Day 15: Contests & More Learning
I entered a business card design contest for the Oklahoma City PC Users Group. They'll announce the winner ($50 gift certificate) at the next meeting, which is on March 20. Billy and I have discussed getting involved with them -- the membership fees aren't bad, and it should give us a chance to meet people with similar interests, and hopefully a chance to learn a thing or two along the way. So wish me luck with my designs!
I also signed up for the Web Design email list. It seems like Billy has learned a lot from this group.
And on a slightly-less-business-related note, I've decided I need to do more volunteer work. One hour per week seems a good place to start. And since things tend to creep in and crowd out the best intentions, I've decided to give myself an incentive. For every week I miss the hour of work, I'll donate cash to a charity. I've decided our hourly rate for clients is a good amount to donate. Either way benefits the community... but knowing how cheap I am, I'm sure I'll be motivated to do the actual work. Though this is primarily a personal choice, it can't hurt the business to meet more people in the community.
Better SXSW Sources
Here are a few places you can go to read more about SXSW:
- J.D. Lasica's notes from the journalism panel
- Heath Row has some great transcripts up.
- Joe Clark. I'm sorry I missed his accessibility panel.
- Zeldman has links to resources from his panel on CSS. He's the man. Not only was he on two panels, he was mentioned often in others, and won an award for the redesign of his site. And he calls himself "we." What a guy.
- Steve Champeon's presentation on inclusive web design. Steve is moderator of the webdesign-l list.
I'll update this as I come across more.
Day 15: The New News Goat
Notice anything different? This blog, much like almost every other blog in the know universe, is now powered by Movable Type. Yes, I know what I said, but I decided that I've got too many things going on to ever have time to add the features I want to my old system. And, besides, as J.D. Lasica said at SXSW, Movable Type is the Cadillac of blog software. All old entries should be available from their old URLs, and in the new system. Over the coming weeks, I'll be turning on some of the new features. It should be fun.
In other news, I spoke with someone from the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce because of my request for more information. The cost to join, $335, is a little steep, but it could be worth it. We still need to look at the benefits to decide if it is something we should do.
Finally, SXSW was awesome. We came away with a ton of plans and ideas. I had the opportunity to learn from, and learn with, the people I read everyday. I can't wait to start work on some of the things we came up with at the conference. Be watching for some exciting stuff.
