Execution's Four Adjectives

I'm working on the web site today and it's coming along at a good clip. A lot of background work is done and I should have the gallery finished today, and be started on the shopping cart.

During a bathroom library break, I continued my read of Execution, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. I'm getting quite a bit out of the book, and I hit this section today:

Everyone pays lip service to the idea that leading an organzation requires strength of character. In execution, it's absolutely critical. Without what we call emotional fortitude, you can't be honest with yourself, deal honestly with business and organizational realities, or give people forthright assessments. You can't tolerate the diversity of viewpoints, mental architectures, and personal backgrounds that organizations need in their members in order to avoid becoming ingrown. If you can't do these things, you can't execute.

In our years of working and observing in organizations, we have pinpointed four core qualities that make up emotional fortitude:

Authenticity: A psychological term, authenticity means pretty much what you might guess: you're real, not a fake. Your outer person is the same as your inner person, not a mask that you put on. Who you are is the same as what you do and say. Only authenticity builds trust, because sooner or later people spot the fakers.

Whatever leadership ethics you may preach, people will watch what you do. If you're cutting corners, the best will lose faith in you. The worst will follow in your footsteps. The rest will do whatever they must to survive in a muddy ethical environment. This becomes a pervasive barrier to getting things done.

Self-Awareness: Know thyself - it's advice as old as the hills, and it's the core of authenticity. When you know yourself, you are comfortable with with your strengths and not crippled by your shortcomings. You know your behavioral blind sides and emotional blockages, and you have a modus operandi for dealing with them - you draw on the people around you. Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables you to keep growing.

Nowhere is self-awareness more important than in an execution culture. Few leaders have the intellectual firepower to good judges of people, good strategists, and good operating leaders, and at the same time talk to customers and do all the things that the demands. But if you know where you're short, at least you can reinforce those areas and get some help for your business or unit. The person who doesn't even recognize where she is lacking never gets it done.

Self-mastery: When you know yourself, you can master yourself. You can keep your ego in check, take responsibility for your behavior, adapt to change, embrace new ideas, and adhere to your standards of integrity and honesty, under all conditions.

Self-mastery is the key to true self-confidence. We're talking about the mind that's authentic and positive, as opposed to the kinds that mask weakness or insecurity - the studied demeanor of confidence, or outright arrogance.

Self-confident people contribute the most to dialogues. Their inner security gives them a methodology for dealing with the unknown and for linking it to the actions that need to be taken. They know they don't know everything; they are actively curious, and encourage debate to bring up opposite views and set up the social ambience of learning from others. They can take risks, and relish hiring people who are smarter than themselves. So when they encounter a problem, they don't have to whine, cast blame, or feel like victims. They know they'll be able to fix it.

Humility: The more you can contain your ego, the more realistic you are about your problems. You learn how to listen and admit that you don't know all the answers. You exhibit the attitude that you can learn from anyone at any time. Your pride doesn't get in the way of gathering the information you need to achieve the best results. It doesn't keep you from sharing the credit that needs to be shared. Humility allows you to acknowledge your mistakes. Making mistakes is inevitable, but good leaders both admit and learn from them and over time create a decision-making process based on experience.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/2/2006 2:43:54 PM
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67 Pages... About A Quarter of the Way

"Write gallery and associated pages" is now checked off my list of things to do.

I'm 67 pages into my web development for ArtByBrett.com. Many of the pages are behind-the-secenes admin pages. The exposed links now at least takes you somewhere except for the Blog section, but that will be easy because I've written those pages for this site.

Next comes the shopping cart and the order process. I'm taking Friday off work to do more on the site.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/3/2006 11:27:10 PM
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Pigeonholing the Card? Not If I Can Help It...

No painting for me these days - all business. But first, a fun 10-minute video. Not so much in its visual display, but in its song. It's "Mojave," by Afro Celt Sound System, and it's the theme song of Art by Brett. (Though a bit muddy, it's amazing the quality of the recording that my little Sony Cybershot made from what came through my computer's speakers...) If you like the song, then go buy the CD!

I'm spending my days working on the web site, and getting a lot done. The story is taking shape. My cards are fine art cards, and my purpose in this has been to provide art to people at an affordable price. As mentioned before, I think art at $400 a print is ridiculous. That puts it only in the reach of the rich, rather than just anybody. I know why artists do it, but I can't and I won't. I think there are other ways.

I found a manufacturer to produce frames for me at a discount, so I'll also offer frames through the web site. That came fom a conversation with a woman at work who suggested a direction to me and lo and behold - affordable frames too. Because the price of art might be accessible, but custom frames? Oh my god... but thankfully, this manufacturer will be able to produce frames to fit my cards at an accessible price.

So that brings me to the text inside the cards. I've struggled with this a lot. For some, the text is what really sells the card. And I've been in the situation plenty of times where I found a great and fitting picture on the front of the card, only to find something awful inside. Or just as bad, the card took itself in the direction of a woman when I meant it for a guy. Or it was for an anniversary, when I needed it for a birthday. I'm sure that's happened to everyone. Well, I think I have a way around it. Maybe. If so, I think it's a novel concept - at least, I've never seen it done before.

These days, I'm thankful I can program because I have no clue what web product exists that will offer the options I need on the web site. And for some of the service that I'll provide to customers, having some mechanisms for automation to speed the fulfillment process will make a world of difference in time, for both me and the customer.

Other than great music, I leave one other recommendation: Blue Ocean Strategy, a book I recently quoted. Truly mind blowing.

And a few quotes:

"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." - Helen Keller

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver

"I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying." - The Shawshank Redemption (Tim Robbins)

"A man without a smiling face must not open a shop." - Chinese Proverb

:)

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by Brett Rogers, 1/7/2006 6:24:47 PM
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Firefox Sucks

I downloaded Firefox a few days ago, and for all the hype about its superiority, there's one element about it that absolutely sucks, from my web developer's point of view.

I have Opera, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. Some scripts that works just fine in Opera and Internet Explorer and conform to Javascript standards will not work as they should in Firefox. Fortunately for me, it doesn't drop my web site application to its knees, but it will cause the astute user to wonder why a particular thing isn't working... arghhh.

You can read more about the geek problem below, but here's a simple example. What follows are pictures of the same page inside Internet Explorer, Opera, and then Firefox - in that order. Notice how the page displayed in Firefox looks awkward and unbalanced.

Internet Explorer:

Opera:

Firefox:

See the difference in the table cell with the option button? The cell appears big and klunky, but these are pretty straight-ahead web pages... the HTML is clean. Two browsers get it right, and Firefox can't. That's just amateurish. I don't get why this much-hyped browser is hyped.

And here's my geek problem: I used the keyword "this" to pass a dynamic form variable to a function. In IE and Opera, no problem. But Firefox doesn't like it. Okay, I'll go explicit.

document.forms["form1"].u_versetext.value=document.forms["form1"].u_versetext.value.substring(0,2000);

That is flawless javascript. But Firefox tells me to use document.getElementById instead. Okay...

document.getElementById("u_versetext").value=document.getElementById("u_versetext").value.substring(0,2000);

Then I'm told: "document.getElementById("u_versetext") has no properties."

The hell it doesn't! It's a form element - all form elements have properties!

This is exactly why I have no ambition whatsoever to remain a developer. Good lord, I hope this painting thing flies because in the world of art there is no need for tech support.

ETC: I figured it out, although these anomalies are irritating and a waste of time.

The display problem: inside a cell, the paragraph tag

will expand the text area on both the top and the bottom, which balloons the area within the cell. IE and Opera automatically collapse that area to the text itself, which is why Firefox appeared different.

The javascript problem: the outlying function in Firefox apparently can't reach into a form and find the elements, so I have to pass it explicitly in the function call, like this:

functionname(document.formname.elementname)

Firefox's javascript engine can then find the element and adjust its properties.

I had to read a lot of web pages (thank god for Google) to figure these out. And I understand that not all browsers will render quite the same way, but such basics as the paragraph tag should not cause surprises. Firefox takes a high horse and says that this is exactly how the W3 standards declare the rendering. But both Opera and IE say otherwise and perhaps it's open to interpretation, but if one interpretation of the standard exists on the market already, then it's silly not to format by the market's interpretation.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/8/2006 1:09:03 PM
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Bloom

The smart farmers in Iowa where I live don't rely on just one crop; they typically have not just corn or soybeans, but cattle, sheep, maybe some exotic horses and some type of equipment they can loan out or use, like a road grater, to help them make money. That way if one peters out, something else has them covered.

A few years back I started a company that was into the email newsletter business. It's coasting along at breakeven and has been for the past two years, but we brought in a developer (thankfully not me) last fall who is revamping the product and we will relaunch that this spring. I own a third of the company, so if it does well, fantastic. If not, it's not hurting me today. But things are looking good.

Then an idea that I started developing about two years ago (an events search engine) has recently revived and gotten some traction thanks to Mike Sansone (an awesome guy by any measure) and my daughter, Bari. They know each other through the place where she works, and Mike connected some dots and is helping to move this football forward. If this continues as it seems like it will, then I'll end up with a partial ownership stake, as would Mike, and here again, a former project looks promising.

Over the summer, I blogged about the big project at work that I had undertaken and for which I have received some notice since we released it in August. Yesterday, we revealed our development on a resource management module that allows managers to estimate their employees' allocation on projects/tasks/PTO and that too was well-received. There's a possibility, and some VP buzz, that the web site I wrote could go corporate, meaning that all of Wells would use it in tracking/managing projects. Woo hoo!

And of course, lately I've been writing of the progress on my greeting card venture.

None of these things is a shoe-in. The company of which I own a part could tank or continue to limp along. The revision of the events web site could fizzle. My greeting cards might be wanted by no one, or few anyway. And Wells could adopt some other tool than the one I wrote.

But like a farmer, I have the benefit of having four possibilities out there. Could 2006 bring me a good harvest?

I've been watching my friend, Kris, move ahead with her artwork and sell it to get to her dream of being a musician/artist full-time. My friend, Lisa, is not a blogger, but she left her underwriting job to work in a retail setting to learn the retail business and get closer to her dream of someday owning her own store. I recently re-acquainted with my old guitarist, Kelly, who is building his own home studio. Shantyl nears the end of her degree and she's working on her writing. Erin, too, is fanning the flames of her desire to write and do what she was born to do.

A lot of bloom going on... and it ain't even spring!

Here's my point... I could have said "No" to any of these extra hours projects and simply coasted along in a cushy job. But I took the risk and now the possibility exists that I could hit a home run. At least my chances are magnified by the number of efforts out there.

My friends are also taking some risks and moving ahead on their passions to evolve into the dreams of their lives. We could all simply put up with "good enough," but we know that there is more. We do it because we can. And quite frankly, because I don't think we have a choice. To do otherwise is to deny our very nature.

We live in the best country on earth, where dreams like these are possible. We live in a time when it's not quite so difficult to get noticed for what we can do. We can move into "tribes" of like interests through the communication tools at our disposal and we have relatively easy-to-use technology to aid our pursuits.

Bloom is, well, inevitable.

The only thing that can hold us back is our personal refusal to step out on the faith that we can achieve what we dream. Lucky for me, my friends and I step ahead fearlessly. I get to watch this incredible and talented bunch launch into the future.

I'm tellin' ya - so far, I love 2006.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/12/2006 8:06:36 AM
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25 Years

When I was 16 years old, I remember that my world was hanging out with my best buddy, Jim, and we would play Atari games on occasion and draw huge pixelated stick figures on his TV. His older brother, Tom, had a ham radio in the basement and occasionally, we would hear Tom CQ'ing for other parts of the world with rare success.

Remember this?

Fast forward to today, 25 years later. My son, Nick, is 16. He and I frequently play HALO together on XBox Live. Recently, one of the people in his group, Psychopath, went to my web site and then sent me some of his computer art. Psychopath is actually Paul, who also is 16. And he's Australian.

He did this with a program called Bryce 5. As you can see, it allows him to create complex renderings. Look at this close-up:

See the reflection on the water?

It is utterly remarkable that my children regularly interact with people from all over the world through XBox Live. Paul, a high schooler in Australia, is doing things far beyond my grasp when I was his age. It gets my head to spinning when I think of the achievements they will make in this accelerated curve of technology and connectedness.

As I watch both Aaron and Nick do this, I've noticed something. They've found their groups (Aaron's are more British and Irish, and Nick's are American and Australian) and with more frequency they'll just talk in these groups, and not just play. XBox Live allows for voice-over-IP (VOIP) and it's often as clear as the telephone.

The acceleration of change in our world today escapes most of us. 25 years is not that long a time span. While Atari was not available for my mother's generation, ham radios were, and the technology was pretty much the same from her generation to mine. But the changes are lightning fast now. I can't imagine what my son will enjoy as he enters his 40's, 25 years from now. It's bewildering to try and guess what his 16-year-old will be able to do.

What a great time to be alive, this is!

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by Brett Rogers, 1/13/2006 6:54:26 AM
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Running Circles Around Me

You would think that as a web developer and blogger, I get it. Today I learned that I'm not thinking big enough.

This morning, Mike Sansone taught me the definition of a blog. A blog is not a web log. It is not a journal. It is not a series of posts or articles.

A blog is a web page that has any manner of dynamic, changing content.

Then he went further to show me that any successful home page should be a blog, whether for a business or personal use or whatever. If it's static, no one will return.

Mike, you have no idea what you've unleashed. But man, do I owe you for the education. The curriculum's fine; it's the student who was slow.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/13/2006 9:03:19 AM
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Goofin'

Play da movie, yahh...

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by Brett Rogers, 1/14/2006 10:04:57 AM
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Under Construction

I've been building the retail web site, going along and thinking it through. As I've been noodling it through, I've grown increasingly uneasy with my original database schema. Started to look more like spaghetti than intelligent design.

One of my favorite development tools is Microsoft Word's outline view. You can access it by going to "View/Outline" in the menu. Here, you can create a quick and easily editable outline for your thoughts. There's a custom toolbar that comes with this view. Be sure to toggle off "Show Formatting" in the toolbar. The default is a bunch of funky text and frankly it boggles my mind why those font choices are the default...

Databases work best when they model real life relationships and attributes. Which seems obvious on its face, but here's where it becomes a matter of how you view things. Where do you associate, for example, the discount? Obviously, it's associated at the time of ordering. But is it on an item level or on the order level?

After a lot of twisting and turning about it, here's my outline:

And so with that, I'll be undoing and redoing some of my work on the web site.

Interesting puzzles, these are...

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by Brett Rogers, 1/15/2006 10:58:10 AM
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Remember These?

For Christmas, my mom gave me what I'll call a "paint pouch." It was intended to hold brushes, but I've torn out some of the stitching to make room for my tubes of acrylic. I hung it on the wall with two nails - totally not what the designer intended, but it works for my purposes. Certainly better than having all my shit laying around my desk. (Speaking of which, I still can't find my glasses...)

That's a lot of paint...

I miss 'em. As soon as the development on ArtByBrett is done, I'll get back to it.

3 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 1/17/2006 8:28:06 AM
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Another Cub Video

Jacob has discovered the greatness of creating his own home movies. Every time I watch this, I crack up.

With entertainment like this 24/7, who needs Hollywood?

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by Brett Rogers, 1/18/2006 3:52:55 AM
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Prolific

What follows is a screenshot of the administrative interface for ArtByBrett. I've been up since about 2 AM. I'm getting into that mode of my life where sleep is not really essential. I go through rhythms this way. I've been hibernating through late November and most of December, needing about 8 hours of sleep a day. Not now though... energy is restless and I'm getting antsy if I'm not moving the dream forward. "Fervent" is a good word to describe me at the moment. I'm in hyper-productive mode.

I also took those two months away from my diet and exercise regimen. As some of you know, I lost 40 pounds last year, mostly from just dropping refined sugar from my diet. Around the holidays, I allowed myself to indulge in a few slices of apple pie, but for the most part I've been good. I don't if it was the great weather last week or what, but I took the bike to work on Friday and it was great. Still go for a walk through the building each day, but swimming has fallen off... maybe with my new lack of sleep schedule, I'll pick it up. I hope to continue to lose the weight and get to around 250 by year's end. Slow and steady :)

I ordered my first display rack for the cards. I plan to erect it in my bedroom - a daily reminder of the dream and where I'm headed and to keep my ass moving on this. As I paint card designs through February, I'll fill the rack. 20 slots for 20 cards... more motivation. Fervent!

A few years back, I stumbled across something in a book (don't recall which) but I revised it a bit. It talked of four roles. Maybe that played into my concept of four adjectives, but the four roles at which I arrived were these:

• Laborer
• Explorer
• Artisan
• Conductor

I bring that up because on my wall in front of my desk are index cards with those words printed on them. I am to work and discover and refine and orchestrate. Hyper-productive is good. The dream is worth it.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/18/2006 6:50:49 AM
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Creativity

A friend sent this to me, and it took a while to wriggle the GIF file out of the email, but this is so very cool, as you can see.

Don't know who it is or I would attribute it, but that's awesome.

Anybody know who did this?

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by Brett Rogers, 1/18/2006 9:11:41 PM
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Baby Steps

Success... I was able to add a greeting card to my shopping cart. A couple of fields of bad data, but the order was created and the items were added.

Next:

• Fix the glitches that exist in adding a greeting card (done with this one...)
• Update all of the pages to work with the shopping cart (done, 1/21/2006)
• Create the frame page to add a frame, without a card (done, 1/24/2006)
• Add the ability to view the cart (done, 1/22/2006)
• Provide the ability to edit the cart (done, 1/23/2006)

Then it's order processing and order management (viewing past orders, duplicating a previous order, etc) the following week.

I'm still on track to have the site done by the end of January. Yayy!!

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by Brett Rogers, 1/19/2006 11:22:15 PM
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Me and Cub Jam

Last night, my friend, Kelly, came over for dinner and being a former bandmate of mine, we goofed around on my crappy Fender acoustic guitar. Kelly is phenomenal; I'm passable. But my son, Jacob, really got into it.

This morning when we got up, Cub wanted to jam with me, so he asked me to get him two pencils to use as drumsticks and I got out the guitar. You can hear what we did together until I hit a bad chord at the end, with me scatting along vocally. (None of my songs have any lyrics... I just never really got around to it.)

Jacob did a great job on sticks. A big future in front of him, I think :)

By the way, I recorded this on my Sony Cybershot and then converted the MPG to MP3. I have a Tascam US-122 USB device that should allow me to record straight into the computer, bu the Tascam driver is so godawful that it's virtually unusable with Windows XP Service Pack 2. I'm seriously thinking of getting a Mac. Recording shouldn't be this traumatic.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/21/2006 2:43:52 PM
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My Major

I was an English major in college, though I never graduated. I was making more money in business and computers, so I did that instead and dropped out.

Kris found a little quiz to test what your major should be. Hers? Art. My results?

You scored as English. You should be an English major! Your passion lies in writing and expressing yourself creatively, and you hate it when you are inhibited from doing so. Pursue that interest of yours! English 92% Mathematics 83% Psychology 83% Philosophy 75% Journalism 75% Art 75% Dance 67% Theater 67% Linguistics 67% Engineering 58% Sociology 50% Anthropology 50% Biology 42% Chemistry 25% What is your Perfect Major? created with QuizFarm.com

I figured that English and Psychology would be up there, though I am surprised by Math's ranking. Perhaps because I answered so many questions affirming my analytical tendencies.

Okay, back to programming...

4 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 1/21/2006 7:21:31 PM
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Nick's First Movie

Nick has learned how to use Windows Movie Maker and has strategically shot video to make a little movie of his own design.

Watch the movie... it will change your life.

3 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 1/22/2006 6:15:06 PM
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Carefree Painting

Over the weekend, I went over to Erin's house and we painted for a few hours. And we laughed a lot. Which was very therapeutic for us both - not to say that we needed it, but the company and the whimsical atmosphere were delightful.

What is it? I don't know... and it doesn't matter. It's "Sunday," painted without thought and in joy. And this one...

Painting has become a favorite way to spend time with friends, just goofing around. It's color and kindergarten. Fun :)

I hope to do more of this with those of you who browse the site and would be open to painting with me. Especially as I get into the breakneck pace of February, it will be great to offset the seriousness of producing cards with the fun of the brush while hanging with friends.

ETC: "Skinny Jeff" stops by and leaves a comment overnight. He has a web site (I won't link to it, but he lists it and you can click into the comments to see it) and he asks me to visit it and link to it. Because his site is at least relevant (art), I won't consider it spam, but that's kind of what he's done. My trivia mechanism has curtailed all of the bot spam.

So I go to his site and it's a lot of text (and Google ads) about learning to paint. Not much of it is really very helpful... nothing demonstrated in a step-by-step method or anything. He kind of talks around the subject without explaining how.

And then the irony... in this post, which discusses how I just willy-nilly painted with Erin over the weekend, he posts a comment, when at his web site, he says this:

"Often people with a certain artistic predisposition think that all they need is paper or a canvas, brushes, paints of different colors, and off they go to the path of artistdom!"

I respect his desire to make a buck, and I wish him the best, but for anyone who wants to paint or draw, my favorite books are as follows:

• David R. Becker's How to Sketch with Watercolor: a brilliant book with robust examples and a lot of step-by-step examples. David's use of color is just superb.
• Charles Sovek has a masterful way of explaining the "how-to" process. His site lists five books - I have three of them and will hopefully soon purchase the other two.
• Richard Schmid's book, Alla Prima (Everything I Know About Painting) is lush. Simply masterful and honest.

On the other hand, if you just want to enjoy painting for the fun of it, with no real serious agenda, I recommend Life, Paint, and Passion.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/23/2006 9:41:43 PM
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Algebra

Here's a story problem: let's say that you have to devise a formula for shipping orders in such a way that several factors are considered, such as the printing of shipping labels, the cost of the shipping materials, the cost of each shipment for the order if there are multiple shipment dates, and the weight of each item as it adds to the cost of shipment. You need to do this in such a way that you don't lose money on orders taken, you include payment for the expense of time that it takes to prepare and ship the order, and you don't turn away the customer for the cost of shipping.

I don't know what the right answer is, but mine is this:

How does that translate?

If you buy one card from me with a single shipment date, then shipping would be $3.15.

If you buy eight cards from me with a single shipment date, then shipping would be $4.20.

If you buy two cards from me, each with its own shipment date, then shipping would be $4.30.

If you buy one card from me with a frame and a single shipment date, then shipping would be $5.40.

Does that work? Seems like it fits my criteria. I'll find out, I guess. Interesting stuff, business.

ETC: The calculation of shipping is now built into the shopping cart.

Next, order processing. Then, the ability for customers to view their order status and duplicate previous orders. Then, the pages to manage order fulfillment.

4 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 1/24/2006 11:22:47 PM
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How Many Days Have You Been Alive?

I've implemented a "Days Alive Calculator" in the "Things To Do" menu up above. Just type in your birthdate and click Calculate.

Why did I do this? Because an average life is less than 30,000 days. Think of how much you do in a single day. Or how little.

You don't get very many days... so make the most of every one. The calculator on the left is my invitation to not trivialize anything. Love people! Say what you feel! Pursue your life's passion! Live regret-free!

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it." - Ferris Bueller

Amen, brother...

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by Brett Rogers, 1/26/2006 8:24:39 PM
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--

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by Brett Rogers, 1/26/2006 10:02:13 PM
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Hello, PayPal?

I've got the checkout page written, although I need to add some elements to it.

And I've been able to integrate it with PayPal.

I have a lot of testing to do with it, but it's time for bed. I need to attend the regular Friday 6:30 AM meeting tomorrow to discuss business venture #2 with Mike and Adam.

ETC: Woo hoo!

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by Brett Rogers, 1/27/2006 12:52:23 AM
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Tweaking

The greatness of any business plan is not in the plan's thorough rigidity, but in the writer's flexibility. Circumstances change. In a game of survival, adaptation wins.

After a lot of thought, it seems to me that the web store needs to open prior to April 1. For several reasons... but most chiefly is to try out this grand design of mine. I could create the bestest plan in the whole wide world and if the product sucks, then it's not worth a damn. Or if the web site doesn't do what it needs to do, then I've got a problem on my hands. The wrong time to fix that is when I'm getting the retail store market going. Better to work out those kinks now, when the volume can be low and problems fixed quickly and without the distraction of order fulfillment.

So, the grand opening of the online store is now sometime in February. To do that, I've ordered the card stock and envelopes that I need and I'll print them myself. If that works well, I may just continue to do that and forego the employment of a printer for a while until the volume is simply too much. One side benefit of this strategy is that I can respond more quickly to a surge in demand of a design style. Flowers sell? Paint more flowers. People sell? Paint more people. This way, I'm not weighted down with an abundance of extra cards that no one wants.

I've learned that getting the customer's information to process the order is a longer code cycle than I expected. I'll slip past January 31, but only by a few days. Once I have the basics of the order capture down, I'll start to paint and release cards in a gradual and weaved way with the coding that remains. I'll let intuition drive the development.

And I miss painting. I'm anxious to see what will happen. So I tweak the model. I'm tired of programming at the moment... I'm excited for the time that I cease using that skill so much.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/28/2006 12:06:52 AM
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Can You Name These Movies?

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by Brett Rogers, 1/28/2006 9:15:04 AM
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Shipping

Was up pretty late last night after the boys were tucked into bed and got a lot done. I'm now pretty close to finishing the order process - maybe three hours of coding left. Then order management and fulfillment. And then I'm done with the web site for now and I can open the store!

I'm considering opening Art I Can Afford.com, based on the code that I've created here. That site would be available for other artists to post their work and collect payments. Maybe later this year. That site would be pretty similar to this site, so a couple of weekends and it could be done. I have to think through the strategy canvas and competitive matrix before I begin any work on it.

Now, off to bowling with the kids!

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by Brett Rogers, 1/28/2006 1:38:14 PM
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Movie Quiz

Know your movies? Try this...

Name the following movies by the scene depicted. Leave your answer in the comments, but no peeking at others' answers!

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

#17

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by Brett Rogers, 1/29/2006 2:17:31 AM
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Bowling

Went bowling with all the kids and with Nick's girlfriend, Ali, yesterday. Here's Nick posing...

You can click on the picture to play a little video of the Cub and Austin bowling and goofing around with Nick.

After dropping the boys off at Jackie's, I went to a friend's family's house and played "SceneIt" for the first time. Coincidentally, that had nothing to do with the recent movie quizzes, but I do think it's kind of fun to do.

And then lots of coding into the wee hours and again this morning... I'm pretty much done with the order process and I'm now onto order management. I could be done by tomorrow. Then lots of testing and - (gasp!) - painting! Yayy! I couldn't be more excited.

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by Brett Rogers, 1/29/2006 2:32:33 PM
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Vision

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Read the whole story of "Workin' on the Dream"
by Brett Rogers, 1/30/2006 8:54:10 AM
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