reflections

It seems so long ago, but there was once a time when I was a true corporate worker: suited, booted, and driven by the businesses that I worked for. I rode the dotcom boom like a cowboy on a stallion!

I’ve never really understood the need for office politics though, and I remember spending a great deal of time biting my lip during executive board meetings, out of fear for saying something that would end up coming back to haunt me, and because it helped my career aspirations at the time to do so.

I certainly wasn’t prone to saying stupid things though, and I’d never have dreamt of stating facts that weren’t true - unlike some of my peers at the time. What I had was a tendency to ignore established office hierarchies, and a desire to tell people exactly what I thought of them.

Fortunately though, my anti-establishment comments ended up not mattering at all, like many of life’s little problems seem to do. The companies in question ended up being bought up for vast amounts of money, or (more often) they went gurgling down the drain - and I moved to much greener pastures.

I’ve learnt a lot since those days, and the connection between my mouth and my brain is now much more reliable. I don’t think that there’s much point in censoring myself though. As a Freelancer, there’s far fewer people to offend!

So which is worse: saying what you mean to somebody at the risk of offending them, or shutting-up for the sake of keeping the peace? I think that less damage is done by speaking your mind, than by clamping your jaw shut all day long. What about you?

Thanks to the following people for their valued comments on my recent posts: Damien King, Tara @ GDB, Paul B, Aaron, Vivienne Quek, Calvin Warr, Marc Rapp, Charity, Brad, LaurenMarie, Small Potato, Matt Foster, Asgeir, Lene, Scot Smith and Sunny @ HSO.

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This guy is abolutely awesome! He can create an insanely detailed piece of science-fiction artwork in less than 10 minutes! It’s almost convinced me to go and buy some cans myself…

You can check out more from this guy on his website.

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I need to open this post by apologising for the sporadic level of posts recently… Everything’s managed to catch up with me the last few weeks, leaving me with little time to blog or comment on all my usual daily reads. I’m off on my holidays tomorrow though - and I’m hoping to return to a more relaxed schedule!

Aaron Russell tagged me with this almost three weeks ago (has it really been that long?!?), and he was originally tagged by Marc Rapp - the creator of this fantastic meme. Aaron managed to weasel out of giving anybody any real advice though (only kidding mate), so I felt I should at least try to impart some pearls of wisdom!

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Information Architects have released their Web Trend Map for 2007 - a subway-style map of the top 200 sites on the web. It’s ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective - and it demonstrates the relationship between various sites and ideas, with a strong focus on Web 2.0.

I love this sort of stuff, in geeky sort of way - but I don’t recommended that you try reading this with a hangover (Tess, that means you!). You can also download the PDF version.

Improvements from the first version include the addition of new websites (from countries including Japan, Germany and China), the renaming of the lines, the addition of forecast, and new labels that indicate how forward-thinking sites are (for example, Flickr and Facebook have been labeled as web 2.5 sites).

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I hate giving business presentations, and I do anything I can to avoid them! It’s not that I’m bad at them (many years of practice has made me quite good), it has nothing to do with me not liking to talk (anyone who’s met me will tell you that I can talk the hind legs off a donkey), and it’s certainly not anything to do with nerves (being a DJ means that I regularly find myself on stage in front of large audiences). I just don’t like them - simple as that!

I’ve had many labels stuck on me in the past; including Techie, Geek, Designer and Coder - but recently I’ve been called an Entrepreneur, which is a new one for me! The label stems from my development of Britster - a niche social networking site focused on Britain - and carries with it the threat of presenting the project to potential venture capitalists and the like.

I plan to write a few articles covering this topic, but one of the most important aspects of a presentation is the materials you use to reinforce your sales pitch. They can make the difference between a successful presentation and one that flops - so from slides and brochures to props and snacks, here are the essentials that entrepreneurs should bring to their first meeting.

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