Unfinished Business

This week on episode 115 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning guests Brad Frost and Stephen Hay. After talking about the best coffee mug in the world, we get right down it and discuss why it’s dangerous to bring computer science principles and heavy development tools into web design.

You might remember that in the last episode I mentioned that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s a Bodum travel press set coffee mug (Amazon UK affiliate link.) You can read my full review of the mug here.

A week later than planned (sorry,) on this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning special guest, designer Dan Edwards. And because you wait all day and then two Dans come along at once, joining us is creative director, founder and director of the SuperFriendly agency in Philadelphia, Daniel (the Dan) Mall.

We talk about plans for the next Geek Mental Help week in October first. Then, because I’m currently deep into a redesign of Stuff & Nonsense, why working on your own site always feel harder than working on a client sites. We discuss using our portfolios to attract the ‘right’ type of projects and if case studies are the best way to demonstrate what we do.

Due to technical problems, this episode very nearly didn’t get published, so I want to thank my good friend Ryan Taylor for his help making it happen.)

You might remember that in the last episode I mentioned that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s Cornerstone, the shaving supplies people.

When you sign up to Cornerstone you’ll receive german-engineered razor blades and British-blended skincare products delivered as often as you want them. Choose how often you shave—I shave two or three times a week—which means I get a box every twelve weeks. That box contains Pre-Shave Face Scrub, Shave Gel, 6 Razor Blades and Post-Shave Balm. You’ll get a free aluminium razor handle engraved with your initials included with your first delivery. With Cornerstone you can change your plan any time you like and there’s no ongoing commitment.

If you sign up with Cornerstone via this website I’ll get £10 credit and you’ll get £10 off your first order. So if you shave, buy your supplies from Cornerstone and you’ll be supporting me for making this show.

I’ve been looking forward to speaking with Cennydd Bowles for months and for Unfinished Business 113, Cennydd joins me and my other special guest, product designer Noah Stokes. We kick off by talking about Richard Rutter’s web typography book, but soon the conversation switches to whether, and why, current web designs are lacking ‘soul.’ This is something Noah and I have been speaking and writing over recent months and something that I partly blame on our fixation with user-experience and product design. Does Cennydd agree? You‘ll have to listen to the show to find out.

From now on, I’m going to mention products or services because I really like them, not because they are paying for sponsorship. These may be from our industry or from outside, for example the people I buy my shaving supplies from. If you have a product or a service or something that you think I might like enough to talk about, let me know. Email me, send me something and if I like it, and I think that listeners would like it too, I’ll talk about on the show.

I really like Shopify and they have just released a book about how to grow your design or development business. The book’s called ‘Grow’ and it has eleven chapters by industry experts about how to attract clients, draft contracts, close deals and more. Even my Contract Killer contract gets a mention. Download your free copy of Grow.

Ellie and I talk about her Fringe and what it’s like to get a big break on a show like ‘House Of Fools.’ We discuss improv, stand-up performances and comedy clubs and whether she should watch ‘Carry On’ films. Ellie’s charming and funny and I really enjoyed talking with her. Even if you’ve not seen ‘House Of Fools,’ you’ll really like this episode.

I really like Shopify and they have just released a book about how to grow your design or development business. The book’s called ‘Grow’ and it has eleven chapters by industry experts about how to attract clients, draft contracts, close deals and more. Even my Contract Killer contract gets a mention. Download your free copy of Grow.

Apologies in advance if you’re German or a Turk, as this week on episode 111 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by artist Brendan Dawes and designer Aaron Draplin.

We start by talking about spice jars and car boot (garage) sales, but unsurprisingly our conversation soon veers wildly off topic as we discuss how Aaron’s struggling to keep up with demands on his time, how designers can make money selling merchandise and more, much, much more. If you know either Aaron or Brendan, you’ll also know that you’re in for a fast-paced, fun-filled sixty minutes.

I’d like to say “thank you” to Shopify for supporting Unfinished Business. Shopify have just released a book about how to grow your design or development business. The book’s called ‘Grow’ and it has eleven chapters by industry experts about how to attract clients, draft contracts, close deals and more. Even my Contract Killer contract gets a mention. Download your free copy of Grow.

Last week was Jeffrey Zeldman’s website’s 20th birthday, so this week he joins me and Jeremy Keith on Unfinished Business 110 to talk about the anniversary. We start by discussing Jeremy’s 100 words for 100 days writing project and how it’s inspired me to change the way that I think about writing on our blog and posting to our portfolio. We talk about the importance of writing for yourself as well as for others and why writing on your own website is important. With it being the twentieth anniversary of Jeffrey’s own site, we also talk about whether it’s important to archive older designs for posterity.

Oh, and please don’t skip this week’s after show segment as boy-oh-boy (girl-oh-girl, man-oh-man, woman-oh-woman) do the sparks fly! We discuss Mad Men, Mad Max and whether advertising can ever be considered as important as a book or a film and, let’s just say, things get very heated.

This week is a special Mad Men episode of Unfinished Business and I’m joined live from New York by Jen Simmons–the incredible host of The Web Ahead podcast–and our very special guest, the actor and comedian who plays Lou Avery on TV’s Mad Men, Allan Havey.

We talk, of course, about Mad Men, its final season and the recent show finale. So if you haven’t seen Don Draper fall out of a McCann Erickson window yet, there are spoilers galore.

We discuss Lou, his character and how the show’s audience reacted to him. Of course no conversation about Lou should leave out Scout’s Honor. We run through the final season and where it left the show’s characters, including Lou. Then we move onto the finale itself, Dick/Don and oh, ‘that’ commercial.

I’ve always wanted Unfinished Business to be about more than the business of web design and I’ve often talked with guests about film and television, but always from the outside. I loved researching and recording this episode and especially speaking with Allan. I hope that you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it.

I imagine if I told people in advance that I was talking to director of UX at MailChimp Aarron Walter and Founder of User Interface Engineering Jared Spool on Unfinished Business this week, they’d imagine we’d talk about user experience design and possibly education. Instead, they and I talk about action figures and Action Man and whether fighting Nazis is cooler than fighting aliens.

It’s not all Smurfs and Stretch Armstrong though, because we also discuss the art of public speaking, how to prepare for a talk and tips for a successful presentation, whether you’re speaking at a conference or pitching an idea to a manager or a concept to a client.

Here are some URLs from this episode

Fresh from our adventures at Smashing Conference in Santa Monica, on this week’s Unfinished Business I’m joined by user-experience professional, author (of some CSS book or another) and director at ClearLeft, Andy Budd. Joining us was one of my favourite people; designer, author and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll.

On this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by designers’ designer Dan Edwards and, one of my favourite people, designer Veerle Pieters. We start by talking about magazines, including 8faces and the new edition of Lagom.

Then we discuss how the perceptions that people can have about us, our companies or even how busy we are can be really different from the reality, plus an event that we’re planning for designers and developers to get together to share business experiences. Finally we talk about whether our contracts should prevent clients from making changes to our work after we’ve delivered it to them.

(I’m sorry for the drop in audio quality (on my channel) this week. Annoyingly, my recording stopped unexpectedly and I had to rely on the Skype back-up. Thanks GarageBand. Thanks for nothing.)

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