre orders", so we can arrange to have exactly that number printed. After that, it's figuring out payment, packaging, and shipping. Because we're looking at using an offset press instead of print-on-demand, after the initial run our incremental cost will much lower.

2. Put the HUB statement on the Website! A HUB statement is a form of elevator pitch that emphasizes your "hottest undeniable benefit" to a very specific target audience. By having a HUB statement, you can really effectively communicate what you do to people who actually would be interested in working with you. By putting this statement on my website, it would likely improve the chances of people figuring out they want to work with me.

I have been slowly getting clear about what it is that I do well and is worth paying for:

• critical analysis, architecture, and planning
• information graphic design
• experience design

and how I do it:

• investigative design
• scientific creative methodologies
• using media to create stories that unfold in real life

All this information, in addition to how people can initiate the process of working with me, has to go on the website. It's been driving me nuts for the past few weeks, because I feel the website structure and navigation is somehow holding me back.

There has been some movement though: I've decided that I'm going to use Expression Engine for the base of my next website path, because it has the features I need in one fairly inexpensive integrated package. I have slowly been figuring out how to transition the features of my existing WordPress installation into an Expression Engine equivalent.

3. Create Original Content and Stick it on Lulu.com!

I originally thought of rewriting some of the Printable CEO materials into book form, but this didn't happen. If I'd scheduled it into my google calendar maybe I would have remembered. There were a couple of book-related activities, however:

• Last month I had worked on my first print piece, a perfect-bound printed book of glossy photos. I got to use InDesign for this project, and found that it was actually a rather pleasant environment to work in.

• I was talking to a friend of mine about writing children's books, so I decided to use what I'd learned while using InDesign for the print piece to try laying out A Bee Story, the writing experiment I did last August.

It took a while to figure the best way to import the text---I copied the HTML from the browser and pasted it into InDesign. You can take a peek at the Bee Story PDF, formatted for a 6x9 Lulu run. I'm not planning on printing it; for one thing, it hasn't been proofread or reworked in any way. Each story segment was written in one sitting, four periods for 4 days, without any planning. It's at best structured stream-of-consciousness writing. However, I picked up some knowledge of how I would lay out an actual book: this likely will be some kind of PCEO-related booklet. In the meantime, it's just convenient to see the entire bee story in one document.

ACTION ITEMS

Since the website is so much on my mind, I'm scheduling a two-hour block of time tomorrow to try to resolve the remaining issues. These are largely related to just learning EE's template langauge, though I also need to redesign the large photo header at the top of the page to visually define each distinct content area. July 8.

Getting the ETP printed is a big deal, so I'm hoping to have a good idea of the pricing required on a good piece of paper. After that, it's time to figure out how to create some kind of pre-ordering system, and it's time to formally think about customer service. July 12.

Finally, creating some of the new original content for printing: I have a lot of content that can be repurposed and clarified; it's just outgrown the simple blog-journal / category model of information hierarchy; I need to start making this site look like a real website while retaining the community model of the blogosphere. I think that will be a huge relief. Until then, I can at least start creating review PDFs that describe every system on the website, and move them to the Wiki. I've scheduled some time to do this. July 19.

Guest Post: Inspiration is Everywhere

One day I was browsing a list of recent additions to 9rules, the blog network I'm a part of that's organized around the idea of "creating community through quality content". After reading the first couple dozen sites, I was growing quite exhausted. I guess there IS such thing as "too much good content"; those of you with humongous RSS feeds know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, by the time I got to Equivocality, I was pretty fried, but in just the first few paragraphs of my visit I was rejuvenated. I was again reminded that writing can be more than just a vehicle for ideas...it can be an experience. My ear for language was delighted by every artfully-voiced turn of phrase, and my mind appreciated the masterful-yet-light choice of wording. For a couple hours, I was enchanted by the lyricism of the writing, equally impressed the candor with which the author, Jeff, presents himself to the world.

I was very honored to be asked to participate in an cross-posting experiment between our blogs, as a way of expanding the kind of writing we usually do. We picked INSPIRATION IS EVERYWHERE as the topic, no limits attached. I'm very pleased to present Jeff's post on the topic here. You can read my take on the subject at Jeff's site: Equivocality.

[Dave Note: I just looked at Jeff's post, and wow...he says so much more so much less verbiage...it's just fantastic. I feel like I can write up the equivalent of a good chicken-fried steak, but Jeff...Jeff knows how to make sushi...]

Inspiration is Everywhere

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
—Jack London

Inspiration is everywhere. It's true.

The difficult part is finding it. It doesn't matter if you're a chef, an athlete, a student, or a barber; you just need to look. Sometimes we get too caught up in our daily routines to recognize it, but there are a couple of things you can do to open your mind.

Buy a camera

You'll start to see the world in a different way. The positioning of objects in a composition. The play of light in a scene. The subject of focus in the foreground.

It doesn't have to be a fancy SLR. Many beautiful "happy accidents" have been taken with a Lomo. If you do have an SLR, acquire a macro lens. With a lens that lets you focus so closely, you'll see things that wouldn't normally appear, like patterns, materials, and textures. There's an entire world to be explored that you never knew about, right beneath our fingers. Soon you'll question what else you've been missing, and you'll be more open to finding it.

Never stop dreaming

Dreaming is what gives us hope. It lets us see things that never were, and helps us think outside of the box. Some of the best ideas come from unconventional dreams.

Sometimes it's also important to dream of things that can never be accomplished. You'll be amazed at how far you can get when you strive for that which is just out of reach.

Step out of your comfort zone

You'll learn things about yourself that you never knew. You'll discover your strengths and weaknesses. By placing yourself in an uncomfortable situation, you're forcing yourself to confront that which makes you uncomfortable. If you can grow from this, you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish, and you'll wonder what was ever holding you back.

As humans, we need inspiration. It's as fundamental as our curiosity. Curiosity is what drives us to explore, but inspiration is what drives us to create.

Take classical composers for example. In a sonata form, the structure comes from one or two ideas. The exposition introduces the motif. With this piece as inspiration, he brings it to a climax in the development, then relieves the tension in the recapitulation. Beautiful, complex, dulcet pieces are created simply by using variations of a couple of notes, building on the foundation of a single musical idea.

You can expand this example to any creative application. A beautiful design may start with something as abstract as a colour. The taste of a meal may come from a memory. With inspiration, our creativity grows. Just remember to keep an open mind.

Inspiration is everywhere, and most often in places you'd never expect.

-- Guest post by Jeff at Equivocality.

Groundhog Day Resolutions Review Day 4

It's that time of the year again, Groundhog Day Resolutions Review Day! For those of you just tuning in, this is one of my odd schemes to fix the tired old New Year's Resolutions that never really seem to get done. The basic premise: Make resolutions on February 2nd instead of January 1st (we're all too tired anyway), and then check in every month plus one day (3/3, 4/4, 5/5, and so forth).

To recap, here are my three main 2007 resolutions:

1. Make Money from Writing and Making Stuff
2. Build a Sustainable Social Network
3. Sell a Product This Year

HOW DID PLANNED ACTIONS GO?

In last month's report, I had noticed that I wasn't making good progress on number 1 and 3. I attributed this to the lack of concrete deadlines, so I scheduled three tasks 7-14 days out. These were:

• Write a HUB statement (a form of marketing writing) and put it on my website, by May 14.
• Create a potential co-schemer list and call one person on it on May 16.
• Select and package the Emergent Task Planner for a printer on May 12.

There's one task for each of the three resolutions. I only got one done: preparing the Emergent Task Planner for print. It's ready, and now I am waiting on getting some information from a friend of mine on printing and fulfillment. I need to schedule a meeting and really start pushing on this. Again, the momentum has waned.

Why didn't I get the HUB statement and or co-schemer list done? Well, work happened, and I think scheduling all three tasks in one week was actually too much. This time, I'm going to schedule just one at a time. What's funny is that although these yearly resolutions are important to me, I apparently don't want to think about them all the time. This makes me wonder if I have my priorities straight in the first place.

WHAT ABOUT UNPLANNED ACTIONS?

Although I only made minor progress on-purpose, a lot of rather interesting things did happen this month:

1. Deriving Income from Writing and Making Stuff

• I picked up some project work doing some research to clearly compare Adobe Flex to other environments like ASP.NET and PHP. Although we weren't supposed to actually write the final copy, we DID have to do a lot of the thinking that leads up to it. This is very close to being paid for the writing itself. In fact, it's better...it's being paid to make sense out of complicated product lines, and that's the kind of task I actually enjoy.

• On a semi-related note, I was asked to consider making a presentation in Canada on information graphic and design. Although this isn't writing, it IS different from straight production work. I think the common factor is that it's creating content that's at the core of this activity.

It increasingly feels that I'm on the verge of redefining my work identity, and that once I do this a lot of things will fall into place. I also think that I can rephrase this goal as create original content.

2. Build Sustaining Social Networks

• It has been an exhausting yet invigorating month. There was more speed dating, and more meeting of interesting people. There was more hanging out with people, including lessons in personal networking that seemed to indicate a turning point for me socially. I can't remember a lot of what's happened at the moment, but I do know that I'm more social now than I have ever been. I guess I'm getting used to it.

• Also completely unplanned was the establishment of a World of Warcraft Business Networking Guild, or more accurately this was the excuse I had for getting back into the game. I've already met a few people through this, and the quality of interaction both in-game and in the forums is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops further.

• I'm continuing to be active in our local Friend's Meetup, creating more local activity by being the person to suggest it. It's surprisingly easy once I got over the expectation that I had to please everyone and settle for my 2%. By that I mean I expect a lower percentage of people to be really interested in what I'm doing. If I meet just one person who I am inspired or energized by, that is an enormous win.

I think I can say that at this point, I'm tied in with enough activities that I'm not in immediate danger of losing momentum. So long as I keep meeting people and making the effort to create positive community energy, something wonderful is increasingly likely to happen. The great thing is that the energy has already been set free, and is doing good things in the world. It's a very pleasant thought.

3. Sell a Product

• I did get the Emergent Task Planner for Print designed and ready to deploy. I now have to push through the part I don't know anything about.

• Many people sent in ideas for how to make more money selling things, and I've lost track of a lot of them. One drawback of the increased social activity is that I've been losing track of who I've been talking to about which projects. I'm going to need to pull back and figure out a way to just focus on a few things at one time while keeping people in the loop. This blogs helps a bit with that, but I am starting to feel like I need a second layer of automation.

• I did some print work for a company out in California related to their "Golden Ticket" recruiting campaign. I wasn't doing any of the work related to their actual campaign, but I helped them out by converting their word document into something that looked a little more dynamic. It's the first time I've actually used InDesign to lay out a book for print of any kind. And you know what? It's a lot of fun. And now that I've had a taste of creating books and holding the result in my hand...wow. The mind boggles at the possibilities.

IT'S ALL RELATED

As I write up this month's report, I'm struck by how intertwined all my resolutions seem to be. This is not surprising because they reflect important values in my life: creating original content, making things, learning how to be self-sufficient, and creating a feeling of community that's important to me.

As I push on each of these things and reflect on them each month, I'm starting to feel a sense of satisfaction that I am making headway. The more headway I make, the clearer the path becomes, because I have the benefit of hindsight to see where I've come from. And as my experiences accumulate, I am starting to have faith that I will continue to have positive ones. This is not a feeling I anticipated I would have: I expected that the sense of accomplishment would arise from having done very concrete and countable things. I know that they will happen, because they're within my ability to do so, but for the first time I think I am starting to understand what people mean by "The Journey is the Reward." Before I understood this phrase as "deriving a benefit from the journey by maintaining a broad appreciation and perspective on the universe". Now, I understand journey as a "state of being"...always moving, finding a rhythm within yourself and a connection with the people around you. It is about maintaining a dynamic equilibrium.

ACTION ITEMS

I'm going to choose three specific things to get done for the next three weeks, one task per week, each with a tangible result that can be seen or held in the hand.

• Get the ETP Printed, Dang It! June 13 is the day around which I will plan something.
• Put the HUB statement on the website. June 20th is the day to allocate time toward.
• Create some original content, like a booklet or number of thoughts, and sticking it up on Lulu.com or Blurb. June 27th is the allocated date.

As I've been fond of saying lately, getting the world to change is a lot easier if you're doing something in it that leaves a mark or impression. At the stage I'm at now, the hardest part is just making a mark in the first place.

Groundhog Day Resolutions Review Day 3

Recap: I've been testing a system that I call Groundhog Day Resolutions. The basic premise is that everyone's too stressed out to take the time to craft decent resolutions on January 1st, so you should take a break and wait until February 2nd. This is of course also Groundhog's Day, one of my favorite holidays and favorite movies. The second point of Groundhog Day Resolutions (GHDR) is that you revisit them on 3/3, 4/4, 5/5, etc., for periodic review.

There's been a few other people who are following through with their GHDRs today; here are mine:

1. Commit to Deriving Income from Writing and Making Stuff
2. Build Sustainable Social Networks
3. Sell a Product This Year

This is one of the more interesting reviews so far, at least for me. Read onward!

1. DERIVE INCOME FROM WRITING AND MAKING STUFF

STATUS: OK

This resolution, when I first made it, was about shifting my career focus to areas I am strong in: writing and ideation. The challenge has been how to sell that, because the market tends to emphasize tangible goods and commodity services.

In the past, I have derived income primarily from a service perspective: interactive design, management, and programming for hire, at either a package or hourly rate, to implement someone else's scheme. This resolution represents more than just an expansion of my service offerings; it is actually a directive to put original Dave Seah thinking on the market. Another way of putting this: let my own personality color my work unabashedly. If I don't let my personality into my work, I'm not going to succeed in the way I want to.

A second insight has been that my writing is not a service offering. It's my process. Whether I'm doing design or programming, the writing is my way of packaging my thinking before starting the work. Writing is just another delivery medium, like my design and programming work, for my thinking.

To sell packaged thinking, I need to know who actually needs it. My friend Senia turned me onto a concept called the "Hottest Undeniable Benefit" (HUB), which is a clear targeted statement about what you specifically do for a very specific market. My HUB statement is currently this:

I work with decision makers to express critical business insights through clear writing and outstanding visual design.

This past month I've picked up a few jobs that are in alignment with this, and am feeling my way through them. This is not bad progress, considering I finalized the statement only a few days ago. I can see what kinds of supporting material I need to create to further define my market niche.

A second change has been to print cards with the title investigative designer on them. I've handed out two of them, and it's too early to say whether it's a move in the right direction or not.

2. BUILD SUSTAINING SOCIAL NETWORKS

STATUS: OK

I've been actually fairly social lately, which isn't bad for someone who tends to be more introverted. I think the secret has been to realize that my shyness came from being unsure about myself and what I wanted. Now that this is clearing up, I tend to be more outgoing. Here's what I did:

• I ran a local Meetup after-work sushi dinner. I'd say it was pretty successful judging from the feedback rating and what people said to me afterwards.

• I did Speed Dating for the first time. I met several interesting women, and discovered that I now can hold a conversation with people I've never met. I've made a few friends in the process, and introduced a number of people to the local Meetup group.

• I know the staff at the local coffee shop a little better, as I've continued to go there in the morning to do my daily planning after my 2 week experiment in waking up early (albeit at 10AM now instead of 7AM...I'm no Pavlina when it comes to sticking to stuff :)

  I find it fascinating that one can create rapport by just showing up at the same place everyday and having a daily interaction. Very cool.

• I took up an offer to work off-site at buddy Scott's company, Mediastream, up in Manchester, NH. He has some unused office space, and I've found the change in scenery to have positive effects on my perspective. To expand the network, you must hang out with different people over a period of time. It's that easy.

Commentary: Maintainable versus Sustaining Social Networks

Working off-site has forced me to commute, and it's put some repeating structure back into my day. Having repetition, I think, helps maintain social networks. However, I just realized I'm not really looking for "sustainable" networks: I want the sustaining kind, so I am re-energized.

I've had two important insights this month regarding the creation of a sustaining network:

• I am looking for co-schemers first, collaborators second. A schemer is passionate about shared motivations. In comparison, a collaborator is passionate about the project. To catalyze myself into action, I need more co-scheming in my life. Or Collaborative Scheming. Or to be in a Scheming Collaborative.

• I know where to find the right people. Dane Petersen, an energetic and very awesome fellow I met at SXSW for all of 5 minutes, called me out of the blue and we chatted about some project work he was starting and wanted some extra perspective on it. So we had a great conversation, and I thought holy cow, it's this easy. I never think of actually calling other people because I used to be afraid of it when I was a kid (long story). There are dozens and dozens of cool people out there to contact, and all I need to do is say, "Hey, I'd love to chat about something. Do you have some time?" I'm so dumb.

3. SELL A PRODUCT THIS YEAR

STATUS: NO PROGRESS

This has been my greatest mis-step for the month. Theoretically, it was the easiest thing to do: create something and sell it on the Internet. Heck, I've already got things created, yet I have slacked and slacked on this project:

A short PCEO pamphlet for the Concrete Goals Tracker that distills the best parts into a single process. I’m guessing this will be about 24 pages. I may offer it immediately on Lulu.com or something like that, and I’ll also have something that can be shown to various small presses that might be interested in running it themselves.

I haven't written it. I've thought about writing it, starting it, or getting moving on it many times. There is absolutely nothing in my way. Instead, there was always something more pressing to do. Or I was too tired after a long day of work and felt the need to veg out in front of the TV.

FAILURE ANALYSIS: Too much time allocated, too-abstract a goal chosen.

One month and one day is a long time. It's appropriate for GHD Resolutions because it's just long enough to allow you to dream freely without being too worried about how you're going to get it done. It seems possible because you (1) said it out loud and (2) you gave yourself enough time; such is the allure of resolution making. Of course, this lack of specificity is also the great weakness of resolutions, because the discipline to actually get things done is not part of the framework.

So here is the change I am making to my GHDRR Process Framwork:

• On Review Day, you must schedule at least one action with a tangible deliverable that will occur in the next week.
• Make it doable in one sitting, and make sure that it produces a result that you can either see, hold, or show to someone else.
• Schedule a specific work date and time into your regular work week.
• Do it.
• Reassess, and optionally do it again.

Incidentally, Corrie Haffly made a monthly goaltracker with a picture of a little groundhog on it that might be suitable for your review day tracking needs. It's very cute. I'm probably just going to use Google Calendar for now, since it sends me alerts.

ACTION ACTION ACTION

Having made this correction, I don't feel so bad about having blown my last month. So what happened?

I did not make a distinction between "internalized" and "new behavior" resolutions.

• Habit resolutions are the ones that seek long-term behavior change, and they can remain pretty nebulous if the imprinting has already been done. My resolutions #1 and #2 have already been internalized, so all I need to do is just say I'm doing them. Resolution #3, however, requires discipline, effort, and measurement like any project; failing to take that into account ensured that nothing got done. My other resolutions might have failed too, if they were not internalized.

The solution: create habit-enforcing reminders and define progress deliverables.

• The interval of scheduling that feels about right to me is one week away, or between 7-12 days from the GHD Resolution Review day.

Why not make it an immediate action?

• My rationale is that I want to go through the anxiety of anticipating the looming date to weigh on my brain, so it sticks. If I did it right now, then it would be done and I'd forget.
• By inserting that 7-10 day waiting period, the brain will steep in its own anticipatory juices and be perhaps changed. Mind you, this is just another one of my unsupported hare-brained theories. The particular hare I'm thinking of, though, is Bugs Bunny.

Why not two weeks?

• I can't really visualize what's going to happen in two weeks, because there are too many variables in my life with clients, projects, and random life encounters.
• It's important that I set a date that I can hold in my mind and weigh with immediate life factors, because I want to be mindful of my resolutions.
• If I set a date way out in the future, I will just forget about it and let whatever external notification system interrupt me when it's time to switch gears. Responsible? Yes! Mindful? Not so much.

THE PLAN

Here are my one-week-out goals, chosen between 7-12 days from now. If I was really busy, I might schedule only one resolution-related goal per week, but for now I want to just see how it works with all three resolutions running in parallel:

1. Make Money from Writing and Making Stuff - Put the HUB statement on my current website, on a design services page, on Monday, May 14.

2. Build A Sustainable Social Network - Create a "Potential Co-Schemer List" of people I have never talked to. Talk to one person on that list on Wednesday, May 16.

3. Sell a Product This Year - Select and "package" the Emergent Task Planner for a printer on Saturday, May 12.

I just put these into my google calendar, and already I am feeling a huge wave of anxiety and anticipation...excellent! :-)

Vent Through Haiku!

I was following up on Twitter friend Corrie Haffly and came across her Bad Day? Vent with Haiku post. The idea is that when you're having a bad day, express your pain through the soothing verbal tea that is Haiku. It combines just the right blend of tension with authentic expression, tinged with a responsible amount of subversiveness. And yet...venting through haiku is somehow not mean. Incredible!

Here is a haiku-ization of a client's email, from her former workplace:

I am quite upset
At your stupid, sucky, lame
Mickey Mouse product.

It's just one of several examples. Check it out!