Unfinished Business

This week on Unfinished Business I’m joined again by Elliott Kember to talk about Speedos, fitness tackers and—one day before Nike announced they’ve stopped making hardware— my Nike Fuelband. We discuss Cennydd Bowles’ Letter to a Junior Designer and if there are differences between designing a website and designing a digital product. I ask if designing with data is just an excuse for not having enough confidence in an idea and suggest that banging on about ‘empathy’ deserves a punch in the face.

This week our sponsors are Macrabbit’s Espresso—get 10% off with the offer code unfinished —and Shopify. Join their free partner programme today.

On this week’s Unfinished Business I’m joined by not one, but two guests to keep me out of trouble, Laura Kalbag and marathon runner Rachel Andrew. We talk about the fallout from last week’s news that publisher Five Simple Steps has closed, what this means for other niche publishers and for the authors who write for them.

We talk about how the abrupt announcement of the closure could’ve been handled better and the lessons we might learn to help us in the future. Finally, we break down how advances and royalties work differently between small and large publishers and the reasons why authors might choose a publisher over self-publishing their books.

Finally, everyone involved in making Unfinished Business wants to say an enormous thank-you to all of you out there in podcast land who voted for us for Podcast Of The Year at The Net Awards. You helped us make the shortlist of the final five that’s full of brilliant podcasts and put a very broad smile on all our faces.

Thank-you to our sponsors this week. Get 20% off your subscription to GatherContent, forever using the offer code unfinished and 50% off for your first two months using Forge with their offer code unfinished.

Special guest Jeffrey Zeldman joins me on Unfinished Business this week to talk about how important is it today for designers to be able to tell stories and sell ideas to clients. We talk about whether designers need ‘empathy’ or strength of character and conviction in their ideas, whether the web needs ‘account menpeople and what it feels like when people you’ve mentored go their own way.

It’s a packed show and as we both love advertising and Mad Men, we end by talking about my Don Draper depersonalisation disorder theory and what we expect and hope from the final season which starts next week. Even if you’ve not seen Mad Men, I think you’re going to like this episode.

Thanks to our sponsors this week. They are the Business Of Web Design conference (get 10% off your ticket with the offer code unfinished ) and Perch (get 10% until April 11th with the offer code unfinished.)

New regular Ashley Baxter joins me on this week’s packed Unfinished Business to talk about eating well and staying fit, my goal to lose 14lbs and why my competition with Paul Boag is spurring me on.

We also talk about how happy I am that Stuff and Nonsense has been shortlisted for Agency Of The Year at the Net Awards. Last, but not least, there’s Ashley’s Scottish slang word of the week.

I’m also over the moon to learn that Unfinished Business has been shortlisted for Podcast Of The Year. When you listen to the show, you’ll hear I obviously wasn’t expecting that.

This week’s sponsors are the Business Of Web Design conference. Use the offer code unfinished to get 10% your ticket. (And here’s a secret code. If you use the offer code dirtyape , you’ll get 20% off until the end of Wednesday April 2nd. Don’t tell everyone. Actually do.) And Device Lab.

On this week’s Unfinished Business, Laura Kalbag and I talk about the business of speaking at conferences, why it’s essential to be paid to speak and the importance of contracts that cover the paying of expenses, who owns the content of a talk and what conferences can do with that content after the event.

This week’s amazing sponsors are the Scotch On The Rocks conference and Macrabbit’s Espresso. Get 10% off your copy of my favourite code editor using the offer code unfinished.

Illustrator Josh Cleland is back for this, the sixtieth episode of Unfinished Business. We talk about Milton Keynes Geek Night, losing my voice and what can go wrong if you suck too many Strepsils. (Spoiler: diarrhea.) We discuss how we’re both trying to achieve a better work/life balance and what’s been driving us to work all the time.

I’d like to thank this week’s sponsors, Shopify and Logical Elements. Get 50% off their April PHP For Web Designers online course when you use the offer code unfinished.

Despite possibly the worst Skype connection in history, I chatted with Ashley Baxter on Unfinished Business this week about her semi-professional photography business. We talked about the photo walk and workshop that she recently organised in her home city of Glasgow and why conference organisers should host more photography workshops at their events. Aye. And let’s not forget Oor Wullie.

This week’s sponsors are the The Web Is conference that’s happening in Cardiff on 30/31st October 2014. Use the offer-code unfinished for 10% off your ticket.

Also thanks to Hammer For Mac and GatherContent. Use the offer-code unfinished for 20% off your subscription forever.

Laura Kalback, Kalbang, Kalbung, Cowabunga! Kalbag is back on Unfinished Business this week and we talk about her troubles at her bank and how changing your name once you’ve built an online persona might be a challenge. We follow up on our previous conversation about business ethics, then discuss how much time is reasonable to spend on researching requirements to provide a client estimate.

This week’s sponsors are the Scotch On The Rocks conference that’s happening in the beautiful Scottish capital Edinburgh on June 5th and 6th, and Espresso. Listeners of this show can get a fantastic 10% discount by using the coupon code UNFINISHED at checkout.

This week on Unfinished Business, Elliott Kember and I talk about how Director Lottie Dexter introduced the Year Of Code initiative and most importantly the message we think it sends about our industry and what we do.

Thanks to our sponsors Logical Elements—get 50% off ‘PHP for Web Designers’ when you use the offercode unfinished when you book your place—and Shopify.

This week, Josh Cleland is back on Unfinished Business. We talk about updates on our various piracy issues and whether it’s necessary to add copyright notices or watermarks to our work. We also discuss why people at large put a low value on creative work.

Thanks to our sponsors this week, GatherContent, Forge and the Dot York conference. Get 20% off your GatherContent subscription for life, and 50% off Forge for two months when you use the offer code unfinished.