Unfinished Business

I‘ve been looking forward to publishing this episode of Unfinished Business for over a month and I looked forward to recording it for even longer, because I got to talk about art direction and creativity on the web with two of the creative people that I respect most, Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman.

The best podcasts listen to interesting people having interesting conversations about work, and life and for episode 104 of Unfinished Business I’m joined by two fascinating folk. Trent Walton and Stephen Hay.

In a lively and wide-ranging conversation, we talk about ‘designing in a browser’ and whether or not today it’s a given (to some degree or another.) We discuss not showing clients static design visuals and why ‘comps’ in a browser and prototypes should be the first thing that we show our clients. We talk about where graphic design tools now fit into our respective workflows and why static visuals can still be an important part of the design process. Finally we discuss tools for designing (in a browser) and whether the technical barrier to entry is sometimes too high.

Back for episode 103 of Unfinished Business is my favourite comedy duo, ‘Pipe and Pyjamas,’ Paul Boag and Jon Hicks.

We had a list of things that we weren’t allowed to talk about, a list that was surprisingly topped by Dr. Who, food and bicycles. Instead we discuss about Paul’s green screen, his motorhome and why he left Headscape, the company he founded thirteen years ago. We end up talking about how we’re redefining our places in the web industry as the three of us get older.

In the after-show segment (for non-boring people,) we talk about Vic and Bob’s ‘House of Fools’ and as we weren’t allowed to talk about Dr. Who, we discuss Dr. Who Lego instead. No one should complain about that.

A little later than advertised (and by “a little” I actually mean a week) I’m joined on Unfinished Business. Episode 102 by Rachel Andrew and Zoe Mickley Gillenwater.

Despite being two experts on bleeding edge CSS layout modules, they don’t talk about CSS (much.) Instead we talk about how to keep doing when keeping going is hard and what gives us that motivation. We also discuss making big decisions including when we might want to take, or leave, a job.

We’re back. Back in business. Unfinished Business. Episode 101. For this, the first episode of 2015, I’m joined by two of the best well-known writers about how to implement CSS on a large scale Harry Roberts and Jonathan Snook.

We talk about if the ways we talk about CSS today have made learning it less accessible for beginners. I worry that people are being encouraged to jump straight into Sass without learning the basics of CSS first and ask why people don’t write long books about it anymore?

This year, Unfinished Business will be on a bi-weekly schedule, every two weeks, to give me more time prepare better content for each episode. Most episodes will also have two guests. I’ve lined up some fabulous pairings including Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman, Stephen Hay and Trent Walton, Rachel Andrew and Zoe Gillenwater, Andy Budd and Cameron Moll, Brad Frost and Tim Kadlec and Paul Boag and Jon Hicks. These should all be lively discussions and I really hope that listeners will enjoy the new format.

On the show I mention my up-coming ‘CSS For Responsive Web Design’ workshops in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in March. Listeners to Unfinished Business can get $50AUS off the ticket price with the offer code unfinishedbusiness.

Find out more about the workshop.

Get yourself a ticket.

This week is the one-hundredth episode of Unfinished Business and who better to join me than the person who helped me start it all, almost two years ago, Anna Debenham. We celebrate by talking about what went right and wrong in 2014 and our resolutions for 2015. Then we talk about meetings and how we can improve them.

This being the final episode of the year, I’d like to say an enormous thank-you to everyone I’ve spoken to on Unfinished Business, this year: Ashley Baxter, Benjamin Hollway, Brendan Dawes, Christopher Murphy, Cole Henley, Clare Symons, Harry Roberts, Jeremy Keith, John Davey, Jon Hicks, Jory Raphael, Laura Kalbag, Liz Elcoate, Paul Boag, Rachel Andrew, Relly Annett-Baker, Sara Souidan, Sean Johnson and Trent Walton.

I’d also like to say thank-you to all the companies who’ve helped make Unfinished Business possible through their sponsorship. Antetype, BigBoard, dConstruct, DeviceLab, DotYork, Espresso, GatherContent, Ghostlab, Forge, Hover, Logical Elements, Native Summit, ShropGeek, Simply FixIt and Shopify. I want to say a special thanks to Perch and Perch Runway for supporting the show from our very first episode. Please continue to support Unfinished Business by supporting them.

Unfinished Business will be back in February 2015 and I hope you’ll all join me then. Until then, thanks for listening and I’d like to wish everyone a happy Christmas holiday and a prosperous new year.

On the penultimate episode of Unfinished Business of 2014, I’m joined by my design hero Trent Walton to talk about if an integrated responsive design and development workflow makes working out what and how to charge more difficult. We discuss Paravel, the three person studio that he helps run, how their business works, how they charge and if they negotiate on price. Of course, this being Unfinished Business, I couldn’t help talking about burgers and this week’s stupid cheeseburger stuffed crust pizza.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Espresso and Perch.

Conference impresario John Davey joins me again on Unfinished Business this week. We talk about anticipation and scarceness, how some cinemas create an experience around watching a film, how looking at album artwork in a record shop enhanced the experience of buying music and whether the experiences we’ve lost were valuable enough to revive in new and different ways.

It’s a special week this week on Unfinished Business as I’m joined by not one, but two regular co-hosts, Ashley Baxter and Laura Kalbag. In a bumper episode, we talk about cakes, brightly coloured fizzy drinks and Yorkshire pudding burgers. We discuss podcasting, sounding good as a podcast guest, then whether we allow Christmas decorations in our offices. Finally we talk about what we’ve achieved this year and what our goals are for 2015. It’s a fast and fun episode. I think you’ll really enjoy it.

We’re sponsored this week by MacRabbit’s Espresso and by the DotYork conference 2015. Get 10% off both by using the code unfinished at checkout.

Artist and designer Brendan Dawes is back on Unfinished Business this week. We get started by talking about past popular pop princes and princesses S Club 7, The Handsome Family and Bren’s one day trip to Argentina. For the remainder of the show, we talk about when it’s acceptable to give our time for free and when we should say no. Why every project should include a ‘goodwill’ budget and what the heck are those party paper and whistle things that come out of Christmas crackers called?

We’re sponsored by MacRabbit’s Espresso. Get 10% off by using the code unfinished at checkout. And by the DotYork conference 2015.