As much as I don’t like freelanceswitch.com or other similar sites aimed at converting everyone and their uncle to the holy new way of life – freelance work, there was an excellent article by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.com on simple project management today. I am not going to go into detail on why I think freelanceswitch.com is not on top of my “favorite sites” list, maybe some other day, but the article itself was simply excellent. If you are not familiar with who Leo is, read zenhabits.com, it’s good for you.
Usually when you read about project management, and you should – it is important, it always starts with “Get the software X and do this, this and that, and you shall be managing your projects just like the pros do”. As seen on TV approach that might get you excited, but at the core of it there is a simple sales pitch to move as many units of “software X” as possible. Leo takes completely different approach, no mentions of any software package that would be a silver bullet for your particular situations, just the basic ideas that often gets overlooked when thinking about managing that runaway train that is your project.
Leo’s idea is simple:
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Define outcome
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Setup process
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Focus on the next action
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Send it to the client
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Communicate
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Focus on the next action
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Repeat until done.
And I would like to go as far as to say that it is not really his idea, it is a universally accepted idea on how to manage most of the projects. What really intrigued me was the fact that there was no fluff in the article, good clear explanation that brings you down to the core concept and let’s you decide how to do this in your particular situation.
I would really recommend Leo and his blog for everyone who is serious about his development not only as a IT pro, but as a human being.
Hi everyone! After helping couple of friends out with their newer enterprise – clubpath.com guys offered me a partnership. I am very excited about this one. For a while I wanted to get some kind of information-based site going ( my billiardinfoworld thing does not count – not too many people care about billiard ). E-commerce is not really my ideal business. I like making e-commerce sites, but running those on the day to day basis – I am not really cut out for that. It is very difficult to sell to the regular consumers, especially in the current economic environment, this is why I think information based sites, especially the ones that encourage users to generate their own content are the things to do, if you don’t really want to work on it full time.
Guys did do a great job on setting up the site, we do get a good traffic, the content is being generated and we do have returning users. What I think is especially great – we actually got two guys who are doing the sales / customer interactions and developers are doing none of that. When pressured into it, I can do sales, but to be honest it is not my idea of a great job.
Beta 1 for clubpath is somewhat successful, however we came up with the list of things that we would want to change. This means clubpath beta 2 will be very different.
So if you are into the club scene (for now only in Toronto, but coming soon to a major city near you) check out clubpath.com.
Let me continue with description of the projects that I am currently involved in. This one has been in the works for longest time – about 2 years. After realizing that it takes a while to make some coin in the niche market such as billiard, I had decided to get to something that is more wide spread and should be in a higher demand. I’ve decided to start selling lights for entire house.
While this idea is not a bad one, something was always in the way and it was on a back burner for quite some time. Recently I figured that I have to stop procrastinating and get some coding done. The result is not all that impressive as of today (February 2008), as I had only started implementing design that my good buddy Will have created for me. There are very few products added at this point, but we are working on that. I am thinking that by the end of March we should go live with this one.
Can’t attach a screen shot as of yet, she still looks ugly as I continue to implement design.
Nightshift Development is my little freelance coding outlet. I am working on most of the projects with other developers and designers that I’ve come to know and trust. I have to admit I don’t pick up too many projects at this very moment, simply because I am busy with other tasks and I want to shift my focus away from development for others and start developing for myself.
Well, in it’s current form, Billiard-Place.com is the third reincarnation of my original on-line business. This particular re-incarnation was launched in July of 2007 and so far this is the best performing billiard related site I have been able to put together.
It is build on osCommerce engine with LOTS of customization added to make it the way I wanted it. Site generates approximately 600 unique visitors per day which results in approximately 6-7 orders per day. I have spent two month tweaking the engine and design you can find 4000 products listed on the site (as of February 2008), we still add more every month.