Make Post-Launch a Success (Presented at Ground Control Conf in London, April 2017) It’s launch day! You and your team have worked hard to achieve this — the moment when you release your client’s website into the wild, ready to go off and live on its own. But wait! Is the client’s team equipped to handle the growing needs of their new website? Who will be making needed updates? Are other team members involved in content maintenance decisions? And will your client be able to deal with the design and development needs of the site as the site’s purpose grows? Join us as we work together in this hands-on workshop to start taking better care of our web projects by thinking…
I’ve signed up for a number of premium accounts over the year for productivity apps and trackers—part of the semi-realistic appeal of an ‘organized self’ that I strive for as a project manager but never quite attain. I thought I’d try to make something of it this year, as well as data from all of the apps I use to track things like my steps, books I’ve read, music, and more. This was my first full year of freelancing and working from home, and I hit some big milestones for myself as the months went by: April-May 2015 – went to 2 conferences (shout-out to #CreateUpstate and #PeersConf!) and took my first full vacation since I’ve started working for myself (actually,…
This post originally appeared on Felt & Wire. Two weeks ago the Upstate NY AIGA Chapter held its first Design Week and hosted the second annual Create Upstate conference. I was lucky enough to attend through Mohawk and found inspiring and creative takeaways in all of the talks from local designers, developers, and entrepreneurs. Lesson 1: Attention to detail is important, but don’t let that overrule the whole picture. Mitch Goldstein, professor at RIT and co-host of the Through Process podcast, gave a great talk entitled The Trouble with Kerning. Designers can easily get caught up in perfecting every little detail of their work, but the whole picture is important, too. Photo by Sarah Heppell Photography Goldstein showed us works from renowned graphic designers and…
This past Thursday, Fresh Tilled Soil held an event called Experience:Dev for the first time. The event focused on a closer look at development and UX practices, running teams of developers, and different approaches and dynamics in this field. I attended the conference with a web developer, and found it interesting to be able to compare our experiences and thoughts in between each talk. I was super inspired by all of the talks at this event. I found that the speakers reminded me of major topics in the field, and brought new ideas of company culture, managing remote or local teams, and the importance of communication between teams to the table. I took a few notes but mostly tried to listen and absorb all of…
A few weeks ago I was one of the speakers at the Upstate NY AIGA Portfolio Building Workshop held at The Foundry for Arts, Design + Culture in Cohoes, NY. 13 talented designers, educators, artists, and design/creative business owners talked about their experiences in the field relating to hiring, job searching, interviewing, portfolio making, and more. It was a hugely inspiring event, not just for the 80+ design students who attended, but for me, too. Events like this always remind me of why I love doing what I do. There are so many talented designers and creatives out there, and we all have something to learn from each other. This topic of life after college was especially appealing to me,…
A few weeks ago something called the Digital PM Summit took place in Philadelphia, the first conference for managers of digital projects. I read about it too late to physically be there, but I’ve followed all of the coverage leading up to the conference, during the conference, and now all of the great roundups being posted by PMs who participated in this event (in person or remotely!). The goal of the Summit was to foster and celebrate a group of people who have been traditionally underserved in support of their profession. It seems like this was the push the PM community needed to form just that – a community. The #dpm2013 tag on Twitter seems to still be going strong…