Amidst all the professional chaos has been another swift kick in the balls (a metaphor, in reality my man junk is fine), a good friend from college has proven that it truly is possible to, whilst holding down a fortune 500 career, create and launch a freelance web development firm. Something myself, and this blog, have been discussing for years. But that’s not even the end of it, following my mostly jealous inquiry regarding the freelance firm, where I more less pose the questions “where the heck did this come from?” he provides a comforting laugh and offers me a spot with his upcoming podcasting site livefire.tv. He’s given me something I’ve always wanted, a slot in his weekly/monthly podcasting business complete with a clean slate and total creative control. It’s like I’ve died and landed my dream opportunity. Until reality sinks in of course.

I’ve now come to realize that aspiring to host a podcast and actually doing it are two GLOBALLY different things. I was given freedom of topic (for the most part) freedom of cast, and freedom of style and all I can think about is “don’t you screw this up you slacking bastard”. I’ve quickly gone from excited to mostly nervous overnight. In the end I realize that the whole product will only be what I make it and I’ll have plenty of time to learn the riggers of podcast hosting before I’m expected to produce a winner, but still, its one of this instances where you’re offered your chance and once you decide to take it, the thing you once wanted more than anything becomes the thing you fear most.

To sum it up, I think this post’s title speaks for itself but if anyone is having trouble figuring it out, I’m still undecided on a title for my podcast. In terms of a topic I am thinking I can provide a techy/geeky vibe to otherwise straightforward, results driven productivity concepts…consider it a geek’s rendition of This Week in Getting Things Done. To be 100% I couldn’t elaborate any more even if I wanted to, I’ve literally disclosed all I have so far on the topic.

Carrying around a great podcast title and/or a better topic or overall show idea? I’d love to hear from you. Either leave a comment or navagate back to the original site iVaughn.com and click on “Contact” and drop me a line there.

In any case, as always, thanks for reading and….have a good one.

-Vaughn

Late last night, while listening to the waves and staring at the stars I was inspired to write a passage of prose that I considered worthy of a Tim Allen “Pure Michigan” commercial, the following was my result:

Nothing can compare to a late night by the lake. Staring up at a sky so clear you can see stars thousands of light-years away, as if they were right in front of your eyes. With the soft sound of waves lapping up against rocks and docks, jet skis and boat launches, its enough to make you forget where you are. Until you realize, your surrounded by Pure Michigan. Your trip begins at Michigan.org.

Let me know what you think. If I own a nicer camera I would have taken a picture of last night sunset to and created my own video. Perhaps I’ll give that a try tonight.

In any case, have a Happy 4th. Good Day.

-Vaughn

So to those of you that actually enjoy reading this blog (Hi Dave), I’ve yet again promised changes and an increase in posting and I’ve yet again, failed to deliver. The truth is I’ve been a “real” adult officially for a year now and in that year I’ve been a bit lazy with life. It took me nearly 6 months from the day I decided I wanted to switch banks to when I finally did it (a 4 days process once I finally got off my butt). It spent the better part of 8 months browsing for a new car, finally buying one in 5 days once I got serious about it, and I know find myself facing and ambition I’ve had for all 12 months, and thats to build up my freelance business, start working some Elance jobs and get the independent web development side of my life actually moving. That ambition, I’m afraid, will be a bit more involved, and may not be complete in a week even once I get the ball rolling.

Recently a lot of things have begun to change it seems, I’m finally meeting some quality people down here in St Joseph, MI and as a result I’m building some quality relationships. It starts to feel a bit more like home every week. I can’t say that any of that has had much of an effect on how often I travel to Grand Rapids however, that is still where I feel the most at home, surrounded by some of the best people I’m sure I will ever meet. So its a slow process, but at least I have a process now.

So back the this website, the idea moving forward is simple really. I want to alter the homepage just slightly and attempt to build an intuitive separation between my personal web profile, and that of the freelance business. To do this I plan to restructure the entire site down to minimalist form. A single page site more less. With a distinctive section dedicated to Vaughn Johnson the man, and a dedicated section to iVaughn.com the web firm. The personal section will simply link to all my other profiles (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Picasa, and Last.FM) while the business section will have links to various aspects of the firm (About, Past Work, Resume, Contact) each simply opening up in a JQuery Lightbox, should be simple to manage and use. Now all that;s left is to develop it. Considering I want to begin developing for others again, you’d think that wouldn’t be to tough a task. We shall see.

Anyway, thanks for continuing to come read these posts, as lame and seldom as they may be. I’ve got a grand scheme and I hope it takes shape soon. Take care.

-Vaughn

Right now.

I bought the newest release of MacHeist Nano Bundle for $19.95. The bundled included a number of items I’ve always at least thought I wanted or needed, few more so however, than MacJournal. See MacJournal is a journalling software (duh right?) but beyond that its a truly a blogging and content creation platform. In just a the few short minutes (roughly 38 at this very moment) that I’ve had this software installed I have linked up to my blog at iVaughn.com/blog and I have downloaded each and every previous entry. I have organized my tags, ordered my categories, and ever straightened some misspellings that my outdated browser based blogging tool ignored. To make a long story short I have been using Mac Journal for going on 45 minutes and I must say, I’m a fan. I look forward to incorporating a tool that is so dead simple and intuitive while still heavy on the feature set that can help me achieve my goals.

Oh, and one last thing. If you can read this post from iVaughn.com/blog than you can fully assume that the software’s “share with blog” function works just fine.

…until next time, Vaughn.

New Year, New Philosophy, New Ambitions

So I’ve been reading a whole lot recently on the topic of New Years Resolutions. Self-help tips on how take what you always say you’r going to do and make this the year that you actually do it. I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about how perfectly I fit into that stereotype. How consistently I spent sleepless nights pondering what I need to do to improve my life and how I plan to go about doing so. How continually dissatisfied I am with myself from a number of different angles and how comedically I vowe each and every year to do something about it. Well my reader (I use the singular tense because I literally know theres only one of you, sup Dave?) this year, in the beginning, is like any other year. Filled with promise, resolution, goals, and a determination to reach those goals. The true question is, where will I be at this time next year? Blogging about how happy I am that I got my life in shape, or simply reaffirming this all to steady pattern?

So where will I begin? Well, no place better to start than right here. My Website, My Blog, and the internet in general. In 2009 I plan to finally make something out of the iVaughn.com Freelance Web Development FIrm. This means a better separation between Vaughn Johnson the person and iVaughn.com the business. This will mean Business Cards, Proposal Templates, Email Newsletters, and much added dedication toward obtaining a taste of the Freelance Lifestyle. I plan to blog and tweet more, but I also plan to change the ways in which I do both. Gone are the days of (after this one of course) where I blog about person feelings, ambitions, and/or stories. From this point forward this blog will be about the Internet as an Industry, and the Web as a Platform. I can assure you that in the near future this blog will not resemble its old self. And mind you if it remains the same, you can know I am not following up the resolutions described above.

The next step is taken at a more personal level. At the end of 2010 the guitar should no longer be a foreign instrument, but instead a hobby that shall travel with me everywhere. I’ve spent the past three years determined to learn how to play, but this year I have three past years of disappointment to motivate me. And lastly, I resolve to achieve a level of fitness I can be proud of. Drop the pounds, tone the muscles, and finally not be ashamed of how I look.

All of these things and more are my goals, my new ambitions, my new philosophy, for my new year.

I will be travelling with a members of my imediate management team as we attend ServiceWorld 2009. The annual conference where we meet with ServiceBench.com, a 3rd party Whirlpool Contractor that handles a good portion of the Whirlpool Appliance Service system requirments. I will be in attendance to discuss the ServiceMatters.com redesign project. We are looking to leverage existing ServiceBench technologies to piece togeather and authentication process for the site.

Stay posted, if anything cool happens I may feel inclined to blog again later this week (two in one week would be weird I know).

Later…

Start From Scratch

The last thing you ever want to do is assume too much prior knowledge on the side of your audience. When beginning the presentation, take time to discuss the site as if you were speaking to a completely new user. This gives the audience a chance to either learn something they may have been previously unaware of or the chance to compare their thoughts and feelings about the site to those of their newly appointed web designer. In the end you may find that starting with a solid backstory can improve overall understanding among all parties involved.

Strengths And Weaknesses

It is very important to understand that while you may be there to redesign a site currently in dire disrepair, if presented as a put down, it will likely be received as a put down. And that’s never good for job security. Begin by identifying key strengths. In most cases there are bound to be strong attributes. If the site hadn’t ever experienced success originally than there would likely be no need for a redesign so try to point out as much as you can that the previous site has done correctly. You can then transition into the weaknesses. When starting to discuss weaknesses, take your audience into consideration. Many of the existing site’s features were likely either conceptualized, designed, or developed by the very people to whom you are speaking so use tact in explaining why something is considered a weakness.

The Fix

It is highly probable that in today’s fast paced business environment, many audience members are simply interested in the “How.” As in “I don’t really care what is right or what is wrong, we’ve hired you to fix it, so what is your plan?” That is why the most crucial point for any redesign presentation is the explanation of “The Fix.” That is, a short and sweet discussion of how you plan to improve their site. Many find it useful to pull from the list of weaknesses and to explain why the redesign will not suffer these same issues. Others see it’s yet another part of the interview process and feel compelled to prove themselves through a thurough explanation of why his or her ideas are in the best interest of the company. Whichever approach you take it is important not to force any design or concept on the group. The company has given you an oppurtunity to be brutally honest, and at some point you will owe that company the same favor.

The Demo

One of the final steps in effectively presenting a redesign is to provide and intriguing demo. Now a demo can be tricky to develop, this is the first time you will be showing off your design so for fear of complete push-back you wont be looking to get too heavy into coding the entire site. Start with a few simple pages that give the audience a good idea of how both the site and design will flow together. And remember to take your time when developing the demo, the audience will expect a working version, the last thing you want is a broken link popping up out of nowhere. My final advice when presenting a demo of your redesign is to have fun and be confident about it, after all in most cases nearly everything you’ve presented will have been your own idea. You literally own the product, why not figuratively own the demo [if you catch my drift].

To Sum It Up

To bring it all to a close, my final thoughts are simple. The web is an ever changing, incredible place, and as web designers and developers we are given the unique opportunity to participate in the Web 2.0 revolution. The next time you are given a redesign project, keep these tips in mind when at first presenting it, and you could be on your way to success.

In fact, I have an idea. Its an idea that I think is going to finally give some purpose to this site, an idea that I hope others around the web find interesting, and an idea that I hope can jump start the existence of an overall web personality that I so long for.

The idea will play off another favorite blog of mine, Broke Grad Student. The Broke Grad Student blog considers a task that many of us either have, currently are, or eventually will, experience in our lifetime, the fun and excitement of paying back college debt. The writer of the blog highlights on a fairly regular basis things about his life that pertain to money. Interesting things that occur, or better yet intelligent things that he either reads or comes up with on his own. I’ve chosen to run with the idea and begin a sort of blogging miniseries in which I discuss, highlight, and vent about the newest project in my life. The Whirlpool Corporation service website redesign project.

Over the next coming months the entries with grow more frequent, the content more relevant (hopefully), and the overall iVaughn.com experience will forever change humanity (okay so that might be a stretch but in all honesty I have a feeling this could be good). So keep an eye out for future content as I have already experienced plenty of items to write about, and yet its only just begun!

Twinkini! Twinkini is the new Twitter solution for Windows Mobile that has single-handedly changed my perception on Windows Mobile not only as an operating system, but as an application platform. Twinkini takes Windows mobile to a place unlike any other app I’ve seen on this platform. It combines many of the newage design aspects that newer products and application platforms have been introducing for years.

To get a better look at how Twinkini could help you breath new life into your aging Windows Mobile smartphone check out the links below:

Twinkini Official Website
Twinkini Themes
Twinkini Screenshots

“TRY TWINKINI TODAY! YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH UGLY, UNAPEALING, WINDOWS MOBILE TWITTER APPS EVER AGAIN!, TRY TWINKI TODAY”

-In Loving Memory of Billy Mays-