Quote from the businessman who turned around Swatch in the 1980’s. Today responsible for around 25% of the worlds watch sales. Also on his portfolio are Calvin Klein, Omega and Tissot.
Best piece of advice
“I never follow advice, That’s because whenever I wanted to take a risk and create something new, I was advised not to do it. But I always went ahead and did it anyway.”
An exciting move for me, and a natural progression for most freelancers is to get a office for their business.
I have moved into the bustling North Laine area of Brighton. I have a second floor office on the corner of Jew Steet and Church Street. And no, it isn’t a shared workspace community.
I been in there 3 days and it’s a bit like moving house, you have to live and work there a while to get a feel for how you want everything around you. Of course, i’ve bought the obligatory Ikea office bits, a nice lamp and have room for my macbook and windows laptop.
The office has meeting facilities and room for my folding bike, its a really nice ‘next step’ in my freelance life.
or “ethical ways of making your business or freelance life more eco-friendly” and save costs at the same time.
I thought I would compile a list, as the topic of ethical business has been in conversation recently with colleagues at the Brighton Farm and Vine Brighton.
I’m hoping my ideas will save you money, as well as making you become more aware of the resources you use, and the importance of our individual impact on our local and international ecosystems.
Here’s the list:
.. and useful web services in a web 2.0 environment
want some quick tips on how to increase your productivity? Want to save less time trying to find the information you ‘filed’ last week?
Some are free, some are a few pounds, all well worth checking out to see of they can help you, like they have with me.
They are all about sharing, storing and using information efficiently:
So the Times Online redesign went live last week.
It was an exciting project to work on, I was based in Canary Wharf working with 2 other developers, 4 Information Architects, 3 Designers, a Content Management team, and countless management types.
I was involved at a early stage in the project life cycle in August 2006. My role was to take the illustrator designs and code them into templates showing the individual modules for each element in the design. Of course, validating and browser testing went along side this. And each module was given a timescale score depending on its complexity.
I was with the team for a month during which time I completed the front end build for all the main sections of the site: news, sport, fashion, motoring.. The job became quicker once the initial elements were built as they could be reused in other sections of the sites pages.
KNOW WHO YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE
Whether you are running a successful business, social enterprise or charity, you need to know who is buying your goods or services, and whose needs you are meeting. The greater your understanding of people and their needs, the more successful you can be in meeting those needs and growing in business.
UNDERSTAND THE DETAILS OF YOUR BUSINESS – in particular the thing that drive costs
The greatest vision in the world will only get you so far – if you dont have a clear understanding of what makes your business work, you cant plan strategically or make good decisions. Build a simple financial model. The process will make you think carefully about all the cost items you will have, and playing with the numbers will help you identify the activities that drive your costs.
Lots of new people, especially new clients and consumers get confused by what a programmer is, and what a person like me – a “front end web developer“, oh and im a freelancer too..
To save me writing down more titles, acronyms, etc.. I found a great article at Chris Heilmans site www.onlinetools.org/articles/fed2.html
RSS Feeds