The Planning Stages

Taking the plunge(pool is empty)

2009-05-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

The current economic climate is so dry at this point that I cannot even accidentally bankrupt myself.
Yesterday I applied for an unsecured loan. I was declined. This, while not unexpected, is not indicative of my credit score. It's also not indicative of my current financial state, available credit, job history, health or any other possible factor that could be used in determining that my application contained some defect.
It is because no one is giving out loans.
Many people who tell you to just jump off the edge of the ship, the water's great, you can make it even in this climate are not taking this into account.
You should never, ever use your own cash as startup capital. If you succeed, great. But if you fail, you will have wasted the nest egg that you needed to survive while you plead for your old job back. Now, if you're a lawyer, or have independent income that's all well and good but most(99%) of us don't have that kind of resource available to us and can't count on anything but our wits. This leaves us to take out loans against our homes, personal loans and small business loans to get started. It's great if you can do it and it gives you the freedom to actually get your foot in the economy, creating an artifical cash flow until you gain momentum to really get started. You need this(you can't do everything on the cheap, just most things.) and mostly because the reason you are starting a business for yourself is that you aren't making enough money doing what you are doing.
Now, The Book says that you should start your own business even if you ARE happy with your current income level because you can free yourself from the actual responsibility of working for some jerk and making him money, instead of the other way around.
This leaves you with a few options. Since you can't walk into a Washington Mutual and ask for a loan anymore(don't walk into a WaMu for any reason anyway) you have to depend on other people who will give you money.
The problem with this is that these people are highly mobile and usually want to have a say in how you do business. Some of these people may be your mom. She always has suggestions.
Venture Capitalists, Grants, Relatives and Friends all will now be very interested in your day-to-day operations because your company is the now(hopefully) tangible representation of Their Money.
This defeats the purpose, really. To be honest, the point of quitting and starting your own company is to escape a boss, but you now have not only a boss who can fire you, but will invariably want reimbursement for every paycheck you have drawn. That's way worse than a regular job.

My advice? Wait. And Get Rich Slowly.

They are following me

2009-05-19T08:26:00.000-07:00

Apparently twitter with it's supreme simplicity has fallen victim to a bit of spam, either that or I have randomly become popular.
Since I have no reason to assume the latter, I will digress on the former.
So I've been getting more and more followers on twitter- based on what I believe is a sophisticated network of random salespeople. Either that or the spike in twitter signups has caused people to create some sort of organic network structure where they trade follows instead of followers. This is weird to me, as I always thought the trick to being successful on twitter is to follow fewer people than are following you. Especially since it's really impossible to keep up with the minutia of 4400 people.
Twitter is interesting, I must admit, in that it is supremely useful in determining the overall health of the intertubes. Everytime something breaks, I can find out about it on twitter. It is also great for reporting on disasters as they happen, as the "scoop" instinct is present in every human, and if people can present information FIRST or offer insight no one else has, it gets retweeted forever and ever and they rack up fair-weather-followers(FWF) like no one's business.
Anyway, here's my twitter. http://twitter.com/icyfenix

3 sources of inspiration, and why it's ok to be inspired

2009-05-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

I have had quite a time trying to reconcile the difference between inspiration, outright plagiarism and just learning the ropes as a newbie in my field.
The problem is the level of guilt about many places you can find inspiration and how to further a design trend without directly copying.

1. The world around you.
This is the source of inspiration that everyone seems to think is actually OK, drawing ideas from nature, people in their myriad forms and architecture. These are out for all to see and are clearly OK to use, as most buildings are considered "public domain", and people in the street would generally be thrilled to be used photographically or sketched. People love attention. And nature, well we own nature right? So sketching a sunset or flower or taking a picture of the way the light strikes the flowering trees in spring is great, regardless of the fact that they've been done completely to death.
The fact is designers are supposed to only take inspiration from sources such as these, according to design culture. The insufferable guilt that we are not as creative as the top design studios, that we can't pull great designs and innovative ideas out of thin air is the lament of every designer, as the design process is mostly internal and takes years to tweak and lots of work to get it to be Fast enough, Good enough, and Creative enough to be commercially viable.
The top design studios are the top for a reason, and generally have over 100 years combined experience under their belts, while you have a few continuing education classes and a fancy new tablet.

2. Print Media
Print media, as widely disseminated and highly public as it is, generally can be considered fair game once you realize that no one cares about the 4-3 ranch style house you live in and how cool your local starbuck's door struts look at a strange angle. After you feel you've exhausted the world around you(you haven't) you may tend to look to newspapers and advertisements, as well as magazines and perhaps even design publications. This leads to the inevitable grunge stage(newspapers) and the high-impact, high-contrast designs that every designer makes once they discover Vector Art and how easy it is to shit out an amazing piece of art that looks like it took more than 45 minuties to create.

3. Innovative Advertisers
Some advertisers are a rare breed of humorous, intellectual, plugged-in giants who understand the pulse of society and effortlessly insert themselves into the memesphere. Some however don't know what the hell they are doing. It is a dangerous game to copy an established niche-advertising campaign that has already taken off, attempting to ride it's success. All too often you will be caught after the swell of the wave has passed and will end up being exposed as the greasy car salesman you are. This does not stop some people though, and with the right niche, trying to bring something that is decidedly underground out into the light can work with unexptected results.

Comittment

2009-05-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally bought the book- and stopped pirating it.
Apparently, most professionals in the web design community pirate certain software for purposes of learning it, and then purchase it as they start to actually get paid for their work. This is usually out of learning how much work it takes to actually make these programs that are so easy to pirate, and because they do not want to get caught profiting off of pirated software(which, most pirates agree, is the only real issue people have with pirating anything).
This now extends to most forms of transportable media, including books.
I will freely admit to "sampling" books. I won't say which and I won't use anything more than euphemisms in a public blog but the act remains. The fact is, you do it too. You go to the bookstore or the library, you freely open up a book and start reading it, sometimes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, and some people read the whole thing sitting there in the store without paying for it at all. This is as much stealing as what I am doing, so please hold any rants until the logic sinks in.
So I finally scrounged some cash, bought the book. Still reading it, but I wouldn't have even considered purchasing it(especially a business/self-help book) until I knew it would actually be worth something.
Meanwhile, my current project is to see if I can get some readers for my blog(so I can use you for free market research) and grab some business cards.

Midigating Circumstances

2009-05-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

Sickness is a serious time-waster, and as someone who does not have health insurance it can wipe out your savings. Every time you denied yourself that mocha latte, or that new shirt, or that really cool gadget so that you could increase that rainy-day fund to comfortable levels so that you can have piece of mind or get something you REALLY deserve, or invest in something... you get my point. It's gone just because you get sick or hurt.

On account of weather

2009-04-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

I love walking to work and back. It's something so few of us outside of NYC get to do- and it's really rewarding. But I do wonder how NYers can walk everywhere and still be just as fat as us in the south. Something to do with thyroid I am sure- stress in NYC must be epic.

So I'm working on my portfolio site at the moment- not going to put a lot of time into it honestly. I have far too much to do.
I really have given up on my current company giving me what I want them to anytime soon so I am going to have to supplement with freelancing- which leaves much less time for goofing off.
Speaking of which- I'm going to quit goofing off(read: blogging) and get to work!

What in the hell

2009-04-29T07:32:00.001-07:00

Apparently they are not just text anymore. I am pissed.
I trusted you with my week-old blog google. And that trust was sacred.

Win a free iPod Nano

2009-04-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Oh, and I added an adsense thing on the side.
On the subject of ads- I am a fan of google. Google's non-obtrusive text ads are great on the side of my website right there- they are just words. There are no flashing lights and no mosquito sounds in the middle of the night and they never tell you about your free iPod Nano(although mentioning that I am sure they shall appear) but what they will do is very occationally tell you about products and services that you actually want to know about, that you don't actually get from the results.
Oh, and when you click on them, you cost someone money. Which is hilarious to me.

Copyright Infringement

2009-04-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

Met with a senior designer the other day, and we talked about several design ideas I had, while I asked for criticism and guidance from another self-taught designer.
He had this to say:
"If you see a website you think is cool on coolhomepages.com or whatever blog you read, feel free to try and copy it yourself. Change the colors up a bit, slap a different logo on there and have at it. It's the only way to learn to get the page to do what you want it to do, and you'll learn a lot about composition."
I wondered what he meant in terms of the scope of this plagiarism, as I am very worried I have to come up with an original, stunning design for every brochure-based webpage I do, which is not only a time-killer, it's HARD.
I am by no means a brilliant designer, yet. I don't ooze good ideas like some people I know of but I am getting there.
He went on to say some things about learning the design process, and that "you don't just start drawing and shit out a masterpiece", and I guess this is true.
I never learned to draw and so recently I am learning about the emergent property of design and it honestly is much easier than I thought. For most of my life I really just thought you started drawing a face by drawing the left ear and ending up at the right ear, like a printer does. It's difficult to really wrap my brain around the fact that we are not computers, we do not print out masterpieces and we do not logically follow a set of instructions to it's conclusion and then act upon that conclusion. The fact that there are emotions involved, and an element of chaos- it bothers me. I am not sure why.

So, to wrap up and explain myself, I am not sure about using other peoples work directly, but I think I am now OK with stealing some of their ideas.

Liz out!(I always wanted to say that)

And You Can Too(Lets be honest though, you probablly can't)

2009-04-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to realize what these books are all about and the fundamental misunderstanding authors have when writing them.
Please note this is a broad sociological fact and not anything that reaches down to the individual level.

Authors subscribe to the convenient idea that anyone can do anything. This is not surprising as we are taught this as children, "You are SPECIAL" and "You can be ANYTHING you want to BE!" are common banners littered throughout public schools. This message is fine in school as children will usually not keep at something if they don't seem to show an aptitude for it.
This message extrapolated to it's logical conclusion(you are the same as me and can do anything I can do) is a dangerous message among adults however because people don't understand that they really do have fundamental differences.

The plain fact of it is this: Not everyone can understand everything. I suck at math, and can't do much with my personal finances without a spreadsheet to do it for me. Of course, I know how to program that spreadsheet but I can't even do so much as the basic addition in my head. Conversely my uncle is fantastic at monetary matters and math, but still uses the AOL browser, and believes he has to pay for e-mail.
So a book marketed to everyone(which is fine, you've got to sell books so it doesn't matter who reads them) that told people they could start a web empire with a few books on coding and a weekend is great for me, but a complete waste of time and energy to my uncle. Whereas a book on investing where you only need 5k and a weekday is great for him, but a waste of money and time for me.

The efficacy of these books is questionable at best, harmful at worst, unless you are a SMART PERSON. Now, it's very hard to determine if you are a smart person unless you've been given the opportunity to think using another person's brain(in which case, you probably are.)
We all THINK we are smart people, we all believe that our opinions are correct and unassailable by our opponents and of course we can't think otherwise, or our opinions would change.

2nd verse! Same as the first!

2009-04-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

Ok so I haven't made much headway. Life gets in the way. By life, I mean sleep. And friends.
Apparently I need this lifestyle more than I realize- I haven't had time to get anything done.
Monday I fell asleep early(like 8 PM early) and Tuesday I worked on my social empire(talked with parents, friends) and helped some friends out who don't seem to know how to put baby furniture together.
It DID give me an idea however, a baby-furniture exchange site where people could...
do some things...
Oh people are reading this apparently so I need to keep my ideas to MYSELF.
I have 7 unique visitors since my last post so Hi, spam bots! Maybe you'll inadvertently launch me into relevancy.

Been reading THE BOOK- the 4 hour workweek, looking at the first few chapters, very inspiring. Inspiring is ALL it seems to be at the moment, trying to convince me "taking the plunge" is ok, and results in untold fortune. I am told this on a consistent basis but perhaps I require a little more built up skill before I do it?
Anyway- most of the first few chapters are "You can do it, no seriously". Seems like.

Taking the plunge(I'm not ready)

2009-04-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to just blog this.
The planning stages I mean(as I've gone ahead and named the site.)

I started reading "the 4 hour workweek" and among random other time-management and motivate-your-lazy-ass publications I have thoroughly decided to get my act together.

I thought it would be helpful to chronicle my exploits in getting in shape, getting out of debt(I started with not much, but the practices are the same), becoming a better person and finally being happy financially.

To preface who I am and where I am in life, so you can manage to figure out if you identify with anything other than the human condition, I'll give you a few details.

I'm 22 years old. I work for a web development company doing things that are below my skill level and I am still amazed that I don't have to work fast food or menial labor. I am a single parent, a high-school dropout(and then, a community college dropout). I have an IQ of 169 and I am more often that not completely helpless, and stupid. I feel I have been working my butt off for the past 6 years to get nowhere and I feel like I have conversely fallen into a cushy job with little effort.

I attribute most of what I feel about my life as due to the failings of the human brain at recording information. I know it sucks, and reading a self-help book about your past ERASES your past and makes you believe the "standard" past of the book is your life up to this point, bringing you to the conclusion that THIS BOOK is the only thing that will change it. This is not, and never will be true because our very nature prohibits it.

Our ability to receive and process new information is dampened by our tendency to immediately compare and contrast the differences between this new information and the old stuff in our brains. Its like a filter, changing information even as we see it and even before our conscious minds are aware of it. No one is open minded.

This makes massive, sudden paradigm shifts very hard, and although we remember very strongly "the moment when our whole world changes" the truth is that this moment does not exist. It is always a slow change from one idea to the next as the old idea has immediate, generational influence over the new. However, once the change has been made we let our conscious selves know, whereupon we then perceive our behavior and thought styles to be different, when in fact they have already BEEN different.

So- I believe I have reached the crux of one of those shifts, and although I have been perhaps thinking this way for awhile, I am just now noticing, and just now able to log the differences.

So I'll post stats.

I've been working in web design for about 3 years.
I have been working with my company for 8 weeks.
I feel uninspired to reach my full potential here.
I make 600 dollars a week at my current job.
My expenses total 567 a week- not including food.
I receive an average of 100 dollars a week from side projects, various refunds, investments and if I need it, help from my parents.
This leaves me with about 140 dollars a week to eat and invest in my future.
I work for 40 hours a week(I can get a little overtime, but not much) and I sleep for 40 hours a week.
I spend about 7 hours a week grooming, 14 eating.
Leaving me with 67 hours to pack my life into. This is only slightly longer than my working time.
I'm not including driving(I walk to work and don't routinely drive) or various obligations (like family dinners, birthdays and time with my son) in that.

My next step is to get working from home more viable, since while I am at work I only do about 5 hours of work for the 8 that I am here, and I'd like to reclaim the 3 hours a day to work on reclaiming more.