As you may (or may not) have noticed, my website has seen a bit of an update. The entire layout is much wider, 980px wide to be exact, and there's a lot of the negative place in the content region (more on that later). 

I had two goals I wanted to achieve with this revision;

1. Build an absolute focus on content
2. Personalize each of my entries with unique styles (like a magazine spread).

I'm pushing myself to write often, and write a lot. Amongst the many benefits of writing regularly, the most attractive is gaining clarity of thought. With that in mind, I've tried to re-arrange the layout of my site around it's content. You'll notice that visiting my homepage, right away you can begin reading my latest entry. This is pivotal on two fronts. First, the prominence of the entry means I will be more conscious about what I write. This means I will be marinating ideas in my head for a little longer before putting them into words, and hopefully push out quality entries. Secondly, the vast content space below the header and above the footer means I have a lot of room to play with, literally.

What you don't see is a lot of CSS lines holding everything in place and acting as scaffolding for my future posts. This excites me! I have always been a visual perfectionist, and while it has many drawbacks, one of good things about being a perfectionist is the level of excitement that can be generated from achieving the desired result. The way this website operates, looks and feels is exactly as I have desired. It makes me happy, and a happy designer, as a result, can move along the to-do queue and get more things done.

Speaking of getting things done, I want to tell you what I've been up to.

In no particular order;

• I'm working closely with a friend to Design and Develop a Travel themed iPhone/iPad application.
  This is my first joint venture in the iPhone land.
  
  
• I'm also creating an online/offline HTML5 powered text-editor that will make writing more enjoyable, and thus, more addictive.
  I'm scratching a personal itch here, but some people may also find it helpful.
  
  
• I have been regularly reading and studying the philosophies of the lean-startup and everything to do with the startup ecosystems. People like Paul Graham, Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Fred Wilson, Babak Nivi, Naval Ravikant, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz all have influenced my thoughts and actions tremendously these past few months.
  I'm cooking up an umbrella company that will realize a lot of those teachings.
  
  
• Last, but not least, I have drafted a dozen of blog articles that need to be polished and posted. Everything from interface design principles that I put in practice everyday to the lessons learned along the way.
  I'm really pushing myself to get into the habit of writing frequently.
  

We're wrapping up the decade soon and I'm furiously trying to put things in order and welcome the New year (and a new decade) with the kind of momentum and ambition that yields results. 2011 is the year I turn 26, and it's the year I will be delivering results.

That's all for now. I will leave you with this appropriate wisdom of Mark Twain.

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." ~Mark Twain

Fin

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Ideas are dime a dozen, execution is key. Yea yea, I know. I've heard it a dozen times.

I'm convinced that I have something on my hands (or rather in my head) that could be my Passive Income earner. No more big ideas, or over-ambitious thoughts. I have too many sticky-notes with those on my desk. I recently came across a business that is very successful and falls in my space of skill and understanding. I'm going to mimic every move and apply it to the niche that I know. Thats my idea. Pray for me. 

The niche that I'm talking about is Movable Type, an Open-Source CMS/blogging platform I have been breathing day and night for the past 2 years. I know the language markup and it's infrastructure capabilities. I've worked with enough clients to understand the user/administrator needs in this space, and on this platform.

If all goes according to plan, it will be a scalable business that revolves around recurring fees. But experience and some reading tells me nothing ever goes according to plan. The only way I know how to prepare myself for a strong launch and eventual success is to read all that I can from the teachings of Steve Blank and Eric Ries. I have tremendous amount of respect for these guys and their genius. Both have built highly successful businesses, had great exists as well as failures, and they're one the rare technology guys who have the gift of public speaking (read: teaching while they speak).

the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. ~Eric Ries

I've had a few runs with start-up projects before, and something I always dreaded was the fact that my technical limitations could only get me so far in building a prototype or a Minimally Viable Product (MVP) which is critical for a founding member. But not this time. I am fully capable of building the product myself, and this luxury has allowed me to think about the strategy and business side of things with clarity.

Though I am at a crossroad right now; whether to build the product right now or pre-plan every move from start to finish on a white-board. I didn't think this would be something I would have to over come, but the decision itself is proving to be a difficult task. I really want to start building, but being the pixel-perfectionist that I am, I know the design and development of it will be long enough that I could suffer a burn out or veer away from the big picture.

And thats where I am now, at the point of deciding what the appropriate next step is. Swaying towards strategy first.

I may have just answered my own question while drafting this entry, which itself is a great encouragement for me to continue this blogging experiment, but If you are reading this, expect future entries about my start-up/microISV endeavour and the lessons learned along the way.

I'm also simultaneously reading about The Pomodoro Technique which is a nice method of achieving maximum productivity that I will be experimenting. Will update later.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Napoleon Hill

I came across this great poster in a blog by Mark Malazarte and I just had write about it so to keep a copy in my archives that I can always go back for reminder. Originality is non-existent. How great it is to hear that by someone else! I think every creative person either knows this or has an innate understanding of it that enables them to do what they have been doing. 

Now ask yourself when was the last time you came across a new idea that just seemed to surface out of the blue. I can't, and Mark agrees; where would it even come from if it was truly an original idea.

So whether a product, service, or a new art piece, (whatever it is worth doing or thinking about) there is always an influential force behind it. You can find that energy by putting yourself in positions that accelerate the process, or other times you let it come to you naturally in it's right environment, BUT that's not important and what Jim Jarmusch says rings true to a lot of aspects of life. What really matters is taking the inspiration and interpreting from it something that speaks to you and no one else. A manifestation that carries with it your voice and therefore is totally authentic. the authenticity makes your idea invaluable and that's what really matters.

I think this quote would make a great poster

Henry David Thoreau

It seems that Google competitors will try anything to lure users away from the giant. You can't really blame them for trying either, whether they are a success is another story. Microsoft's last attempt was rewarding users through its cash back program for using Live search to find and shop on partners sites. The hype did not live up. 

I realize it might be a stretch, but there is a Eurorail pass that let's you hand pick your train route across 17 countries, with a single ticket. I have to do this!

Bold isn't it? This print was run by the British Columbia Lung Association. The message is certainly clear. If you're a smoker I would love to know what you think.

Advertising Agency: TBWA\Vancouver, Canada
Creative Director / Copywriter: Paul Little
Art Directors: Angela Sung, John Williamson
Production: Julian Davis

(via adsoftheworld.com)

Joy J. Golliver

The creative guys at The Play Coalition have made a light bulb holder that makes you fuzzy and warm inside just by looking at it. There is a (not so) hidden message to the design as well, see the images below. Neil, Dane and Joe -the bright guys behind it- are advocating the use of energy efficient bulbs or better yet, energy conservation by the encouraging gesture of the outlet guy. This little guy is appropriately labeled 'Martyr'. got a chuckle out me haha

~Yugoslav proverb

Notice the awesome action stream at the bottom of my homepage? Thanks to the guys at friendfeed, you're able to take your online social activities anywhere with you. You can see their complete list of third party tools here (I'm using the embeddable feed widget).

I spent a good hour customizing my widget in CSS. I'm embedding the stylesheet below if you're interested is using or modifying the same style. Have a look at frienfeeds list of customizable markups. Enjoy!>

This brilliant campaign is pretty self-explanatory.

An Australian state is offering internationally what it calls "the best job in the world" -- earning a top salary for lazing around a beautiful tropical island for six months. The job pays 150,000 Australian dollars (105,000 US dollars) and includes free airfares from the winner's home country to Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland's state government announced on Tuesday. Source (Yahoo News)

Melissa Pierce, life-coach and blogger, has an upcoming documentary which explores the question of what is creativity and what is authenticity, and whether the two are mutually exclusive. I'll save my remarks until i see the movie but her interviews with established creative thinkers and doers bring up interesting insight to the process of challenging creativity and authenticity on a daily basis. Short clips of the film are on her website, worth the look if you get a chance.

I made a newbi blogger mistake and took myself a little too seriously. This blog is suppose to be an out loud copy of my thoughts, you know, random stuff. Informal. Quick and sporadic.

Instead, I set a formal and editorial tone with the previous two entries. That was not the plan. But because of that mistake, I found myself struggling to find the time to continue in that pattern, albeit in that style. It almost became a chore.

(Note to self: I don't want this blog to be a chore.)

It's been almost a year since Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, returned at the helm of his empire and promised great things. With that announcement he admitted that for Starbucks to continue it's success, a shift in strategy was needed. Some hints were outlined in the press release which can be read here, but to paraphrase, Howard called for re-igniting emotional attachment with Starbucks customers. A grande order for any company.

In the words of Seth Godin ― the marketing guru and best selling author ― if you want to be noticed and talked about, be remarkable. Not just by it's common definition of unusual or striking, but remarkable; to make a remark about. That is Seth's way of saying you have to take risks to be noticed.

The creative people at tda advertising realize this. Commissioned by USA Network to promote its hit espionage show Burn Notice, tda has put together a campaign kit that captures the essence of the show while doing it in a unique. The result is something remarkable, and it leaves a lasting impression.

After numerous failed attempts and years of neglect for this domain, I'm going to give blogging a whirl. Blogosphere, I'm coming for you!

This space will serve as a creative sanctuary for me and my interest in Design and Advertising/Marketing Communications. It's the type of work I pay close attention to and a world that I constantly explore.

In particular, this is a place to archive my out loud thoughts and Movable Type is making that a reality.

If you're reading this, and reading my thoughts, my wish is that you find the content helpful and maybe engaging enough to start a conversation with me. Don't be shy.

That's all for a first entry, thanks for visiting.

Faramarz - http://faramarzhashemi.com