Say you were rich and famous, okay say you are more rich and famous than you are now. How would you give back? How about interweb celebs doing quirky self-effacing things for charity? Okay done. Check it out >
PBS : Your tax dollars at work.
Source: WikipediaThe US government has seemingly been on mission to prove to the American people that it is inept, inefficient, and corrupt. Yet there is one or two great examples of the government working to the benefit of the populous.
Enter Public Broadcasting. PBS is a funded by grants of the US government and private viewers, and today I think they have earned their. Frontline has just done a 2 part series called Bush’s War, which is like disinfectant for the sickness that is the Bush presidency, and the false pretenses that took us into Iraq.
From the Frontline story:
Within hours of 9/11 Rumsfield dictates to his secretary that the US response should include a hit on Iraq/Saddam Hussein.
The evening of 9/11 Rumsfield drops a physical rock (stone) on the conference table to emphasize to make his case for including Iraq in any US response.
Watch it online, learn it.. and understand you, me, and the world have been lied too, again. What are we going to do about it?
When good projects end the same way.
I have bitched more than most about bad clients, and bad projects, and good projects that turn bad due to bad clients (notice we accept no blame 
). The holy grail of course is the project that has good people behind it, starts good, and ends good.
We just wrapped a project that started good and ended the same way. Best of all it was not only fun and smooth sailing, it was also profitable. Seems like a no brainer… make money. But in client services more often than not a project becomes an alligator and eats time, resources, and profit.
Here are a few tips I have to ensure your next project is a gem;
- The Alpha Dog. They are paying you money because you are the expert, not them. In a no nonsense way, reassure the client that you do know best and their money is being well spent. High Confidence with a small bit of arrogance on your part will show the client you know your game, and they need not try to micro-manage the project, or your team. It is important to “correct” them early should they push the boundry. Give them an inch.. they may take a yard. Now not all clients are this way, but I have found that the typical client who is dropping $20k-$50k on design work is a little nervous and will try to manage that money if they sense weakness on the agency side.
- Clear expectations/scope. Be clear on exactly what you are delivering, and at what price. I find it even helpful to declare what is not in scope. State what you are going to do, what you are certainly not going to do.. and that then only leaves a small bit of ambiguity left for possible misunderstanding.
- Communicate. During this project span I attended SXSW and came back with a terrible flu/cold that wiped me out for 7 days after the 7 days I was in Austin. The client was aware I would be unavailable during SXSW, but was looking forward to resumption of their project the Wed. following my return. The illness blew up the schedule, but a few simple emails to the client assured them we would work double time upon our return to make sure their project was on schedule. They understood, and we did work double time and delivered. Everyone was happy.
- Get paid up front. Depending on the project we typically break down the fee schedule into 3-5 payments. What we found though that works best is 100% up front. Here’s why. Sometimes freelance designers have the tendency to get as much done as they have been paid for.. and to drag out a project with payment cycles for fear of getting too much done, then getting stiffed on a final payment. Billing all up front forces you to “Earn the money” so you work hard and fast to fulfill the project. For me at least it is a integrity thing. I have already been paid this money, so it is on me to make good on it… it would be stealing to take the money and just sit on your hands. Also the client sees you mean business when you have the kajones to ask for $10k-$20k-$30k up front.
I am sure I could come up with some more tidbits.. but why don’t you use the comments section to share your own.
SXSW Panel Snippet
Here is an edited snippet of our panel provided by SXSW. Maybe I can get my hands on a full unedited version….
Top 8 for SXSW08
Starting to feel better after the post sxsw immune system crash. Here are the top 8 for me this year. (Please forgive the shameless namedropping)
1. The Boarding Pass (Friday March 7th, approx 8:20am, PHX Airport)
Arrive at PHX with Sally (my smokin hot wife) and Johan (the crazy danish intern) and breeze through security pretty easy, and arrive at the gate to see other folks from #phx. Sean [name removed to save him from waterboarding at gitmo.. apparently it is a federal offense to tamper with a boarding pass] whom I invited to speak on my sxsw panel let me know the night before he got my boarding pass for me. When I walked up he was anxious to greet me and handed me my boarding pass as seen below.
This was the culmination of the prior week long tirade of finding creative ways to call each other “A fucking loser” – male bonding at it finest. I had Sean squirming for a comeback after the last burn I delivered, and happy to say Sean stepped up big with this one.
2. My Panel at SXSW (Friday March 7th, 5:01pm, Room 19AB 2nd floor Austin Convention Center)
Really hard to sum this up.. but it was quiet possibly the highlight of my year so far. Andrew Hyde joined Sean and I for the panel. It started with a Keynote slide of Godzilla.
Got to drop the F bomb in the middle…
and wrapped with a a special guest panelist, the unicorn
Andrew – Joshua (me) – Sean – The Unicorn
Damn he was smart.. Listen to this interview
The fact a professional writer form Wired.com had to report on the trainwreck made it all the better.
3. PureVolume Night 1 and 2
All the other sxsw parties are cool and all.. but after 1am it is vodka+redbull till 4am. The DJ was slammin, and the people are always chilln. Met Austin from PocketFuzz.com who ran the txt board in the dance room.. was cool; you could txt anything to this number and it was projected on the screen. Hours of fun.
4. The Crazy Weird Carni band at the 16bit party.. no not really
The band was terrible.. but the night saw some highlights:
- ordered 2 large pizza’s to a bar with 400+ people inside and 400 more waiting in line outside
- actually managed to locate the pizza dude when he arrived
- navigated pizza through crowd and then nearly ate dirt in the last 5 yards
- saw a large chunk of the digg posse jump the back fence
- asked Robert Scoble if he was going to show up to the fight the next day that the unicorn called him out on.
- the rick shaw ride through Austin
Also the planning for that night was near flawless.. We were 30 minutes early to every party… and therefore a) got drinks early, b) didnt have to wait in line c) got to meet more people who also were not standing in line.
5. Partying with my wife like we were in college again.
This May will be 5 years of marriage to Sally.. And I think besides a few brief episodes in years 1-2.. this was the first sustained party effort together since we were in college. Also it was fun to forget about work, clients, customers, reputation.. all that.. and just be a dumb kid again.
6. Digg Party FTW
I met some very nice people from Digg a few days earlier, and their coolness and a good word put in for me by The Unicorn landed me on the VIP list.
Here is why the digg party bwnd all others;
- Same purevolume craziness just 4 hours more 9pm-4am
- Met more killer people from digg
- Met more killer people from other awesome companies
- Met Mark Cuban and got to tell him something like “you have no answer for the Big Cactus, this is the Suns‘ year”
- Met Moby.. See number 7
- Sally got a picture with Moby and Mark Cuban
- Got some free digg schwag
- I think I play guitar hero better the more I drink
- The guys from Ustream.tv made me look sober
7. GaryVee pwns Moby
Moby comes in the back gate.. he is in the place for of all of 27 seconds and GaryVee innocently goes to shake Moby’s hand and knocks his drink to the floor. Moby’s drink on Moby’s shoes… So there is Gary, and there is Moby.. both giving each other the wtf? look. Was waiting for Moby to break into song of something… Of course twitter reaction time was instant.
8. All the kick ass people
Total Awesomness was everywhere:
The Blue Favor crew et all, Andrei, Paul (Jesus) Nixon, Pistachio, GaryV, Beth, Aubs, Andrew Kortina, Andrew Hyde and the domination of VCWear.com, the Unicorns Agent Matt, Lorenz, Austin, Andy Kaufman, Mel, Jermey, Thanks Jade and Integrum for Dinner, Josh Bloom, Thom Singer, you, and you, and the other guy, and her, and you, and all the other 432 uber rad people I met, drank, and plotted world domination with.
3am ish?
What sucked?
Feeling sick as soon I got off the plane in Phoenix after SXSW, The Facebook Keynote, panels starting at 10.. thats about it.
