Work Productivity Philosophy

In pressure times like these past weeks (i think it should be months for me, that is), I'm trying to compile a formula work philosophy to be as effective as I could in everything that I do. Below is a list in progress, not in order of importance. Some of them I took from GTD and ZTD. Disclaimer: these may or may not work for you. I'll be adding to this list as I stumble on new things.

1. Remove distractions to gain focus - e.g. we have to close those extra windows or applications or browser tabs and leave only those that are needed for the job at hand.
2. If it can be done in 2 minutes, do it immediately.
   
3. Just get started - the first step may not be that big or grand, but it takes the first step to build momentum
   
4. Momentum is important so do not break your momentum - resist temptation to switch or take a break if you're not that satisfied or tired yet. Unnecessary breaks break momentum. Find a place where you can't be interrupted.
   
5. Be aware of your big time wasters - like unnecessary friendstering, or facebooking or chatting. Measure how much you spend time on those and choose to refrain.
   
6. Prioritize daily - look for the 3 most urgent and important tasks for the day and do it. Only then after having accomplished those 3 should you take on other tasks. Otherwise, leave the rest for the next day.
7. Aim for balance - we juggle many projects/responsibilities. To focus fully on only one of those projects/responsibilities means delay or disaster for the others.
   
8. Balance by focus on small steps - Find ways to be daily aware of the status of what's happening on each of those projects/responsibilities. Determine the next small step action for each area and allot future time for it.
   
9. Write down everything that worries you - Exhaust them out of your mind. Once you've written them, you will be tempted to forget them because you already have a list that you can go back to.
   
10. Everything you do involves a risk, even doing nothing - Avoid paralysis by analysis. There will always be an amount of possible failure in everything that we do. So why bother worrying too much when we can never be too sure anyway. Decide early on if you are willing to accept that failure if ever it happens. Then be ready for the ride.
    

Thoughts from "Soaring in the Business World" Conference

It's been a long time since the last time I blogged. I had very busy weeks. But anyway, I'd like to share some pointers I learned from the Kingdom Business Conference themed "Soaring in the Business World" held last December 11, 2008 at PICC.

One of the messages that I liked most at the conference came from Leif Hetland. He shared about the three D's that we all have to live with and should expect in our businesses and life in general.

1. Disappointments - things do not and will not always happen as we planned or as we expected them to be . People sometimes don't perform or respond as we wanted them to be. The execution of plans don't always go smoothly. Sometimes the equipments that we use don't function properly at the exact time we need them the most. We should learn to understand that frustrations are part of our daily lives and to be so occupied with them will only stress us.
   
   
2. Discouragements - closely related and sometimes interchangeably used with disappointments, but discouragements happen when we begin to lose hope or lose courage to move on in an endeavor, plan or pursuit. It is inevitable that we will make failures and mistakes along the way. Failures for some are the source of most discouragements. Sometimes it's the circumstances around us that will zap the resolve in us, e.g. the global financial crisis. We must learn to expect that every now and then, there will be times that some stuff will drain away our emotional strength to pursue things. If we don't know how to rebound from discouragements, we will be slowed down and accomplish fewer things.
   
   
3. Distractions - there will always be opportunities and problems that will take away our focus from the things that we should be doing. Some ideas and opportunities are attractive enough to cause us to divert our overall road map or direction. But the question is: Is it really the right decision at this time? If we get easily distracted, we might get too thinly spread or lose momentum. Everything that we do will require portions of our time, effort and money. The focus and timing by which we invest these resources will determine the measure of our impact and output.

Points to remember:

1. The Three D's will come on a daily basis.
2. Expecting them coming, makes all the difference as to how we will respond.
   
3. Stay cool, recharge, ignore or refocus.
   

If we learn how to deal with the three D's in our businesses and daily lives, we become like eagles soaring above the storms.

Designing the Kingdom Business Conference Brochure

I was asked to design a brochure for a conference on December, the Kingdom Business Conference. By the way let me plug it in here: I'd like to invite you to this conference on December 11, 2008, 1pm to 6pm at the PICC Meeting Room 4. This year's theme is "Soaring in the Business World" and basically this is a conference for entrepreneurs and professionals, or anyone who desire to become positive influencers in the business arena. The conference will feature 3 speakers who will speak on both spiritual and practical advices on soaring in the business world as the theme suggests. The speakers are Leif Hetland, Dick Hochreiter, and Larry Ihle, all of which have spoken in business conferences and have Christian marketplace ministries in the United States. Session Topics are entitled: "Becoming an Eagle in the Business World", "Stop Struggling, Start Soaring", and "Tapping into the Supernatural". If these topics interests you, contact me and I'll send you the registration form. The registration fee is now P1,500 (P2000). For more info on the event, please visit this link: Kingdom Business Conference

I'd like to share here some thoughts that I had in the process of designing the brochure.

Elements Selection
Everything has to start with the theme. The brochure design must emerge from the theme. I used images associated with the words on the theme statement. The word Soaring are associated with birds, eagles, flight, sky, clouds. Business World connotes money, firms, industries, technology, buildings and cities. I chose bold techno and sans serif fonts because they best represent the modern world rather than Times New Roman and other serif fonts which tend to exude elegance and a feeling of conservative bureaucracy.

Front and Back Cover


Inner Spread


Concept and Conveyance
Words are not just the only things that speak in a design material. Every element speaks: The images, the fonts, the colors, the backdrop. But then there has to be a concept to unify them. The drama we chose for this brochure can be summarized in the subtext at the front page which says "In a time of uncertainty and economic upheaval, we need wisdom to rise strong above the storms...". This is the reason why the outer front and back cover page are dark because I thought of storms and turmoil. Then I thought of soaring, which gives an impression of enlightenment, encouragement resulting to inner pages with clouds, an eagle and a lighter color scheme. I usually design with one main color for a whole material, but this time I wanted it unique. I wanted to play with sharp contrasts. The impression I wanted to convey was that when the readers look at the outer cover they will feel the problem in the business world at hand, but when they open the brochure they will encounter a totally different and lighter page causing them to feel hope and encouragement. The dark cityscape represents the business world and the economic problem while the eagle and blue clouds represent the soaring part (by the way, the eagle is the only bird who can rise above the storms and soar). The yellow boxes were also intentional to further lighten the mood.

Positioning of Elements
I found out that the theme still dictate the positioning of elements. Notice the yellow bird shape at the front page. I tried placing it nearest the top-right part of the headline. Then I tried placing it at the top rightmost part of the brochure farthest the headline. The latter option was better since separating the bird from the headline helped amplify that sense of "Soaring". Notice also the eagle in the inner page. I first tried placing it below the Program Box. But then it made me feel that the eagle was struggling and not soaring. When I tried placing it on the upper portion, and the Program Box at the lower portion, it emphasized the soaring eagle and made it the focus of the page spread.

Actual Brochure Print




Screen and Print Output Differences
When the brochure came out from the printing press already mass-produced, I didn't like the output because the inner page was darker than I expected it to be. It was supposed to be bright. I guess next time, I should choose colors brighter than I wanted it to be. And next time I should also be present at the print shop when they release the test print. I was in Davao when they produced the test print. If I did, I would have had the chance to modify it before the final release.

Overall it has been a fruitful and fun design exercise for me. It is rewarding to engage with new design ideas in the mind.

My Wordpress Theme Design Process

I had a chance to build a personal website for a mentor, actually he's our senior pastor in our church. And I choose Wordpress to develop his site. Web development has changed already because of Wordpress. Some web agencies are already using Wordpress to quickly build sites for their clients. For this post, I'd like to share the Wordpress theme design process I did for Paulyadao.com.

1. Learn how to create a WP Theme - I studied on how to build a Wordpress theme. I learned a lot from this tutorial - "So you want to create Wordpress Themes huh?"
   
   
2. Look for a theme concept - this particular couple client love anything about eagles and grapes. They have eagle paintings in their house and plates, cups, saucers with grapes design. So I initially used a page background with an eagle face on the right and a bunch of grapes the left side. But I thought it didn't look good. So I decided to stick with the Vine concept. I named this theme the Vine. From the header to page backgrounds you could see vine flourish patterns. A concept can help unify page components and give a unique character to a site.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Choose a color scheme - I never thought of tagging a site as a "blue site", a "black and white site", a "red site", etc. until I came across Design Meltdown. Design Meltdown has a collection of current beautiful sites according to their colors. Design Meltdown also has explanations on what each color stands for and how they affect audience first impressions. For paulyadao.com, we preferred (me and my clients) it to be a brown site. A brown site gives a feeling of down-to-earthness. And I thought most of the pictures will display Filipino people who are brown-skinned. If your client has a logo, it's best to stick with one of the colors in the logo.
   
   
4. Decide on the dimensions and column layout - I initially chose the 2-column layout where the right column as the narrower column serving as sidebar and the left column as the wider column for the main content. But I wanted it to be different so I decided on an equal 2-column layout where the right column holds the main content and the left column for images and other components such as the comments form.
   
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5. Design and code the template components - I started with the header.php, and footer.php since every page will contain them. Then the index.php which is the homepage. Then the page.php which is the layout for page content. Then the single.php for the post content. Then the comments.php for the comments box/form. I also created category pages i.e. category-n.php, which displays only posts for category=n.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Install and customize plugins and javascript components - I added the Events Calendar plugin and customized its CSS to go with the color scheme. Then I added the Feature Content Slider and also edited its CSS. These components don't come originally with your Wordpress installation. There are several Wordpress third-party plugins available that you can use in your site. Choose only those that enhance user experience.

The DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards 2008

It's been encouraging to attend the DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards for 2008 at Taste Asia, Mall of Asia last November 5, 2008, 1pm to 5:30pm. I remembered last year how it felt to be a winner for our website Philrealty-showroom.com. Most of the winners this year must have been delighted and surprised to be selected as best websites in their respective categories.

Janette started the event discussing the criteria for judging of the entries. I understand that for some artists out there, some of the winners would not have passed their standards. That is because the awards is not about the best website visual design, but about the best website in all aspects and e-commerce practices. The entries were judged openly by the DigitalFilino Club members with regards to search engine readiness, good navigation, originality and freshness of content, layout, design, site speed performance, and interactivity.

Below is the list of winners per category this year:

1. Apparel / Fashion Category - Tesoro's Philippine Handicrafts and Barongs
   
2. Art Category - Hiraya
3. Association / Organization Category - Information Technology Association of the Philippines
4. Auction / Shopping Portal Category - KabayanCentral
   
5. Automotive Category - AutoIndustriya
6. Beauty Category - Godiva
7. Blog - Corporate Category - The Belo Medical Group Blog
   
8. Blog - Personal Category - The D Spot
9. Blog - Professional Category - Tech at Hand
10. Books Category - OMF Literature
11. Community Category - TipidPC
12. Computer / Consumer Electronics Category - Villman Computers Philippines
13. Consumer Banking / Bills Payment Category - Philippine National Bank
14. Corporate / Professional Category - Syntactics
15. Events / Conferences Category - WordCamp Philippines
16. Financial Services Category - Absolute Traders
    
17. Food Category - Filipino Recipes
18. Games Category - RF Online Philippines
19. Gifts Category - Express Regalo
20. Guides / Review Category - ClickTheCity.com
21. Home Furnishings / Improvement Category - Philippine Interior Design & Feng Shui Tips
22. Jobs / Employment Category - MyNimo
23. Magazine Category - Candymag.com
    
24. Music / Movie/ Film Category - TitikPilipino
25. Newspaper Category - Inquirer.net
26. Pharmaceuticals Category - GlaxoSmithKline Philippines
27. Podcast Category - The Daily PCIJ
28. Politics Category - Filipino Voices
29. Real Estate Category - BF Homes Properties
30. School / University Category - De La Salle University - Manila
31. Services Category - Load.com.ph
32. Social Networking Category - GreatPinoy!
33. Tourism Category - Cebu CeBoom CeBlog
    
34. Travel Category - Philippine Airlines

The winners representative were given a time to share their experiences and insights as they developed their sites. I enjoyed The D Spot talk as she shared how her son encouraged her to try blogging. I also liked The Daily PCIJ's talk as she passionately encouraged bloggers to join forces with journalists in informing the people especially for the 2010 Philippine Election. I find the talk of one of the sponsors, CashSense, enlightening. The CEO shared their story as they shifted being an online company to bricks and mortar then back to being an online company again. It made me realize that it really takes time, effort, strategy and commitment to customers needs and benefits, to win the market.

For more info and coverage on the DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards, visit digitalfilipinowebawards.blogspot.com

The Designer, The Developer, and The Marketer

Have you read the book E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber? It's a book for those who would want to enter and succeed in business. The author said in the book that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and the Technician. I would not discuss those personalities here. But I want to share an idea something similar to that. I'd like to propose that those who would want to succeed in the web must at least be composed of three persons or a three-people-in-one man/woman: The Designer, The Developer, and The Marketer (not in rank or importance).



The Designer - he's the visual person. The one who decides everything pertaining to the aesthetics of a web property, from colors, to fonts, to images and icons, to the the layout and positioning of all page components. He knows Photoshop and Imageready and all other design editing tools. He's the guy who goes out of the way to make the web pages visually pleasing, interesting and impressive. He's more like Steve Jobs and not Bill Gates. Without the designer, a website looks unprofessional/amateurish, out of trend, bland, and visually boring.

The Developer - he's the code guy. He can be the front-end or the back-end. He builds the structure/skeleton upon which the web property stands stable. He knows CSS, Javascript, AJAX, PHP, MySQL, e-commerce integration, call out all other IT-jargon and abbreviations coz he's the programmer and also the tech-support guy. He cares more about the features and functionalities of a site than the color of the fonts. He's happy when the forms are foolproof and error-free. Without the developer, I wonder what would Google and YouTube look like. It's like saying what would buildings look like without architects and engineers.

The Marketer - he's the business guy. For him it's the content that matters. It's the traffic that matters. It's the ranking that matters. He's the blogger, the SEO, the social networker. He directs what should be communicated to the audience. He cares which product should be featured on the homepage. He cares about the copywrite, the marketing words that convinces the minds. He believes that "Content is King" and all else are pawns or rooks or knights. He either creates the content or hires suppliers. He visits all directories and every networking platform there is to promote his store. Without the marketer, the website will just be out of sight.

Well I'd like to think that it requires these three persons for a web property to become excellent and successful. What would a website look like if it's just built by the designer alone, the developer alone, or the marketer alone? I bet you have a hint. What if it's a two-man team? The Designer-Developer would focus on web standards, the usability, the beauty but the site lacks the content necessary to keep the site moving up the ranks. The Designer-Marketer would focus on the impressiveness and copywrite but the site lacks dynamic structure or user interaction; they might as well produce only static htmls and are ignorant of benefits of AJAX on user experience. The Developer-Marketer would boast of the quantity and output of their content database , but the site looks unreliable because it isn't layouted and designed properly, the page components are not in visual unity.

We could all live with not-so-good websites. But we patronize those that are excellent. As I've stated above, the three persons could also be three-people-in-one. I believe that they can also be called skillsets that an individual aspiring web entrepreneur must each develop. Disclaimer: I'm not three-in-one yet. I'm more of a designer-developer. This post and all this blogging is my way of training the newbie marketer in me.

DigitalFilipino Club and Bloggers Networking Night in Davao

I just attended DigitalFilipino.com Club's Networking night in Davao last October 21. Met few new friends and was delighted to know that the blogging community in Davao is growing big. The event was sponsored by PAGCOR, newest corporate member of the club and was held at Pantawan Hall, Grand Regal Hotel, in Lanang, Davao City.

The night started with the introduction of all attendees. Janette Toral then introduced DigitalFilipino.com Club and its latest activities. Afterwards, she gave a report on the top 100 Filipino blogs in Ratified.org. I felt proud being a Dabawenyo when Janette told the audience that some of the blogs in that list were created by Dabawenyos like Pinoy Teens Online, Pinoy R.N. and Jehzlau Concepts.

At the event, PAGCOR showed a video about their history, achievements and the upcoming big project - the Tourism City in Manila Bay. This particular project is of interest to me since Manila Bay real estate is now booming partly because of this announcement.

Lastly, when the party and games started, I got my copy of Blogging from Home. Thank you Janette for the autograph. Lately I've been digging into visual thinking and I'm planning to put them into practice in my blogs. So here's my hand-sketched visual summary for the event:

Firefox3 add-ons I recommend for web developers

It was just recently that I installed Firefox 3 in my laptop and somebody recommended me that I should use add-ons. Add-ons are third party widgets/apps which you can install by going to the Tools menu of Firefox. True enough using add-ons made my life easier. Firefox can become like a switch knife because of add-ons; that is, it becomes an all-in-one software.

For a web developer/designer like me, certain add-ons really help. I'd recommend:


FireFTP - User-friendly, very simple and intuitive FTP software. You can create multiple ftp accounts. You can simultaneously connect to those accounts and create a tab for each account, the same way you can create a tab for each site you visit. Before I was using Filezilla and SmartFTP. I have to open 2 applications, Firefox and Filezilla. Now I just have to open Firefox and create a FireFTP tab.


Web Developer - very functional site/page Inspection tool. If you're fond of reverse engineering web sites, this is the tool for you. You use this add-on to inspect the outline/structure of the page. There's this functionality that draws boxes on all the block elements of the page. You can also use this to inspect the CSS info of specific elements. Just right click on the element and go to Web Developer>CSS>View Sytle Info. There are many other functionalities offered in this add-on such as HTML validation, and disable features.


FireShot - this is a screenshot capture tool. Unlike the print screen button on your keyboard, FireShot can capture the whole page, not just what's visible on screen, that is it includes those parts where you have to scroll down. It comes also with an application where you can create annotations, useful for team collaboration in designing pages.

3 reasons to join the 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2008

A few years from now the youth generation of today, who are exposed to the web and mobile technology, will be the future generation of the majority of decision makers in the land. A few years from now, the Internet and mobile phones will become the dominating marketing media and TV will not be as effective as it is today. I really don't know if that's gonna happen, hehe, but I guess that's pretty possible.

So that's why I'd be glad if I can join It's All Geek to Me! The 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2008. This event is organized by the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) to be held at Hotel Intercontinental, Ayala Avenue, Makati City on August 13 to 15, 2008.

I find 3 main reasons why this summit would be a worthwhile exposure event for me.

1. Learn the basics - August 15, 2008 will be dedicated to workshop sessions on the basics of both Internet Marketing and Mobile Marketing.
   
2. Learn the trends - The summit will feature global trends in Internet and mobile marketing as well as what's happening here in the Philippines.
3. Learn the best practices -There will be sessions on surveys of best practices on the International level and in the Philippine landscape. And there's the The Boomerang Awards 2008, a showcase of companies who implemented high impact and effective marketing campaigns using the Internet and mobile media alone.

Criteria for a BIG Idea: Pain Eliminator

I always had this mantra in mind "All I need is just one BIG idea to get rich". For Bill Gates it was the vision of his operating system on personal desktop computers. For the Google founders the big idea was the search engine and eventually AdSense. For YouTube it was video posting. The problem is how do I know if the idea I had in mind is a BIG one.

In my desire to eventually be a startup, I bought books from Amazon.com and my favorite was this book "Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality" by Bob Walsh. I still am not finished with the book now as of this post date. One of the things that really struck me from Chapter 1 was this one criteria advised by Joel Spolsky, when it comes to evaluating ideas for software products: It must eliminate a pain. If it can't eliminate a pain, nobody is gonna shell out money for it. For Skype it was long-distance phone bills. For Google it was the pain of being not satisfied with search results from other existing engines. When I first used Google, I was happy that they produced the right results I was looking for. Though people do not pay for it, this was the reason they became popular, and eventually they had AdWords/AdWords for profit. AdWords eliminated the pain of not being found in the first page of the search results. For YouTube, first it was the difficulty of broadcasting your video on the web and secondly getting it noticed. Because it is a site focused on one type of content, YouTube was able to position themselves as the buzzword when it comes to online video content and people began to use it to upload their videos and eventually became the search engine for the video clips.

The thing is, I have to define what pain will my software or product eliminate. The pain must be something basic or something that really bothers and burdens my target market. If the idea eliminates a pain that's not that nagging, my product would just be doodad to my clients.

Catching Up

It feels bad when you know you're not growing in your knowledge and skills when everything around you, both people and technology are accelerating at the speed of light. I'm a programmer and a designer, but it seems everything that I learned for the past three years are already obsolete. I need to catch up.

Three things I'm doing now to catch up:

1. Exposure - Read books. Visit websites and articles. Even if I don't understand the terms, I just allow myself to be bombarded with the words until they make sense to me. Sometimes I have to resist the phrases "it's hard to learn", "it would take so much of my time". I just have to say "Every journey starts with a step" and almost always, the technology I thought to be difficult to learn is not that difficult at all.

2. Experience - knowledge is not enough. I have to find a way to use and apply those knowledge or else I'm doomed to lose them or forget them. It's important to have a mindset that it's never gonna be perfectly done the first time. I'd have to accept the fact that I'm gonna make mistakes and that making mistakes and solving them are the best way to learn.

3. Associate - I learned that the above steps 1 and 2 would be maximized and accelerated when I do step 3. Having people around you who can teach and coach you brings you faster to the race frontline. It's simple, when we surround ourselves with people who are updated with the latest trends and tech buzz, we get updated as well. In a way, their ceiling becomes our floor and that's acceleration. I am currently a member of a Philippine web and technology club, DigitalFilipino.com. I tell you, I'm glad I did.

Don't lose the dream

I had this funny experience 3 years ago, when I just had the enthusiasm to take my start-a-software-company dream seriously. I've read business books and articles on the Internet, and almost all of them would say that I must have a business plan... And so I bought a simple paper notebook and began to write my business plan.

This was on a January and I was fresh from Christmas vacation. I'm from Davao, Philippines. That time, I planned to go back to Manila by ship so I would have a long period of being alone and the sea would be a wonderful backdrop for my creative reflective thinking. It would take 3 days to travel from Davao to Manila by sea. During that 3-day stay at the ship, I had the pleasure of detailing my business plan, from the target market, user interface sketches to the use-case functionalities to the business model. I wrote all of them on that notebook. I wrote and scribbled most of the time during that stay and so I decided to place the notebook and the pen underneath my pillow so that I don't have to take it out from my luggage bag often. When we ducked Manila port, everyone was busy preparing their things for departure and so am I. You might have experienced something like this yourself on one of your trips. I folded my clothes and every other stuff on my bedroom and placed them on my bag. It didn't enter my mind that I hid my notebook and the pen under the pillow, and just because I saw that my bed was clear I thought I had everything in my bag already. I realized it only when I was on the bus and I wanted to browse my business plan, only to find out it's not in my bag.

I was angry with myself. That time I got discouraged with the wasted effort and for some reason didn't want to rewrite the business plan. My enthusiasm dropped dramatically. And for a time, I shelved the dream just because of the incident. We'll good for me, I may have lost my business plan notebook, but I certainly haven't lost the dream yet. I forgot what I wrote on that notebook already. I was afraid somebody on the ship would eventually find that notebook and copy my business idea and start it. Thank God, nobody in the Philippines have started my business idea yet. I will not be revealing my business concept on this blog, until I have started it already and I have my beta release.