At my orientation, I was explained an aspect of how Genuine chooses which clients and projects they want to take in. This really struck a chord in me. They refer to it as the “Three F’s”. They are fun, fame and fortune. Two or more of those qualities are required when taking on something new.

Fun: Will the project be fun and/or interesting? Is it something that we’d want to work on?

Fame: Is the client well known? Will it give us recognition?

Fortune: Is the client willing to spend the money? Is the project going to be financially rewarding?

As long as the client or project can offer the company at least two of these, we’re guaranteed to have worthwhile project. I fell in love with this philosophy and have adopted it into my own freelance ventures. I’ve learned that while working full-time, it’s easy to take on too much personal work and by applying this learning to each situation, I have a justified reason for taking on every project as well as a much more bearable workload.

My good friend and fellow WordPress developer, Niki Brown, and myself were accepted as speakers and chose to do our presentation about “Customizing the Admin Interface”. Whereas a lot of the talks were specifically about technique, we wanted to do something a little bit more conceptual that everybody could relate to.

The Problem

We’ve built many WordPress sites for a variety of clients. However, for some of the not-so-tech-savvy, the content management systems we build just aren’t enough. The Dashboard user interface can be very daunting to someone who isn’t comfortable with editing a live website. As a result, we get phone calls or emails months down the line from our clients asking us to make their updates. So what was the point of content managing it if they aren’t going to use it in the first place?

Well, we can’t blame them. It’s not their fault if they don’t feel comfortable. As developers, we’re busy making our content management systems do backflips with custom functionality. We know what we’re doing and we know what everything does. As a result, we tend to lose site of how difficult it may be for our clients to work with our tools.

What To Do

Customize the admin user interface by tailoring it to fit the needs of their content. Whether it is done with code or with user-friendly plugins, one can create custom post types and taxonomies. You can leverage the functionality of these custom post types with custom fields. You can hide anything in the dashboard that your client isn’t going to need, leaving only what is applicable to their use.

In our presentation, we used a general example of a client who has a movie review site with several static pages. We created a custom post type called “Movies” and a custom taxonomy of “Actors”. Right from the dashboard, the client knows where to go. They don’t have to dig into posts, check off categories and mess with tags. That doesn’t mean anything to them when it’s not in context. From here, we leveraged the Movies post type to have three custom fields. One that allows our client to upload the movie cover straight from their computer, another that allows them to rate the movie with 1–5 stars and finally a simple text area where they can write their review. Then we hid the dreaded WYSIWYG. No more formatting headaches! By doing this, our client doesn’t have to think. We’ve built a rigid framework around their content to make their updates a walk in the park.

Finally, we hid items from the menus that they didn’t need (settings, users, posts, appearance, etc.) and used some simple CSS to style the dashboard with their logo and brand colors. These simple steps are quick to integrate and will make your client feel at home with their website.

If you’re interested in learning more about our talk, check out the presentation!

I had a blast at WordCamp and I was able to meet a lot of great people. It was a great environment to share and gain knowledge. It’s a fantastic feeling to be a part of such a tightly-knit community. I’m excited to become more involved and I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference.

We’ve been interacting with each other “socially” in a virtual environment since long before “social media” and “social networking” became buzzwords. I convinced my mother to let me start using AOL 3.0 in fourth grade when I became addicted to AOL Instant Messenger. There’s something really enjoyable about being able to share everything so easily with your friends. Maybe you remember Friendster? Friendster shared the same concept as MySpace except it never blew up in America quite like MySpace did. MySpace was originally intended to be a music sharing platform. It succeeded to some degree in that realm, but the majority of its users had individual profiles. The music aspect was trumped by other services that were able to provide better features and functionalities and the social aspect was trumped by a wealth of other platforms, although Facebook was probably the kingpin. Now we laugh when MySpace is brought up, right? We’ll probably laugh at Facebook sometime in the near future too.

The Present: What the hell is this new Google+ thing?

Google+ isn’t the focus of this post, but I wanted to touch on it. Google+ is a new social network that combines some of the best tools of modern social networks. I like to think of it as a combination of Facebook and Tumblr. Same deal—you add friends and you post things. However, amongst some other added features, there’s something called Circles. When you add someone, you place them in the circle of your choice. By default, you have Friends, Family and Acquaintances, but you can define your own circle. When you share something, you can specify which circle(s) you’d like to share it with. The beauty of this is privacy, as you don’t have to share anything with anyone you don’t want and when you do share, it’s likely more relevant to the people you’re sharing with.

The Future: Consolidation

I’ve heard a lot of people say that “Google is taking over the world” and I’m all like “Yo, chill out for a second, bro. Google isn’t taking over the world, they’re just streamlining your online workflow and making it easier. Search, chat, email, calendar, documents, RSS reader, etc. Isn’t it nice to have it all in one place?”. What if your social networks were like that too? It’s a pain to navigate between a bunch of different applications and websites. I like that Google is consolidating my tools and streamlining my workflow. It makes my life easier.

I’m not trying to sell anyone on anything and this isn’t endorsed by Google. I’m only saying that I think the future lies in making the social tools we’ve already discovered more accessible. Fast, simple, and ad-free with everything just a (literally; one) click away. Google is definitely well on their way.

What do you think is next?

I don’t have a TV and even if I did, I wouldn’t watch it. I seldom watch a movie either. It’s not productive enough for me. I constantly find my mind wondering to other places and I ask myself if there is something more appropriate I could be doing with my time. Obviously, most people don’t operate this way, but I do know a lot of people that wish they could find more hours in the day to be productive. Recently, someone asked me how I manage to stay so productive and busy. It was a hard question to answer and I thought it might make an interesting blog topic.

Setting goals. That’s it, I think. That’s the answer. As designers and developers (and just about any other profession—if you think about it), we set goals without even knowing. We have projects. The goal there is to complete the project. And when we do complete it, it feels pretty good, right?

I spend my time doing one of two things; music and art/design. I set goals for myself in both realms. I always have an album of some sort that I’m working on and I always have a design or art project going as well, whether personal or freelance. That alone is enough to keep me busy and feeling accomplished. When I complete a project, it’s on to the next. Over the past couple of years, this has become a habitual routine and I love it. Having something to show for your time is a great feeling and naturally, it makes you better at what you love doing. I personally love listening to my old music and seeing how much I’ve progressed. Same with art and design. Being able to see your own growth and improvement is extremely gratifying.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that it’s important to have more than one hobby and I would agree. No matter how much you love something, you simply cannot spend ALL your time doing it. You eventually burn out and get tired. Having an alternative activity that you love when you want a change of pace and scenery is very liberating and keeps life interesting.

Get hobbies and set personal goals. You’ll feel better and you’ll have more to show for. That’s all I’m trying to say. How do you stay busy and productive? What goals are you working towards? Feel free to share! Right now, I’m producing an instrumental album. I’ve been working on it for a while now and it’s almost done. I’m also (just about official) potentially starting to work on a new freelance website for one of my favorite restaurants. Those are the big things I currently have on deck.

It’s hard advice to follow and sometimes ending a bad relationship has to happen. Maybe you’ve done it. I know that I have and most times, I’ve regretted it. I try to use that regret as a lesson. Alternatively, there’s been times that I’ve felt frustration and managed to hold back my emotion. As a result, new opportunities that lead to other opportunities have come my way and I can definitively say that if I had burnt those bridges initially, I never would have seen those opportunities.

During the first couple weeks at my current job, my boss showed me this very interesting data-flow chart that he had made of all his connections. It started with a couple branches of projects that he had done. Those projects led to other projects. In a lot of cases, some of the branches were not even clients, they were just people he had networked with. They would drop his name to another person and work would come from them and people they knew. The tree got so big that there were even cases where people and projects would overlap. That’s truly how small this world is.

I found this data extremely interesting. It was unbelievable to see how valuable every little connection is. Cutting off someone that might not seem very important to you can sometimes seem like the right choice. But you’re not cutting off just them. You’re cutting off everyone that they could have potentially recommended you to.

I’ve always been told not to burn bridges and I understood it as good advice. However, seeing that chart really struck a chord and made me realize the potentially large consequence of doing so. Just a good thing to think about from time to time or when you’re in a weird situation.

Conventions of the web are always evolving, but in the past year or so, it seems as though the standards have changed drastically. It is important for companies to take their web presence seriously and keep up with the latest online trends and technologies.

Here are five tips you can use to improve your website right away.
Read more on MITX’s blog.