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To get started with the web-based sleep tracking service, sign up for a free account. You can start entering sleep data right away, including backdating entries to include info from nights past. Record the approximate time you fell asleep, the time you woke up, and the quality of your sleep each night; Yawnlog will do the rest. You can even add notes to each entry if you want to keep track of variables like how medication you’re taking might be affecting your slumber.

Yawnlog gives you an overview of your daily and average sleep debt (if any), as well as an average of how much you sleep per night and how close you are to meeting your nightly sleep goals. To see how your numbers compare, Yawnlog lets you connect with other users so you can see how much sleep time you get compared to your friends. You can make your profile and data public so others can find you, or mark it private so it’s accessible only to you.

Yawnlog isn’t as robust as some of the other sleep tracking apps we’ve mentioned, but it’s a great way to get some insight into what affects your sleep and what kinds of overall slumber habits you’re developing.

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I was excited when I saw @Kim send a tweet with the link for this amazing interview with John Knoll, the co-developer of Photoshop. The person conducting this interview is @Scobleizer, and he does an incredible job. John is a smart, humble genius and watching this interview is definitely worth your time. One of the most interesting parts of this interview to me is when he talks about what it was like to pitch the idea of Photoshop and what some reactions were. What great history, wisdom and lessons to be learned.

This video was just posted onto YouTube yesterday. According to the site, “John Knoll released Photoshop 20 years ago next month with his brother, Thomas. It changed the world of graphics and digital photography in a big way. Here’s the full interview, done in a hallway of Lucasfilms’ Industrial Light and Magic, where Knoll now works (he does special effects on films, including on Avatar).”

Get ready to be inspired!

Thank you to http://www.flickr.com/photos/synx508/3128207481/ for the birthday candle photo!

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At GenApple you can buy and sell non-public, personal, private and proprietary information.

GenApple listings are open to anyone who has non-public, personal, private and/or proprietary information or knowledge: celebrity gossip, business ideas, insights into to a particular organization – any special information. The buyer decides if the information being sold is worth the price.

• Information sellers can list non-public, personal, private and proprietary information for free. GenApple provides a safe, economical way for people with proprietary information to profit from that knowledge.
• Information buyers can search through GenApple’s listings for free. GenApple provides a secure, confidential way for people who need special information to gain it. Because of the special nature of buying and selling information, GenApple promotes buyer protection through a number of cutting-edge tools.

http://www.genapple.com/

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The fact is that many of the features us designers use in our daily work is also available for every video editor and movie maker. There’s tons of awesome technologies that will enhance anyone to perfection if used in the right way. From filters smoothing out wrinkles to crop tools that makes anyone look like their magically lost 20 pounds overnight.

Well, there are of course some rules that apply when retouching an image or a video. Sooner or later the object in question has to enter public places at some point and that will reveal any “flaws” they have that have been taken away during the retouch process. So, staying true to the persons true identity is to be preferred.

Watching this video really put things in perspective and although we know about these “refinements” we willingly see them as perfection and the norm for how we should all look in order to be accepted and adored. It’s ultimately wrong and will most likely create a sense of megalomania for the object of idolization instead of creating a believable image of someone everyone can truly look up to. But, what should be said as well is that the major part of the most successful celebrities haven’t done anything to alter their true personality and beauty. This way they have preserved their unique and truthful image. Now, you are the judge and no one can take that away from you.

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What could be better then than to camp out in an entirely new way. The concept, put together by the genius Kevin Cyr at KevinCyr.com, is quite provoking but at the same time plays on the humoristic use of everyday items we’ve never cared to actually keep on developing. Someone pointed out that this could be the exclusive penthouse for the more fortunate homeless people while some people actually sees the prototype more as a piece of art.

And even though I agree with both, however in the most humoristic way, I can certainly see the art aspect in it more than anything else. The practical use of this contraption is highly doubtful as it alerts a string of security issues such as instability, theft and more importantly the risk of being whisked away to an unknown location while you’re asleep.

I am amazed by the idea and where it may have come from but at the same time I get a little disappointed when I look closer at the actual photo’s as it looks evidently like it’s all a hoopla of photoshopped pieces and bolts. Maybe I am wrong and maybe not, the lighting and the shadows just doesn’t rhyme right in my head, that’s all. But, it’s a “AA” for idea and a “B” for conceptualization.

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Sometimes the smallest changes in the status quo can have the greatest impact on the world. So while Foursquare may appear to be nothing more than a mobile application getting excessive buzz, it’s actually fueling the location-based mobile space with unique creativity that competitors can’t copy fast enough.

The real-world effects of the game are also quite pertinent. If you need proof, we’ve dissected how the startup is creating a new currency, turning social activity into a game, redefining what it means to be a regular at an establishment, pioneering a deeper connection between place and patron, and putting people focus on higher education.

1. Creating a New Currency

Customer loyalty programs tend to involve old fashioned punch cards, but even those that are electronic don’t take into account your social media mentions. That’s all changing, however, as we’ve already seen from a recent Tasti D-Lite announcement.

Tasti D-Lite — with the help of Foursquare’s API and inspiration from their check-in model — is revolutionizing the very way we think about social media and turning it into a form of currency. As the first restaurant to incorporate social media rewards into their customer loyalty initiative, Tasti D-Lite is letting customers accrue extra points (and earn free frozen treats faster) for Foursquare check-ins and tweets automatically made when their TastiRewards cards are swiped.

Tasti D-Lite may be first to realize that a Foursquare check-in has monetary value, but this won’t be the last time we’ll see social media be treated as a currency. The exchange of goods for check-ins is a natural progression that combines technology, business, and social media awareness. This type of transaction will become commonplace in the coming months and years ahead.

2. Making Social Activity a Game

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Foursquare was perhaps the first to change our day and night life experiences into a social competition to essentially answer the question, “who has the most interesting life?” In fact, one key side effect of playing the game is that it inspires users to lead more active and interesting social lives. While this may all sound superficial and silly, the implications of social location gaming are quite significant.

As an example, the game mandates that you check-in to physical places (as opposed to just lat/longs). That check-in reaches all of your friends (and Twitter and Facebook if you so desire), and not only exposes what you’re doing, but where you’re doing it.

The effects of that simple act of checking in can be felt far and wide. Multiply that single check-in by the thousands of other participants who each regularly update their location status, and you’ve essentially put experience on a map in a social way. That’s good for the people participating, the economy as a whole, and the individual businesses getting play from the Foursquare community.

3. Redefining What it Means to Be a Regular

Mayorships are perhaps the most interesting element of game play, especially since they are disconnected from the point competition to dominate the leaderboard. To become a mayor of a venue, you need to have the most check-ins. But after two check-ins at the same place, you no longer receive any points (unless it’s on the weekend). Why then would anyone want to be mayor?

There are a few key elements going on here. By becoming mayor of a venue, you’re establishing place status and claiming it as your own. It’s no different than our everyday lives, as we each consider certain coffee shops and restaurants to “belong to us” in some manner, and we associate them with our identity. Foursquare has just given us a way to prove it, and they’ve created an opportunity for businesses to capitalize on our inherent need to be perceived as top dog.

Special mayor-only rewards are cropping up everywhere Foursquare is played (which is now nearly everywhere) and they’re creating customer loyalty battles that are good for regulars and great for businesses. In fact, Foursquare provides these businesses with a way to reward mayors with special promotions (like the one seen above) to further the customer loyalty battles. Ultimately Foursquare has found a way to make being a regular at your favorite pizza joint mean something tangible.

4. Pioneering a Deeper Connection Between Place and Patron

Twitter offers a way for businesses to connect with their customers online. Foursquare puts location in context and extends that connection to the offline world. The model of the location-based game is such that any venue willing to make an extra effort can get to know their socially active customers on a more personal level, and even encourage meetups in their space.

Of course, it’s a two way street, as Foursquare users are unconsciously contributing to the relationship by sharing tips and to-dos with the entire Foursquare community. As a result, information is being shared and stored by users — similar in fashion to Yelp — but presented in a way that makes it immediately helpful. It’s community on a whole new level.

5. Putting a People Focus on Higher Learning

Harvard is an esteemed institution, rich with tradition, and it’s one of the first universities to embrace Foursquare to create a campus-based game to enhance connections.

As Perry Hewitt, director of digital communications at Harvard says:

“Harvard is more than classrooms and buildings. It is an interconnected community of people, ideas, and experiences, and we are actively pursuing ways to enhance those connections.

We believe that Harvard’s participation will allow our community to engage with friends, professors, and colleagues in new ways. We also hope visitors and neighbors will benefit from the platform as it grows through use.”

For a university like Harvard to see the people-potential powered by a mobile application like Foursquare demonstrates that there’s more to this game then just leaderboards and badges.

More Foursquare resources from Mashable:

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- 6 Foursquare Apps We’d Love to See
– 6 Tips for Getting the Most out of Foursquare
– Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Location-Based Throwdown
– The Twitter of 2010: Foursquare as Next Year’s Breakout Hit
– Location, Location, Location: 5 Big Predictions for 2010

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, janrysavy

[img credits: MariShelbley, Flickr; Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff Photographer]

Tags: change, foursquare, List, Lists, location, location-based, Mobile 2.0, trending

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Originally posted at The Download Blog

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It’s time for more iPhone 4G rumors folks and the one I’m about to share with you sounds very interesting. In fact, if true, it might totally change the way we interact with the device and it could convince most people to switch to the next-gen iPhone.
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Read the rest of iPhone 4G to Come with Touch-Sensitive Casing? [Rumors Say iPhone Next-gen Casing Will be Just Like Apple’s Magic Mouse, Touch-Friendly]

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Mind-mapping tools are great for corralling snippets of information and brainstorming details into one place so you can see how they fit together in the big picture. If this is your first foray into the world of mind-mapping apps, you’ll find VUE easy to set up and use. (Our previous guide to mind mapping is a great resource to help you wrap your head around mind maps.)

You’ll need to register at the app’s web site for a free account before you can download the Windows, Mac, or Linux version of VUE at no cost. Once installed, you get get started right away setting up nodes containing ideas or concepts, then linking them with arrows to form relationships between them. You can also include clickable URLs, images, files, and more. Want to include videos and documents? Just drag them over and drop them on your map.

Unlike many other mind-mapping tools, VUE can go a step beyond the mind map, turning your brainstorms into slide presentations so you can share them with others. They’re laid out so viewers can walk through the information contained in your map in a way that helps them understand how the concepts are laid out. VUE has tons of features that are likely to appeal to novice and expert mind-mappers alike. Check out this demo video to get a better idea of what VUE can do for you.

VUE is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

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The company just released an early PC version of a programming tool called Kodu that’s designed to make creating a game simple enough that people under ten can do it. Microsoft believes the PC version of Kodu, which is free, will broaden the audience for the tool, especially in schools. Last June, it released a version for the Xbox 360, a game console that probably isn’t at the top of the list of things schools want to buy.

Matt MacLaurin, a director in a research group at Microsoft called Fuse Labs, created Kodu after seeing his own four-year-old daughter’s budding interest in computers. Mr. MacLaurin was also dismayed at the decline of enrollment in computer-science courses in American schools and the way in which the discipline is typically presented by educators.

“It’s often seen as incredibly scientific – a great way to do math or a way to make money,” he says. “Both are valid goals. We don’t really present it as a creative medium.”

Kodu tries to turn game programming into something more akin to painting. Users have a “terrain editor” with colorful icons and menus to help them design a game environment with trees, water and other objects. They can then use more menus to populate the environment from a palette of characters and endow them with certain behaviors.

In this way, users can, say, program robots that shoot missiles at a flying saucer whenever they see one. And the user can program the flying saucer to fly in the appropriate direction whenever players push the arrow buttons on their keyboards.

What’s the profit angle for Microsoft from Kodu?

It could help stoke interest in computer science among youngsters, which would benefit a future Microsoft looking for programming talent ten or more years out. Mr. MacLaurin says Microsoft also sees a potential to include Kodu’s simple programming tools into games.

Mr. MacLaurin fell short of one goal with Kodu: He originally wanted to make it easy enough for a five-year-old to use, but he says Kodu is better suited for kids of nine years and older.

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Is Verizon going to pull a fast one and completely change the way it charges for its 3G data plans? Are we going to see Big Red introduce a metered billing scheme which should, at least in theory, be fairer to users?
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Read the rest of Verizon Considers Metered Billing for 3G Data Plans [Pay For What You Use to Replace Unlimited Plans?]

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On his blog, Connor wrote, “The Personas and Jetpack projects were experiments designed to make extending the platform easier, and dramatically reduce the overhead involved in version updates/UI changes.”

Connor then continued, “We knew from the beginning that we would have to trade off truly limitless customizations to produce a more stable API/pseudo-API, but we felt that was worth it to achieve our long-term goals for the project.”

So developers appear to have little chance of getting Mozilla to backtrack.  Let’s hope everything works out okay in the end.

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Twitter’s growth has stalled for yet another month, according to new numbers from Compete and Quantcast. In fact, Twitter.com’s traffic peaked in July 2009 and hasn’t reached that level since.

According to web analytics firm Compete, Twitter’s U.S. traffic grew by 1.45%, from 22.48 million in November to 22.81 million unique visitors in December, hardly numbers to brag about. It’s even worse when you consider that these are lower numbers than June 2009. We started to notice this trend all the way back in May, but could never have guessed then it would continue into the new year.

Quantcast’s numbers tell the same story. Since its peak at 29.2 million users in July, Twitter has dropped down to 23.6 million U.S. uniques, a loss of nearly 24%. The six month graph from Quantcast tells the story:

Twitter Looked Rosy Just a Few Months Ago

Just a few months ago, Twitter seemed unstoppable. We argued all the way back in August 2008 that Twitter’s growth could not be stopped. And for a long time, the numbers agreed with us. Twitter grew 752% in 2008, but that was nothing compared to the 1,300%+ year-over-year growth in February and March.

Shaq, Oprah, Ashton, and CNN all helped lead Twitter to the attention of the mainstream media and countless businesses. The social media company’s growth threatened Facebook and even affected world politics.

In fact, Twitter still commands the world’s attention, but part of the reason so many people have turned to it is because it’s perceived to be a rapidly growing platform. Unfortunately, the numbers say otherwise.

What will happen to the Twitterverse when more people are aware of these numbers?

Potential Reasons for Twitter’s Flatline

Figuring out why Twitter won’t grow is the billion dollar question. If the company can’t find a solution, and soon, it will be forced to try more dramatic moves or even allow itself to be acquired.

We’ve heard many potential reasons for the growth ceiling. Here are the ones that make the most sense to us:

– Twitter’s growth isn’t stalling. Rather, these stats aren’t capturing Twitter users utilizing apps, a growing chunk of the Twitterverse.

- Twitter itself has a limited appeal. Only a small amount of people “have something to say” on a consistent basis.

- Twitter’s user retention rate is famously weak. The issue became public in April 2009, but has yet to be solved.

- For many, Twitter hasn’t hit critical mass. Part of why people are on Facebook is because everybody else is on it. We may still be far away from that inflection point for the common Internet user.

What Twitter Needs to Address

We think the true answer behind the Twitter flatline phenomenon lies somewhere within these four reasons. Twitter apps have grown and have become a larger percentage of Twitter’s user base, but even with that factored in, Twitter still has the other three problems.

Twitter has find a way to expand its appeal, either by adjusting its image in the eyes of the public or by helping change the public into more rabid content creators. It also needs to work on more effective ways to get those who sign up to tweet long after they sign up.

The company has to address these issues before it can attain an undeniable critical mass that will propel its growth again. Without it, Twitter risks marginalization rather than ascension.

Tags: compete, Quantcast, social media, twitter

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One sign that an Apple product launch is pending often comes in the way of blunders by various top-level executives who may somehow be involved with the launch. Case in point: France Telecom’s deputy CEO Stephane Richard (France Telecom owns Orange) has been asked a couple of questions about the Apple tablet, to which he answered “Yes,” thus implying that the tablet will have a webcam and 3G connectivity.

The conversation has been caught on video. In it, Stephane is asked whether Apple will launch a tablet with a webcam in a couple of days, to which he answers “Yes”. He is then asked whether Orange users will be able to use it, and he again answers “Yes,” indicating that the tablet will have 3G connectivity.

Of course, this could have simply been noise in the communication channel. But it makes sense: Orange had an exclusive agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in France, and Apple is rumored to be unveiling the fabled tablet on January 27, and launching it sometime in March. As far as rumors go, we won’t mind if this one is true.

Update: Orange is now backing away from these comments, saying in a statement that “These responses in no way reflect Orange’s confirmation of the existence of the rumoured device. The spokesperson was merely confirming that he is aware of the speculation surrounding a launch and that Orange would be delighted to have such a product were it ever to be available.” Is Orange simply trying to appease Apple for the leak, or was this an honest mistake by a bunch of overzealous tech reporters? We’ll soon find out.

Tags: 3g, Apple Tablet, trending

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By Robert Bowen

The cybersea is full of freelancers all out to make their mark and their money to keep their freelance fires burning. With an abundance of opportunity pouring in to the market, getting yourself out there and making sure you are heard and seen will help you sway those opportunities more your way. But with so many others striving to do that same thing, how is it you can rise above the multitudes to still be singled out? Not to mention trying rise above the agencies that are further populating the waters, and complicating the issue.

Of course, most of us are of the mind that our work should speak for itself, and while this is a sound principle to stand by, we first have to get people to see our work. We have to find effective ways to bring these businesses to our blogs or portfolio sites that demonstrate our skills and reasons why we are so employable. But this often puts all of the pressure and focus off of your work, and puts it someplace far less comfortable (for some), right on you. Which means that you are the one, the only one, responsible for tempting traffic in your direction by establishing a draw and fostering the right atmosphere.

Below are a few ideas on how you can effectively achieve this.

Also consider our previous articles:

• Getting Clients: Approaching The Company
• How To Persuade Your Users, Boss or Clients
• How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism

It’s About the Networking, People

One of the major ways to help you rise above the rest is through the effective use of the various social media networks. Now by effective, I mean more than dropping in and sharing a link, especially if it is only one of your own. Social media is about interacting and networking, both of which require you to actively engage with others. This is more than one sided, this is conversational and developmental.

Sharing information and experiences across the networks helps to strengthen your freelance business as you begin to foster new relationships that can prove educational and reciprocal. Become an active participant in these circles and you will find that your visibility will begin improving. Not like your vision, but your visibility. Others will start taking note of you, and consequently, your freelance business. This will not happen over night, but with focus on a few key points, you can learn to maximize these networking interactions to help turn them into opportunities.

Let Your Personality Shine…

…unless your personality it a bit on the crap side, then perhaps you should focus on your professionalism, and skip down a header. In order for people to respond to what you have to say, you have to say it right. Most of the time, that means approaching it with your perspective, and yes, your personality. Doing so without these added ingredients can leave your points with a bit a dry reception that reduces its overall connectability. Not to mention, if all you are doing is sharing links, you are not interacting, you are info-bursting at all of your followers, which can be helpful, but ultimately, does not allow for the connections to be made.

Now, in this pursuit, be sure to stay focused on the balance line to make sure that you do not tip the scales too far. Putting a bit of yourself in the mix is a must, but make sure that you remain informative and informed. A big mistake that people make when beginning to venture into the networks, is that they make the experience all about them. Me, me, me, is not exactly the kind of social media interaction that most people are looking for, so by injecting your personality, make sure you remember that this is different from only sharing your content.

Focus on Your Professionalism

Another thing to remember as you are populating the various social media outlets, is to keep your business and brand in mind. If you are working to build the name of your freelancing business then you want to make sure that you keep a professional edge to your interactions. Still your personality plays a part, but since you are attempting to get your business to stand out, then let the business end have its networking heyday as well.

Share information that is relevant to your field of freelancing, this way you find and are able to connect with your online colleagues from the community. And if you are trying to get design clients to your site, then tweeting or facebooking about how wasted you got whilst watching Project Runway is probably not the kind of sharing that is going to send them running your way (unless of course the client themselves was also getting wasted whilst watching PR, then maybe. But deep though that bond may be, is still may not have the desired effect.) So if you are looking to catch some eyes from the potential clientele pool pervading the networks, then keep to the professional edge for an advantage.

Help Your Fellow Freelancer

Another way to use the social circuits to raise your visibility, is by helping out others online who are in your field and looking for assistance. This can be beneficial in a couple of different ways to both you and your freelance business. The first thing it can do, is offer you a bit a refresher when you take the time to consider their issue. Perhaps mulling over aspects of your work that you have not for some time, or that you never have. In which case, it provides you with a learning opportunity as well, and expanding your knowledge base within your field only strengthens your business.

Not to mention, that by helping others out with any issues or roadblocks that they may encounter, keeps you in mind when those you have helped end up with an overloaded plate and need to pass along work. Or pass on work. If there is a job that they come across that is a bit over their heads, given that you have always been there with the answers when they needed them, you may be the first name on their tongues. Clients tend to be open to recommendations from those they have turned to, when those pros have to turn them away. So by helping out others in your field, if they have recommendations to offer, they may send them in your way.

Build Up Your Brand

If you want to stand out among the masses sharing the freelance waters with you, then another important focus is of course your brand. Take time to build it and strengthen it so that it can sustain and be seen. Yes, you want your name out there as well, but your brand is something much more than you. It is an idea, not a person. Like history, and V has taught us, an idea is something much more than just a person. A brand can work in much the same way if it is established and executed effectively. A brand can garner trust and consumer loyalty even if the person or people behind it are a complete mystery to us.

So as a freelancer, you want to get that bond built between the community and your brand. You want that consumer confidence working in your favor, and not against you. This can be relatively difficult, especially when you are an unknown just starting out in your field. But this seemingly intimidating task can be undertaken with confidence that will be reflected in your work and eventually returned. As long as you know you are standing on a sound knowlegde base, then you can strike out through the cybersea to conquer and leave your mark upon it. Keeping the visibility of your brand high.

Use the Power of Your Pen…

…and of course, by pen, I mean keyboard. This is a fantastic way to build up your brand for sure. I am not suggesting that every freelancer is automatically a wiz with words and can finely articulate a point like a professional writer, but we all have access to a powerful brand builder, the blogosphere. For freelancers, turning to the online blogging community to establish and start constructing your brand can provide an invaluable leg up for exposure. Having a blog for your business allows clients a different insight into just who they are working with, not to mention a connectivity that offers some peace of mind as far as reachability. With regular updates, they can trust that you will be around and that they can contact you.

And do not just stay local, branch out through the blogosphere. This is a great way to get your brand out there, if you are guest blogging on more prominent sites than your own, then you are bound to drive interest your way as you are seen by a broader audience. With insightful and helpful articles that you put together and share throughout the blogosphere, you are doing a lot to help further the strength and reliability of your brand. And the more you are seen around from various sources, the more you stand out to potential clients browsing for someone to take on their next project.

Winning the Word of Mouth War

Another area to focus on for building your brand, is word of mouth. This has always been a powerful business builder, and now with most freelancers working in an online environment without borders, this word of mouth is much more accessible and potentially viral. So we want to take care to get a positive word circulating about our business, and to do that we have to focus on our online interactions and client relations. Once again, your colleagues recommendations can play a part in raising your brand visibility, so be sure that you keep a respectful tone when your paths cross. As a freelancer, you may not have the time to put out every fire, so be sure you keep the number of them burning down to a minimum.

You also want to make sure that your clients go away with great things to say about you, so a tight focus on customer service is essential to any freelancer. By keeping your clients happy as the project moves through the stages from inspiration to completion is a powerful way to win the word of mouth war for your business. When you are polite, punctual, and overdeliver on your promises, your clients will populate the web with positive words of praise. This will do wonders for improving your visibility and raising awareness of your business. So make sure that you keep your clients smiling to ensure that the words heard are airing on the good side of things.

Learn Both Sides of the Business

One further way that you can improve the visibility of your brand, especially in the eyes of your clients, is to learn both sides of the business. As a freelancer, you have a field that you no doubt specialize in, and it more often than not, tends to be in a creative field. And most of us know that in our fields we can never cease our educational growth. But we often ignore the other side of the business. The side that falls outside the creative reach and remains the same for most of us, regardless of which arena we play in. The actual business side of the business. There are two sides to every coin, and we cannot ignore that the business rules of engagement apply even in the fields of the freelancers.

This not only provides us a comfort zone for all facets of our freelance business, but it also demonstrates to our clients a sense of pride in our brand. It shows that we are completely committed to and serious about the idea of being in business for ourselves when we take the time to learn how to effectively don each administrative hat that we are forced to put on as a freelancer. This offers more confidence in your brand for clients, as they know that the business dealings will be professional and well managed on your end. And any peace of mind that you can offer to your clients, only furthers your brand standing out from the others around.

Connect With The Community

Overall, an important way to raise your visibility in your market, is to connect with the community, and to become involved with it. This connection can be fostered in many ways, and though blogging and social media tend to be the way we get out there, we have to remember that this connection is extremely vital in assisting the growth of your visibility and needs care and attention. And while the previous suggestions offered can often ensure that this connection is being made, there are a few more things that you can do to further its effectiveness. Because without this connection, you will not stand out among the masses, but instead, you may just fall behind them.

Being able to establish this connection with the community at large enables you to more than just exist within it, it actually allows you to flourish. Much like the idea that it takes a village to raise a child, it can be said that it takes a community to raise a freelancer. And it takes the freelancer nurturing that relationship with the community to help them stand out among the masses. And as I mentioned before about the reciprocity of the relationships we build online, this one is no different. Not only can this benefit the freelancer, but it can also have a positive impact on the community.

Give Them What They Want

One way to make that connection with the community that will linger and lift you up is to find out what it is the community is looking for, and then find a creative way to give it to them. Fill that niche that the you know the community is longing to have filled and you will garner the positive attention that will lead to higher visibility for your brand. It’s the law of supply and demand, and surprise, surprise the law applies in the freelance field just as it does in any other. The community is a dynamic vibrant organism that is constantly evolving, which means that the needs of the community are ever changing.

This is an effective way for you to use social media, to reach out to the community and inquire as to what they are looking for. Reach out to the masses working in your arena and share some questions, pose some queries, whatever you can do to connect with them using social media. Whether it be an information gap, a lack of resources, whatever the area that the community needs attending to, they are receptive and open to being asked about it. So go for it. Just make sure that if you ask the question, you listen to the answers, and deliver on the promises you make to see to these needs. Doing so, will have numerous benefits towards moving your freelance business forward.

Engage In Discussions

A further way to make a connection with the community that you are freelancing in, is to engage in discussions with members of that community. Not one sided bursts of communication like we find most of our interactions get boiled down to online. Here you actually need to take time to have thoughful, engaging dialogs with other professionals from your field. Formulating opinions and ideas that are more than just congratulatory words of praise, but are actual talking points that will serve to get a conversation started.

This is why I always recommend that clients attach a blog to their site, to assist them in making this connection and engaging the online community. Freelancers need to heed these same words of advice, and turn to the blogosphere to start an online discussion that will offer for an exchange of ideas that can ultimately serve as a learning opportunity. Blogs can afford you this forum to reach out through, just as social media does in other instances. Social media can also help with discussions, but generally a more open environment for these lengthier exchanges are better so some outlets are more accomodating than others. Either route you take, engage and take others along with you, and you begin to stand out from the more passive participants in the community.

Find Your Own Voice…

…Chances are, it’s whatՂs been missing from the community all along. That is one of the biggest advantages that you have when you begin trying to connect with the community, you. Your unique perspective and take on the various areas that you operate in, have not been and cannot be offered by anyone other than you, so use that to your advantage. Given that this is the case, making it a point to seek out and nurture your own voice will help ensure that when you start sharing that voice with the community, that it will resonate and connect with other members in the collective.

Now by your own unique voice I am not saying that you cannot have outside influences while en route to this discovery, quite the opposite. We need those influences and inspirations to help us find our individual style and approach, and possibly help point us in the direction of our voice. But still that final product should be unmistakeably you. Just as your personality is important for aiding your social media interactions, allowing your unique voice to speak for you and your freelance business will assist you standing out from and making a connection with the community.

That’s A Wrap

Those are a few of the ways that you can help to ensure you and your freelance business will be able to rise above the rest of the crowd. Of course, that does not mean there are not other ways to do this, so feel free to offer any other suggestions in the comment section below.

Further Resources

• 3 Steps To Creating A Freelancing Brand That Sells – Here is a great post from the folks at Freelance Folder that offers some useful advice for building your brand the right way.
• Standing out from other freelancers the easy way – If you are looking for more fantastic advice on standing out as a freelancer, then look no further. Scribd has you covered.
• Standing out from the crowd in a competitive freelance market – Okay, so it seems that you looked further, well then, in that case you will definitely want to check out this wonderful post from Aquent Blog.
• How to Stick Out and Get Clients to Remember You – Freelance Switch can also further your journey in establishing yourself effectively from the rest with this fabulous article.
• Nine Simple Ways to Stand Out in Your Career – If you like to keep things simple, then The Simple Dollar has nine ways the you need to give your attention to if you want to stand out in your career.

About the author

Robert Bowen is an emerging author, celebrated podcaster and poet, and most recently the co-founder and imaginative co-contributor of the creative design and blogging duo at the Arbenting Freebies Blog and Dead Wings Designs.

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• Is there a way to play games that require a CD-ROM but without the CD?
• Unlike with Vista, it’s been pretty quiet since the Windows 7 launch. Does that mean it’s a winner?
• Can anyone suggest a good VPN or proxy solution that is either cheap or free?
• How can I hide the new tab button Firefox 3.5.7?
• I’m currently very happy with my 720p HDTV, so how many years until I need to get a 1080p set?
• Does anyone have a good method for troubleshooting in-wall Ethernet cables?

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In this article we’ll look at a series of tips and suggestions that are aimed at designers who want to network more successfully, but without committing large amounts of time each day or each week. The idea is to get as much benefit as possible from a reasonable time commitment that can be accommodated by just about any schedule.

1. Organize Your Contacts

Whenever efficiency and minimizing time commitment are the goals, evaluating and improving organization is a great place to start. If you are wasting time trying to find an email address, a phone number, or a name from someone that you met a few months ago, that is a lack of productivity that could be avoided with better organization.

There are any number of ways you can organize your contacts. You can use a program like Outlook or Thunderbird, or you could choose a full-feature CRM like Highrise. How you organize your contacts is less important than the fact that you actually have a method for doing so. Each person is different, and you should consider your own needs work habits in deciding on a solution.

For more, see 12 CRM Options for Freelancers.

2. Take Advantage of Useful Tools and Resources

Aside from organizing, another part of achieving efficiency involves making use of resources that are available to make networking less time consuming and more effective. Particularly when dealing with online networking, there are a number of resources available, some free and some for pay. Two examples that are highly useful for designers are Skype and TweetDeck. With Skype you can talk to people all over the world to get in touch whenever necessary. TweetDeck makes it possible to use Twitter effectively without spending all day reading and sending tweets. Personally, my usage of Twitter multiplied exponentially after I started using TweetDeck while still not losing productivity.

Skype and TweetDeck are certainly not the only options, they are simply two examples. Make an effort to find resources like this that can help you to get more out of your networking efforts while keeping the time requirements low.

3. Set Aside Time in Your Schedule for Networking

Because networking activities tend to get pushed to the back burner in favor of other more urgent tasks, it may be necessary to build blocks in to your schedule in order to find time to network. Simple networking activities won’t require that you give up large amounts of time away from your income-generating work. For example, you could block off an hour to update your LinkedIn profile and look for some new connections, set up a day to meet a contact for lunch, or even to simply read some blog posts and respond in the comments.

Of course, some types of networking activities will require more time (such as traveling to a conference or an event), but just building in small amounts of time in your weekly schedule can make a noticeable difference.

4. Think About Your Career Path

One of the reasons that networking is so important is that it can play a crucial role in career advancement and development. Knowing the right person and being in the right place is just as important as having the right skills. However, in order for your networking efforts to truly be effective in helping you to get the career that you want, you’ll need to think about which direction you want to go with your career.

Networking without a plan may lead to some great opportunities, but networking with a plan will give you a much better chance of getting the results you are looking for. Take some time to think about your future. For example, if you goal is to be a freelance designer, making connections with people who can help you to land more work would be very significant. On the other hand, if you are freelancing with the goal of being hired by an agency, you would be more likely to meet your goals by working towards making some contacts with designers and/or managers from various agencies.

5. Identify Key People

After you have given consideration to the path that you would like to take with your career, you should take some time to identify key people who would be able to have an influence. Once you know who you would like to get to know, make an effort to connect with them in one way or another. If they have a blog, you could start by getting involved in the comments on their posts, linking to their posts and writing your own responses, or you could even contact them about writing for their blog. If you know what groups or professional associations they are involved with, you could make an effort to get involved there as well.

Knowing specifically who you want to connect with will help you spend your time in the right way. Your efforts will lead to better results, as opposed to networking with whoever you happen to come across.

There are a few things that should be pointed out here. First, while identifying your key contacts is a good habit, always keep in mind that networking is a two-way street and simply using them for your own gain is neither ethical nor effective. The most effective way to network is to find ways for mutual benefit, so first you should be looking at how you can help them or what it is you can bring to the table.

Second, keep in mind that if you have identified these people as being key, chances are many other designers like you have done the same. Getting connected to an influential person is not easy because they most likely have a lot of people contacting them on a regular basis, which is all the more reason why you need to know what you have to offer them.

Third, have realistic expectations. Depending on your level of experience, you may want to work on your designing and networking skills for a while before reaching out to those key people that you have identified. It may be more effective to dedicate the time to improving yourself as a designer and building up your network of people who are at comparable places in their careers and work your way towards your key people.

6. Integrate Networking into Your Work

One of the most effective ways to build your network without losing valuable working time is to combine the two activities. The are a number of ways that you could do this. Personally, I stumbled across one method a few years ago without even realizing that it could pay huge dividends. In my situation it was freelance blogging that allowed me to go about my business and build my network at the same time. I started to write for other blogs as a paid contributor because it gave me a way to make some money in addition to designing, but what I found out is that it was an extremely effective way to get to know influential people in the industry. As a paid writer for a number of successful design blogs and publications, I’ve had the privilege of getting to work with some very talented and well-connected people.

Many freelance designers do some work that agencies choose to outsource. Just like the freelance blogging example, this can be a very effective way to build your network without neglecting the income-generating work that you need to do. If you already maintain a blog of your own, one effective method would be to interview other designers and post the interviews to your blog. Most designers are open to accepting interview requests, and it will give you a good opportunity to learn and to build some ties to the other designer while simply producing content for your blog. Regardless of what your approach may be, if you can find ways to strengthen your network while still focusing on your work, you will be well on your way to building the network that you need without much time commitment.

7. Pursue Collaborations

Building on the previous point, collaborative efforts are great for strengthening your network while still staying focused on your primary business objectives. Your collaboration could be the sharing of referrals with someone who offers complimentary services, developing an app with someone you know, starting a multi-author blog, working with someone else to design and develop templates for sale, and the possibilities are endless.

Collaborations are great because they allow people to focus on what they do best and to complement each other’s skills. Additionally, it allows you to build very strong relationships with other professionals that can often lead to bigger and better opportunities. Like point number 6, it also allows you to earn some money and make very productive use of your time while strengthening your network.

8. Maintain Quality Relationships

A strong network is based more on quality of relationships than quantity. Rather than trying to get some contact with every designer out there, make an effort to build a few very strong relationships. Making the most of the connections you have may be more important than dedicating time and effort to making additional connections (of course, this depends on your situation and your existing network).

In order to maximize the connections that you already have, make an effort to stay in touch with the people who seem like they would be the best fit for your network. Find new ways to work together or just get to know more about them. Stronger relationships and connections will be much more likely to lead to something significant than several casual connections.

9. Up the Level

There are a lot of different ways to communicate with others and different levels of networking. This would include things like leaving comments on blogs, responding to forum postings, using IM, tweeting back and forth, email, phone, face-to-face, etc. If you’re looking to get more impact with your networking efforts, take it to the next level. If all of your contact with someone has been done via email, make an effort to get on the phone with that person. If you’ve always spoken on the phone, try to set up a face-to-face meeting. Different levels of communication and networking will produce varying results. Getting to interact with someone on a deeper level can lead to a stronger connection.

Of course, it may not always be feasible to take it to the next level, such as a face-to-face meeting, but try to consider the situation thoroughly. If you are trying to build a strong network while still maintaining an active business that involves plenty of design work you will typically be spending only small amounts of time networking and slowly developing some connections. On the other hand, if there is a convention or conference in your area that you could attend for a day or two, you would miss some time for client work, but you could have a better impact with the time that you allocate for networking.

10. Minimize Meaningless Activities

Since you want to achieve greater efficiency with your networking activities, pay attention to the results that you are getting and dedicate your time to those activities that are producing results. If you are spending an hour every day on social media sites hoping that your Diggs and Stumbles will send enough traffic to someone that they will notice you, most likely you could be more successful with other methods.

What’s meaningless and unproductive for one person may be very effective for someone else, so give it some time and evaluate your own results to make the best decision for yourself. After you have been consistently networking for a while, adjust your strategy and your schedule accordingly so that you are getting the most out of your time.

What is Your Experience?

How do you go about building your network while still maintaining focus on your primary services to clients?

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Photo by x-ray delta one.

It goes without saying that fresh meat products should be wrapped separately in plastic bags for the trip home from the market, but that doesn’t mean other contaminants won’t find their way into your reusable bags. Bacteria, yeasts, and molds from produce, and other food items can easily transfer their way onto the welcoming interior surface of your sacks and linger there, waiting for a chance to leech onto your new purchases.

Canada’s Times Colonist reports the results of a study that tested random samples of reusable grocery bags:

Of the bags tested, 64 per cent were contaminated with “some level of bacteria,” about 30 per cent had “elevated bacterial counts” higher than what is considered safe for drinking water, 40 per cent of the bags had yeast or mould, and some of the bags had “an unacceptable presence of coliforms.”

That’s pretty gross, but fortunately, there’s an easy solution. Most reusable grocery totes are made of canvas or heavy cotton-poly blend that can withstand multiple washings in hot water. It’s a good idea to toss your bags in the wash after every use, then tumble dry on a low setting to keep them from getting wrinkled and balled up. Most bags cost only a dollar or two—stock up and keep extras on hand so you always have a fresh supply of bags that you can grab as you run out the door to the market.

If you’ve got some great tips for washing or using reusable grocery bags, share them in the comments.

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A Mashable reader tells us that a Facebook app called “Who Has Chatted with Me The Most?” is generating tens of thousands of spam comments on his wall, plus thousands of Facebook “likes”.

The screenshots below show the extent of the issue: posts with 19,000+ comments and 3,000+ likes being posted to a Facebook wall by people the user claims aren’t even friends.

Our guess: the app maker has realized that getting lots of likes and comments is a good way to push an app toward more success on Facebook, and figured out a way to get all the app’s users leaving comments and likes without their explicit permission.

Have you had trouble with the “Who Has Chatted with Me The Most?” app? Are we right or off base here? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: chat, facebook

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It’s a really simple app, and it’s even more simple if you’re a frequent user of the web music service Last.fm. Enter in your favorite bands that you want to track and hit the “+” key to add them to your pile, or simply type in your Last.fm username and have Roadie pull your most-liked bands from there. You can, of course, start with a Last.fm list and add and subtract from there. Once you’ve got a good batch, you can save it as a bookmark to come back to later and customize further.

The feeds come through Roadie by way of Amazon’s servers, so if your band doesn’t release their material widely enough to be noticed by Amazon or its resellers, you might be out of luck. Still, for most bands and artists, you’re going to be right up to date on releases both right around the corner and way in the future.

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FML aggregator that allows you to vote on your top stories. A great way to get your daily dosage of FML stories.

http://www.fmlninja.com/

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Dana Todd of Newsforce recently sat down with WebProNews to discuss Storyteller marketing’s revival. She has some interesting things to say on the subject:

As noted by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, back in the summer of 2008, covering Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, Gary Stein, Director of Strategy for Ammo Marketing highlighted five stories that can be told:

1. Origin – where did you/your brand come from
2. Purpose – tells us why you are a business
3. Vision – similar to origin but is where are we going
4. Education – Starbucks educated people about traditions of coffee
5. Ethics – when someone walks the walks of what they are doing
6. Connection – reaching out and talking to the customer

In that same session, Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus added that the story should be simple, repeatable, and memorable. She also said that suggested that good places to find your brand’s story are from employees, your customers, and even suppliers.

As our own Abby Johnson points out in the above video, every business has a story. You may know what that story is, but if you look hard enough, you can find it, and you can use it. Chances are people will be able to connect with that story on some level (if it is the right story), and this can be a powerful way to keep your brand in people’s minds.
 

Related Articles:

> Small Businesses And Social Media

> The Future Of Online PR

> Is Retargeting the Most Under-Utilized Marketing Strategy?

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We are happy to announce the latest addition to The Dieline – The Dieline Jobs, Powered by Coroflot! What a great way to start the new year, by finding a new job opportunity, or by finding a qualified candidate to fill your packaging position. 

The Dieline Jobs features the latest packaging jobs from across the country and across the world. All jobs posted to The Dieline Job Board will be featured in a weekly Hot Jobs post on The Dieline. It will be a great way to expose your job opportunities to the packaging community at large. Being the world's leading package design website, there is no better way to get your packaging jobs noticed.

To view the latest packaging jobs, and to post a job to the board, visit The Dieline Jobs today.

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We’ve often heard happy and successful people say, “It’s not the problems in life that define us, it’s the way we react to them.” Josh’s reaction to a problem has turned him into an internet sensation. Every major blog is writing about him and his video is quickly going viral.

Here’s the scene – Sunday night, at the Newark airport, a security risk shut down part of the airport for over six hours. All of the people waiting in Terminal C had to continue doing just that, waiting. Impatience and frustration started to fill the air as families trying to get home from the holidays were simply stranded.

Josh Wilson, an average guy with an average voice decided to take matters into his own hands and along with his guitar, he led the group in a massive sing along. Before you knew it, the entire terminal was smiling and singing “Hey Jude” as he brightened everyone’s spirits. This story touches my heart.

Here is his video from the event which has only been on YouTube for two days and already has over 160,000 views. Way to go Josh!

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In October, social networking service Cliqset entered public beta. Three months later, the site has received a facelift with some subtle UI improvements, added the ability to share certain file types with friends and added new tools for organizing real-time streams and groups. Cliqset is also launching a Firefox extension (Chrome coming soon) and a new version of its Adobe Air desktop app.

At its heart, Cliqset is designed as way to let people share, discover and discuss content online. You can import streams from tons of different services (including Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds) and each new item in the stream can have its own real-time discussion from other Cliqset users.

What I have always liked about Cliqset is how easy it is to monitor your different social streams. With its new “streams” feature, the granular control over what you see is even more refined. You can create streams of certain users containing specific types of posts (videos or photos, for instance) or streams of certain services. This makes monitoring and discovering information much easier to process.

Cliqset now lets you share certain types of files with users, too. So you can upload a music file or PDF or Word document, and Cliqset users can play back the audio in their stream or preview portions of the PDF or open the office document on the fly.

Cliqset’s Firefox extension offers an easy way to watch your real-time Cliqset stream and share links, videos or comments. I can’t wait for this to come to Google’s Chrome browser, which the Cliqset team said should occur very, very soon.

If you haven’t used Cliqset before and are looking for a good way to manage your different streams and the people who you follow, I definitely recommend signing up and giving it a shot. With the latest wave of updates, the service continues to come into its own.

Tags: Adobe Air, cliqset, facebook, social aggregation, software, twitter

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They button up their jeans from the bottom up instead of the other way around. This saves them about a half second or a second to continue button up their shirt. If you save a second each time you button up your jeans this way and calculated you go to the bathroom about 2 times a day. Also consider you button up your jeans in the morning and also when you go to bed. If we also calculated that you live till you turn 70 years old and you learn how to button up your jeans when you’re 10 years old you save approximately 131,400 seconds over a 60 year period.

((6*365)*60)=(131,400/60)=(2,190/60)=36,5 Hours

(Button Ups*Days)*Years=Seconds/Seconds per Minutes=Minutes/Minutes per Hour=Hours

Throughout your life you will save more than one and a half day doing it this way and that’s without further effort. Yeah I know it’s quite geeky but if you did this to everything you’re doing throughout the day imagine how many days you could save up for something more rewarding. Something with more purpose.

I challenge you to come up with more ways to make your living more effective. Share them with us and help us be more effective. Maybe we could all take that extra time and do something good in the world. Help someone with the time you save and make our days here on this ball of magic an unforgettable experience.

Change is good for the mind and the mind helps us grow. So, imagine what you can achieve with a little bit of rearranging in your life. The impact could be huge for yourself and for everyone else.

Save A Day To Save The World

This clip could help you on your way to a more effective life. Besides being really useful if you know how to do it, it is quite funny as well. The reactions are to pay for…and I am sure some did.

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So if we work so much in our daily lives, shouldn’t we be making out like bandits? Umm, honestly, I’m not hitting on you, silly. I’m talking about our success. We work and work and work. Shouldn’t we be filthy, stinking rich? Well… okay, that’s not quite what I mean either. I’m not necessarily talking about money (though that could potentially be a part of it). I’m talking about success — as in feeling a true sense of accomplishment and feeling happy about what we do and why we do it.

It’s important to feel accomplished and a general happiness in our work. To make out like a bandit (or have an incredible amount of success), you can either get lucky or work hard for it. And if you’re going to work hard for it, you might as well make it all meaningful and worthwhile. This is what I strive for in my own work and my life, and the following points I’m sharing with you are the steps I am taking to work toward this.

I know the price of success: dedication, hard work & an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. — Frank Lloyd Wright

Learn. Participate. Do.

The best way to get good at something is to keep doing whatever it is you’re doing that you want to be good at. For example, a sushi-enthusiast might take a sushi-making class because she wants to learn to make sushi for herself. It totally makes sense while the teacher demonstrates all the procedures, materials, and methods needed to make good, beautiful sushi. Later, the student goes home and tries to make sushi on her own, she gets totally confused and lost. Okay, I’m not even going to hide it, I’m talking about myself (this happened to me). As much as I love sushi, I couldn’t even begin to make good sushi because I’ve never really practiced.

Take advantage of learning opportunities where possible. Whether you’re learning CSS, Actionscript, or visual design, the best way to grasp how to do things is to participate, practice, do. Apply what you learn in your work. Participation is so vital to your success. If you have problems, let people know, and ask. But definitely practice on your own. And as cliché as it may sound, believe in yourself because if you don’t think you can do it, no one else will think you can either.

Maintain momentum

With whatever it is you’re doing, if you find yourself “on a roll”, you should take advantage of that momentum and keep moving. Sure, you’ll definitely want to take breaks here or there, but remember that momentum can be very difficult to obtain again once you’ve lost it. Get it done!

Deal with people

Whether you love or hate people, the fact is, you gotta deal with them — even the difficult ones. If you’re in a management position, then you know pretty well that most people don’t like being told what to do (even if that’s their job). Find ways to get people excited about what they’re doing. Make people feel that they (and what they do) are needed — people respond better if they’re valued, not commanded. Even if you’re not in a management position, this still applies to the way you work with your coworkers, clients, vendors, etc.

Resolve any conflicts right away. Conflicts will inevitably happen. Move on to how you can improve the situation, and do it as quickly as possible. Don’t spend too much time focusing on whose screw up it is — nobody feels good in this situation. Also, try to keep people informed on whatever it is you need or what it is you’re doing. If you’re waiting on something from someone, and it’s been a while, don’t be afraid to say something (tactfully). Sometimes people are forgetful — or just slacking. Hey, it happens!

Help yourself by helping others

What are some of the small, simple things you can do when you’re working that will help the people you work with (and in most cases, will end up helping yourself)? For example: if you’re a designer, perhaps taking a couple minutes now to organize and name your Photoshop layers will end up saving time later (since it will be easier to find things). This is going to help both you and your team. Or, developers: taking some time to write some documentation (even if it’s as simple as a comment in the code, or a well-written commit message) could potentially save valuable time for both you and your team later. Maybe you have to take a little time to sit down with a coworker and explain why something works the way it does. This helps them out tremendously — and will most likely lead to them respecting you a little more. This is a benefit.

If you make little things like this a habit, people will notice. People will enjoy working with you. People will trust you and rely on you. Sure, it might seem beneficial at any given moment to be “in it for yourself” (and therefore only helping yourself), but that won’t last very long. Helping others (whether it be a small or large feat) will cause a positive impact in the long run — and that is what will be more valuable to you and your career.

Do work that is meaningful

One of the best ways to feel successful about what you do is to feel good and happy about it. And a great way to feel good and happy about what you’re doing is to actually do good. This could be purpose-driven work that focuses on sustainability and environmentalism, or work that helps support causes and charity. Perhaps the work simply inspires people. Or maybe the work is just something you are very passionate about. Whatever the work may be, try working on projects that are meaningful to you. You’ll do well simply by being more motivated and interested. And it’s a double-win if the project is meaningful to others as well.

I feel very fortunate to work at a place like Crush + Lovely, where we have found quite frequently that the projects that inspire people, focus on global and social good, and create some sort of positive impact are the very projects that bring us more paid projects. But more importantly, we are happy and excited to do it. You might not work at a company that takes on those types of projects. But perhaps you have your own personal endeavors that create this excitement for you. Elliot Jay Stocks wrote about having pet projects. Do you take on side projects? What are those projects?

Over the last couple years, I’ve seen some really fantastic side projects come out that are great examples of meaningful work. These projects reflect the passions and goals of the respective designers and developers involved, and therefore become quite successful (because the people involved simply love what they are doing while they’re doing it). Some of these projects include:

• Typedia is a shared encyclopedia of typefaces which serves as a resource to classify, categorize, and connect typefaces. It was founded by Jason Santa Maria, a graphic designer with a love and passion for typography. He created it as a solution to a problem he faced as a designer: finding the right typeface.
• Huffduffer was created by Jeremy Keith, a web developer who wanted to create a podcast of inspirational talks — but after he found that this could be tedious, he decided to create a tool to automate this.
• Level & Tap was created by passionate photographer and web developer, Tom Watson. It began as a photography print store for Tom’s best personal photography. Over time, more photographers were added to the site and the site has grown to become quite a great collection of beautiful photography.
• Heat Eat Review is a review blog created by information architect and user experience designer, Abi Jones. As a foodie, she is able to use this passion for this blog, as it focuses on reviewing TV Dinners, Frozen Meals, and Microwavable Foods.
• Art in My Coffee, a favorite personal project of my own, is a photo blog of coffee art I created, after I found that my friends and I were frequently posting coffee art photos to Flickr, Twitter, and other websites. After the blog became more popular, I teamed up with Meagan Fisher on the project, who has just as much a passion for coffee art, if not more.

So, what’s important to you?

This is the very, very important question here. What really matters to you most? Beyond just working on meaningful projects you are passionate about, is the work you’re doing the right work for you, so that you can live a good lifestyle? Scott Boms wrote an excellent article, Burnout, in which he shares his own experience in battling stress and exhaustion, and what he learned from it. You should definitely read the article in its entirety, but a couple of his points that are particularly excellent are:

• Make time for numero uno, in which you make time for the things in life that make you happy
• Examine your values, goals, and measures of success, in which you work toward the things you are passionate about, your own personal development, and focusing on the things that matter.

A solid work-life balance can be a challenging struggle to obtain. Of course, you can cheat this by finding ways to combine the things you love with the things you do (so then it doesn’t even feel like you’re working — oh, you sneaky little bandit!). However, there are other factors to consider beyond your general love for the work you’re doing. Take proper care of yourself physically, mentally, and socially.

So, are you making out like a bandit?

Do you feel accomplished and generally happy with your work? If not, perhaps that is something to focus on for the next year. Consider your work (both in your job as well as any side projects you may take on) and how it benefits you — present and future. Take any steps necessary to get you to where you need to be. If you are miserable, fix it!

Finally, it’s important to be thankful for the things that matter to you and make you happy. Pass it along everyday. Thank people. It’s a simple thing, really. Saying “thank you” can and will have enormous impact on the people around you. Oh. And, I apologize if the title of this article led you to thinking it would teach you how to be an amazing kisser. That’s a different article entirely for 24 ways to impress your friends!

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Video Tutorial

Resources Used

• 50 Astonishing Argyle Pattern Swatches for Illustrator
  

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Something that I noticed in 2009 is that being a web designer 24/7; it’s easy to get consumed by the web. It’s easy to get caught up in the blog posts, CSS galleries, web trends and Twitter! Living in this bubble can lead to one’s work becoming stale, boring and basically like everyone else’s work on the web. No designer wants this.

So, I say on 1st January 2010 let’s make it our New Year’s resolution to create something different, something special or even ground-breaking! Make it your goal to break the mold of current web design trends and light the way for your fellow web designer comrades!

Of course I wouldn’t let you embark on the New Year empty handed. To help you on your way I’ve compiled a few thoughts and ideas to get your brains ticking!

Don’t design for the web, just design

A key factor in creating something original and fresh for the web is to stop thinking in terms of web design. The first thing we need to do is forget the notion of headers, footers, side bars etc. A website doesn’t necessarily need any of these, so even before we’ve started we’ve already limited our design possibilities by thinking in these very conventional and generally accepted web terms. The browser window is a 2D canvas like any other and we can do with it what we like.

With this in mind we can approach web design from a fresh perspective. We can take inspiration for web design from editorial design, packaging design, comics, poster design, album artwork, motion design, street signage and anything else you can think of. Web design is way more than the just the web and by taking this more wide angled view of what web design is and can be you’ll find there are a thousand more exiting design possibilities.

Note: Try leaving the wire framing till after you’ve gone to town with some initial design concepts. You might find it helps keep your head out of that ‘web space’ a little bit longer, thus enabling you to think more freely about your design. Really go crazy with these as you can always pull it back into line later. The key is to think big initially and then work backwards. There’s no point restricting your creativity early on because your technical knowledge can foresee problems down the line. You can always sort these problems out later on… let your creative juices flow!

Inspiration can come from anywhere! (Photo: modomatic)

Try something new!

Progress in web design or in any design discipline is a sort of evolution. Design trends and solutions merge and mutate to create new design trends and hopefully better solutions. This is fine but the real leaps are made when someone has the guts to do something different.

Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo. To create truly original work you have to be prepared to get it wrong and that’s hard to do. When you’re faced with this challenge just remind yourself that in web design there is rarely a ‘best way to do something’, or why would we ever do it any other way?

If you do this and get it right the pay off can be immense. Not only will you work stand out from the crowd by a mile, you will have become a trend setter as opposed to a trend follower.

Tell a story with your design

Great web design is way more than just the aesthetics, functionality or usability. Great web design goes beyond the pixels on the screen. For your website to make a real impact on it’s users it has to connect with them emotionally. So, whether your website is promoting your own company or selling cheese it needs to move people. You need to weave a story into your design. It’s this story that your users will connect with.

To do this the main ingredients of your design need to be strongly connected. In my head those main ingredients are Copy, Graphic Design, Typography, imagery and colour.

Copy

Strong meaningful copy is the backbone to most great web design work. Pay special attention to strap lines and headlines as these are often the sparks that start the fire. All the other elements can be inspired by this backbone of strong copy.

Graphic Design

Use the copy to influence how you treat the page with your graphic design. Let the design echo the words.

Typography

What really excites me about typography isn’t the general text presentation on a page, most half decent web designer have a grasp of this already. What excites me is the potential there is to base a whole design on words and letters. Using the strong copy you already have, one has the opportunity the customise, distort, build and arrange words and letters to create beautiful and powerful compositions that can be the basis for an entire site design.

Get creative with Typography (Photo: Pam Sattler)

Imagery and Colour

With clever use of imagery (photographs or illustrations) and colour you further have the chance to deepen the story you are weaving into your design. The key is to use meaningful imagery, don’t to insert generic imagery for the sake of filling space… it’s just a wasted opportunity.

Remember, the main elements of your design combined are greater than the sum of their parts. Whatever design decisions you make on a page, make them for a good reason. It’s not good enough to try and seduce your users with slick and shiny web pages. For your site to leave a lasting impression on the user you need to make that emotional connection.

Telling the Story (Advertising Agency: Tita, Milano, Italy, Art Director: Emanuele Basso)

Go one step further

So you’ve almost finished your latest website design. You’ve fulfilled the brief, you’re happy with the result and you’re pretty sure your client will be too. It’s at this point we should ask ourselves “Can I push this further”? What touches could you add to the site that’ll take it beyond what was required and into something exceptional? The truth is, to produce exceptional work we need to do more than is required of us. We need to answer the brief and then some!

Go back through your site and make a note of what enhancements could be made to make the site not just good but outstanding. It might be revisiting a couple of pages that were neglected in the design process, it might be adding some CSS 3 gloss for the users that can benefit from it or it might just be adding some clever little easter eggs to show that you care. These touches will soon add up and make a massive difference to the finished product.

So, go one step further… take it further than you anyone else will. Then your work will stand out for sure.

Parting message

I love being a designer for many of reasons but the main one being that with every new project we embark on we have the chance to express ourselves. We have the chance to create something special, something that people will talk about. It’s this chance that drives us onwards day after day, year after year. So in 2010 shout louder than you ever have before, take chances, try something new and above all design your socks off!

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I remember someone tweeting the link for this video about six months ago. I can’t remember who it was, but it always stuck with me. I ran across it today when I was on YouTube, and I just had to share it with you.

Although I think it may be a bit far fetched to think that this could actually happen, I’m sure some people would say I’m naive to think that that way. After all, when I think about all the information that Google has on me, which is just about everything except my bra size and diet preferences – oh wait, since I shop at http://www.victoriassecret.com – they probably have that information too; so I suppose this really could happen.

I just hope this doesn’t happen in my lifetime. Talk about Big Brother… I can’t watch this anymore, I’m getting freaked out…

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There are a million ways to stylize your text into typography and using simple fonts is one way. However it may come across lame and ordinary if you’re just creating it by buying or downloading a font. It will be way more appreciated and eye catching if you really get into the spirit and create a font from scratch and truly spend time organizing it from the bottom up.

I found a really interesting tutorial on YouTube that I’d like to share with you all. It’s about stylizing a font like an architect would do it. It teaches you how to organize and draw, by hand, a truly good looking font in just a matter of seconds. If you have some skills and just 10 minutes this will truly change the way your designs or presentations look. Be patient and draw the lines correctly. The end result will even impress your closest friends.

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Photo by knitsteel.

MSN’s Shaun Chavis summed up 50 ways to dump 500 calories a day from your diet. Many of the tips are the standard-issue “eat smaller portions” variety, but there are a few new ones as well. For instance, did you know you can burn 100 calories an hour by knitting? (One Doctor Who scarf must be the equivalent of 63 Big Macs.)

One of our favorite ideas involves something lots of us do anyway when we’re revved up on caffeine:

Tap your foot. Your skinnier friends are probably fidgeters, who burn up to 350 calories a day just by tapping their feet or being restless. Try it for a few days. Walk around while you’re on the phone, or tap out a tune with your hands or feet (in the privacy of your own office, of course).

Endless foot tapping might drive the people around you crazy, but it’s worth a shot. Be sure to check out the post for more ways to shed calories, including how to build a better burrito. If you’ve got a unique way of burning calories we want to hear about it in the comments.

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Here’s the opening line of a new article from the BBC: "Virtual goods such as weapons or digital bottles of champagne traded in the US could be worth up to $5bn in the next five years . . ."  Which would correspond to a whole lot of nonphysical stuff, if you consider that transaction prices are often in the $1-$2 range.

Still, the BBC interviewed Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Playfish’s Tom Sarris, and a casual gamer on its path to that conclusion.  Plus, there are the recent deals involving Zynga and Playfish to consider ($180 million and $400 million changed hands), along with the fact that Asia’s virtual goods market is already worth around $5 billion.

Toss in Facebook’s semi-sporadic support for its payment system and the new Preferred Developer Consultant Program, and it’s not hard to imagine that a great deal of growth in the virtual goods space is indeed possible.

Sarris addressed critics by saying, "The way we look at it is it’s no different from paying money to go and see a movie or rent a DVD.  What you are paying for is the experience and that notion of entertainment."

Related Articles:

> Facebook’s Merry Christmas: Becomes Most Visited Site

> Using Facebook Traffic To Drive Brand Loyalty

> Opera: Facebook Most Popular Mobile Site In Africa

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KODA gives you a simple way to connect with employers and launch your career. Create a profile to highlight your skills, personality and life experiences. And, use company profiles to dig deep and determine culture fit before applying for jobs. You’re both looking for one another, so stop yesterday’s job search and join the KODA community today.

http://koda.us/

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These are nothing like the usual mosaics you seen before, these portraits are so amazing by the way they are created and how amazing the result is. These mosaic artworks are created by the Greek designer and visual artist Charis Tsevis.

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To find ou more about Charis Tsevis visit his website http://www.tsevis.com and his flickr account.

Click on each image to view the bigger version of it.

Michael Phelps

Barack Obama

Twitter Angel

Mimis Androulakis

Ronaldo

Callie Shell

HERmark

La Ballerina

Kobe Bryant

Alex Song

Oguchi Onyewu

Eddie Pope

Valentino Rossi

Akon

Yvette Jarvis

IKEA Sweeden

IKEA Sweeden

IKEA Sweeden

IKEA Sweeden

IKEA Sweeden

About the author

Hi! I’m Paulo Canabarro and I’m here to post some really cool stuff for you, if you have any ideas or any requests please get @ me – pvpcanabarro@gmail.com you can also Follow me on twitter!

Sponsored Links:

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There are different types of advertising techniques that these companies use in their campaigns. One such technique is to use a series of advertisements to promote a particular product or brand. Today, we will look at 10 clever and effective series of advertisements as well as the reason why I chose to include each of them.

A Closer Look at the Details

When I compiled these advertisements, I thoroughly observed them and looked for similarities in styles and presentation. I ran across a few common techniques that these ads employ in their designs. I would like to point them out to you.

1. The majority of these ads are minimalistic. They are not overly busy or distracting.
2. Most of the ads include one witty and smart tag-line.
3. These ads are well thought out and use one clever image or photo-manipulation that will draw your attention.
4. Most of the ads don’t throw their company logo in your face. Instead, they put it subtly in a corner where it doesn’t draw too much attention.
5. These ads are all effective by themselves and they work even better when viewed along with the other ads that’s part of the series.

BMW

Caption: That’s why we don’t have front-wheel drives.

These series of ads are very clever. The caption fits the images perfectly. By the way, the photo-manipulation is precise. This is just a unique way of conveying the tag-line.

Coca Cola

Caption: Take the good side.

These ads all play off of the tagline, "Take the good side." Witty copy-writing is the main focus of these ads. These ads are simple but very effective in grabbing the reader’s attention.

John Deere

These eye-catching ads are sure to grab your attention. The illustrations along with the bold statements go together perfectly. These are solid ads that are very appropriate for John Deere’s target audience.

Red Cross

There’s something about these simple and minimalistic ads that just attracts attention. Red Cross hits the jackpot with this advertising campaign. I really like the way they labeled their message by using labels.

Skinny Water

Caption: Incredibly light.

Another minimalistic ad that conveys its message with a simple tag-line and clever photo-manipulation. It seems like minimalistic is the style that most companies are going for in their advertisements.

Drugs

These ads are very powerful. They draw attention even without using a slogan or phrase. The picture speaks for itself. Remember the old saying, "A Picture is worth a thousand words."

Greenpeace

Caption: Do you know what you eat?

I really like the way they portray danger by just using vegetables. This is yet another very minimalistic advertising campaign. The vignette background really ads a dramatic effect to these ads.

Red Wing Shoes

Caption: Make history.

Smart captions mixed with vintage pictures make these ads a real treat. By the way, the old, worn out images are perfect to use, since their tag-line is about making history.

Cheese Leadenhall

Caption: The place for cheese you can’t ignore.

Very well-thought out ads. The cheese with the mold on it combined with the gas masks make for some unforgettable series of advertisements.

Adidas

All Day I Dream About Sneakers was a global branding project created for Adidas Originals. The project brought to life the world’s most “original” range of sneakers, which we conceived, designed and directed into sculpted models. The full campaign extended into in-store posters, visual merchandising displays and a limited edition book.

These shoe ads are just two out of the many different variations that Adidas created. These unusual shoes definitely grab your attention the moment that you look at these posters. These unique shoe variations completely depicts their tag-lines, ‘Impossible Is Nothing’ and ‘Celebrate Originality’.

Which of these advertisements caught your attention? Which one is your favorite? What did you like about these ads? Do you think that using a series of advertisements works better than just one ad? Please let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments, and criticisms so feel free to give us your two cents.

Thank you for reading the article. You can follow the Design Informer on Twitter here.

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Jogstr is a new way to discover, explore, and surf digg content easily and with more fun.

http://www.jogstr.com/

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Junaio allows you to create, explore and share information in a completely new way using augmented reality.

Available for android and iPhone.

http://www.junaio.com/

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Stop coding, start designing – create a website the BaseKit way. The website builder and integrated website CMS for web designers.

• Convert a Photoshop design to a web page in seconds.
• Drag’n’drop dynamic widgets – layout your pages precisely.
• Build websites Live Online – publish in 2 clicks.

http://www.basekit.com/

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By Matt Cronin

Being able to organize data and information is a skill not to be overlooked. The way you organize content and text, generally referred to as copy, has a direct effect on how that content is received by users. You must find a way to organize information so that it is scannable and can be quickly absorbed by the reader. One way to organize information in a clean way is to use data tables. Data tables provide a structured way of showing large amounts of information.

Data tables have been in use since the beginning of Web development. The structure of the table hasn’t changed — and will not change, because, well, it’s a table. But even though the structure has stayed the same, styling has come a long way; and recent tables are just as readable as the early ones.

Common Uses Of Data Tables

Tables make organizing information in a clean and readable way very easy. They can be used to store and show large amounts of information, small amounts of information, static data and even data that is constantly changing.

Because of the chart-like layout of tables, they are extremely useful for making comparisons. Many websites use them to compare products, services and, as mentioned, pricing plans.

The table below on Apple’s website compares all of the MacBooks. The chart contains a large amount of information, yet it is still organized and easy to read through. It is an extremely simple table but looks nice because of the good spacing and borders. Also, notice how images of the laptops are included and important information is bolded. This makes the table very scannable.

Data tables are often used to compare pricing plans. They provide space to show the names of plans, prices and the unique features of each plan. Most often, tables showing pricing plans contain a column for each plan and a row for each feature. Then, inside each cell is a marker indicating whether the plan comes with that specific feature.

Finally, tables often appear on TV network websites to shows schedules. These are a little different than typical tables; the cells are of various sizes due to staggered viewing periods. Other than that, schedule tables follow the exact same structure.

Components Of A Useful Data Table

Although almost every user knows how to make sense of a table, you can still do a few things to take yours to the next level of usability.

Titles + Labels + Data = Data Table
Obviously, a data table consists of columns titles, rows labels and the actual data in the cells. A table should be nothing more and nothing less.

When adding color, you should make the cells contrast with labels and titles. Make the background color for labels and titles different than the one you use for core data. This makes the table much easier to read and eliminates confusion.

The table below by Goplan uses a darker color for column titles and row labels. Notice how reading this table is much easier because of the contrast.

Stick to a Simple Grid
All tables are grids, and they work nicely that way, so why do anything different? Grids are efficient because you can fit a large amount of information in a small area and the viewer is still able to read the content easily.

Use Icons
Icons are an excellent way to cut down on boring text on a page. Icons can also help organize data tables.

The table below makes excellent use of icons and looks very clean. Check marks and crosses are used instead of “Yes” and “No.”

Don’t Leave Blank Spaces
Tables often have cells to which data does not apply. Avoid simply leaving these spaces blank; instead, fill them with an marker, such as a cross (X), icon or, as in the table below, dashes.

This clean table uses three dashes to indicate that data does not apply to a cell; this looks much nicer than leaving an empty space.

Highlight Important Columns and Rows
Many data tables highlight columns and rows that provide particularly important or useful information. In pricing charts, you will often see the best plan highlighted. Take a look at the table below. The most important row — the schedule for the day on which the table is being viewed — is highlighted with a thick border and different background color.

Working With Larger And More Complex Data Tables

So far, we have focused mainly on small and simple data tables, but what about large, complex and data-heavy tables? There are many usability considerations that are specific to large data tables.

Make Columns Movable
Data tables figure prominently in many software applications, both Web-based and installed. Generally, developers will create tables so that columns can be moved and organized in any way desired by the user. Also, applications usually allow users to add and remove columns.

Allow for Reordering of Columns
In tables with a lot of data or data that changes frequently, you should give users the ability to reorder content and cells. The most common variables by which you can order data include date, alphabet and importance.

Provide Search for Large Tables
If data is extensive and the table very large, then a search box should be provided. This will improve the overall usability of large tables and make finding data much faster.

Provide Different Views
If your table contains information with thumbnail images or other visual content, another usability feature you can include is the ability to view that information in different ways. Provide options to view all text, both text and thumbnails or only thumbnails.

Take a look at this Flash-based data table. It provides many of the features that work well with large tables, as mentioned, including search, reordering options and different views.

Styling Data Tables

Styling, or lack of styling for that matter, plays a big part in how a user views a table and absorbs the data. Keep in mind, though, that it’s still only a data table and should not be overloaded with styling. Keeping it simple and readable should be your overall goal. Shadows and artistic borders may work with other elements in a layout, but stay away from them with data tables. Here are a few styling elements that work better for data tables.

Alternate Colors
The most important characteristic of any data table is readability. One way to achieve this is by alternating colors for columns and rows. This makes it easier to read and more scannable.

The data table below is very well laid out. The rows of the table alternate colors, providing a clean, flowing, efficient layout. It has a lot of information but is still readable.

Borders
Separating cells with borders is extremely important. Borders make data much more readable and can eliminate confusion. With a lot of information, data in different cells can seem to blend together as one, but you want to keep them separate.

Ample Spacing
Like borders, spacing between data contributes to usability. In each cell, leave sufficient padding between the border and data. Use at least 20 pixels of space.

Simple Background Colors
Good data tables are all about readability, as we keep saying. Color and readability often go hand and hand. Data tables should always be simple, and one way to be simple is to use simple colors. Avoid using bright, obnoxious background colors that reflect poorly on the data being presented.

Showcase Of Data Tables

As promised, here are some websites that get data tables right.

Quantcast
A clean and basic table with nice fonts and a good color palette.

JukeFly
A large Flash-based data table with many usable features and user-friendly styling.

eWedding
A beautifully styled table that is still clean and readable.

Media Temple
A minimalist table with good use of icons, which provide an effective visual alternative to text.

iTunes
Data tables are everywhere, not just on the web. Applications such as iTunes use data tables.

Mosso
A very nice table, with pleasant colors and icons and alternating background colors for rows.

Zibler
A data table made with Flex that has search, movable columns and reordering options.

Cleartrip
Here is a complex table with a lot of information, but it can still be read with ease. Also note that the table has sorting and ordering options for columns.

Realmac Software
Shopping cart areas are also built on a grid system. Here is one example from Realmac Software.

MT Support
This table makes good use of color and contrast.

CBS
Here is the CBS Network’s schedule.

Long Term Clients
A smooth table with excellent styling, a clean layout and alternating colors.

Media Temple
Another nice table from Media Temple, this one combining visual elements and text in a flowing table with readable data.

Fox
A data grid is used for the schedule on Fox.com. Notice again how the schedule for the current day is highlighted.

Quommunication
Many forum home pages are structured as a table. Here is just one example.

Viget
A well-structured and well-organized table.

Joomla! Forum
Another example of a table on a forum landing page.

About the Author

Matt Cronin is a freelance Web and graphic designer as well as developer. He is the author and owner of Spoonfed Design, a design blog with great tips, how-to, inspiration, tutorials and more. Spoonfed Design is part of the VAEOU Creative Network, a new startup in progress with new services coming soon.

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