The former has been popularized by The 4-Hour Workweek where Tim Ferris encourages separation of purely financially-driven activity from pleasure-driven activity while the latter has been written through several blog posts, two of which were on 24ways: A Pet Project is For Life, Not Just for Christmas and Make Out Like a Bandit.

Now, I love design (of all types) and I love making money through design so I don’t necessarily want to completely separate my “financially driven” activity from what I consider fun. Work shouldn’t be a drudge! But, to me, creating personal projects that are almost directly tied to skills in your day job, can help burn you out instead of re-inspire you. I mean, one can only take so much staring at Photoshop even if one is a paid client project, and the other is a passion project. You’re still in Photoshop (or your software of choice). You’re still designing. You’re still… well, you’re still working. You’ve just switched clients from someone else to yourself, and as we all know, we’re all our own worst clients.

So what to do? I don’t want to separate work and pleasure completely, nor do I want to completely integrate my hobbies to my work. Here’s the deal: design is my passion but it sure as hell isn’t my entire life. (no offense to those who have Design is Life mandates)

My proposal? Limit the amount of hobbies you integrate into your work that may or may not make money (perhaps maximum 1 or 2) and the rest, keep it offline. Don’t even think about monetizing the rest. It will guarantee that it’s strictly in the hobby mindset because you’re not necessarily out to make money off of it. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that sometimes people on the web live in this strange vacuum where only the internet, design, and code exist and of course, trying to profit from it. Sometimes, it could be nicer for certain things to remain analog, offline, and private.

I think that might be a good compromise.

This post is going to talk about the latter. There are a million and one rules on how to conduct oneself online, most based on the mythical “common sense.” People have even made hilarious comics about what not to tweet. Yes, all well and good. To continue my hyperbole, there are probably also a million and one reasons why we should and shouldn’t follow certain rules. But the main reason why you should ignore these rules is this:

Personality.

In my more recent Art of Self-Branding presentations I say that you’re not a unique snowflake, but your personal brand is part of a unique story arc. Your life is like a movie. There are many characters, stories, some with similar plots and personalities. 90% of the people reading this post work on the web and have similar skill sets. What makes you different and why should I work with you? Your personality, your story arc, the journey of how you get to where you are and what you’re doing right now.

Watching Why the Phantom Menace Sucked Part 1 really outlined the importance of clear and precise characterization. Even if it’s cliched, the original trilogy’s characters personality traits are thought of with a lot of affection. This is also the same online. If you follow all these social media “rules” to the T, you will just become yet another person who only a) talks about work (boring) and b) cannot be described by anyone else (forgettable). At the very least, you have to be the Star in the film of your life, not Generic Extra Looking Busy! Hence: personality. You should be more interested in learning how to speak human and increasing your whuffie factor.

And let’s not forget, the main reason for social media is to connect like-minded people or inform people of new ideas and things. Restrict what you express, and you’re possibly missing out on other people who have the exact same thoughts, dreams, hobbies, and passions as you do.

Fun fact: When I tweeted about my new KitchenAid mixer I had the most @replies, Facebook comments, and Flickr views I’ve ever had for any tweet within a 10 minute span (the only one that topped that is posting a photo of my home office). I don’t always get the same reaction from tweeting a great article about design, business, or branding. Why? Because while those subjects are interesting, useful and vital, talking about something personal that people can relate to garners immediate personal relevance. Personal relevance = engagement.

Now, after saying all this, do any of us who use Twitter, Facebook, et al regularly actually ever cared about the rules in the first place? Do some of us just “get it?”

SXSWi is a great place to meet people and it was interesting that I had two distinct conversations about the same topic with Samantha Warren and Ariel Newland — where are the women in design. Now, we’ve been asking that question for years. In fact, SXSW has several panels about women in tech, on the web, recruiting women, understanding women, every single year and I find, every single year we’re not really much closer to any answers. At best, solutions include mentoring and starting at an early age; at worst, conversations devolve into men-bashing and stereotypes.

Very recently, Ryan Carson drew some ire at FOWA because of the lack of female speakers or attendees; like almost every event organizer who gets flack for this, he sends out a well meaning tweet for suggestions of female speakers and to have them tag it with #fowaspeak Some people took that at face value and simply recommended a few interesting people, others took offense thinking that he was simply asking for speakers for the sake of their gender. To fill a quota. At a recent local TED.com-like event, IDEAfest here in Edmonton, people were asked to volunteer to speak. First come, first served. This call-to-action occurred several weeks before the event. After the event occurred, some attendees were annoyed/flabbergasted at the lack of women or ethnic people presenting, with a thinly veiled accusation towards the organizers. At a volunteer event.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

A few things:

• Prejudice and sexism (both ways) exist
• The above will never be eradicated
• Education is key, but is not enough

In many ways I think we’re running around chasing our own tail, and maybe that’s because we’ve been asking the wrong questions, and are too busy playing the blame game. Let’s stop asking Where are the women in tech? or “Where are the women in this conference?”

Instead, let’s ask:

WHY do SOME women find it “easier” and necessary to get out there and be active in the community?

Just like with creating a user experience, personas are a powerful way to figure out what’s out there. There are a lot of talented web women out there, but there are some people whose names just jump out at you. Whitney Hess, Stephanie Sullivan, and Jina Bolton are often called upon to speak at various conferences and have a ton of followers on social media. Perhaps instead of asking where are the women, we should ask the women who are visible their personal and professional opinions on how they get active and visible. Take personality profiles of these women, their histories, their backgrounds. What’s common? What’s different? Whitney speaks about how shy she normally is: how does she break free? Why are some women afraid of being “out there”?

Or is it simply that Women just don’t pimp their shit?

Why are SOME women more comfortable or even blasee around men? (a reality in the tech industry)

Some girls just play well with boys. But we’re not all tomboys nor want to be. This is a reality of the world. There is a majority of men in the tech industry; some are not as friendly to women as they should be. How can we make interactions between men and women in the workplace, in a web workplace, more congenial? Men are not the enemy: they have mothers, daughters, and sisters. Most decent men want the best for the women in their lives. How do we work together with those men to more naturally include women?

How can we encourage women to STAY in technology?

I have the fortunate pleasure of being friends with some brilliant women out there. In fact, many of these women have gone through, since birth, many exposures to science and technology. A set of friends of mine has a scientist for a father; one of them has an undergrad degree in computing science, the other in electrical engineering. Both very sharp, ambitious women… they went through the WISEST (Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science and Technology) program, the typical encouraging and mentoring program that’s meant to entice women to technology. And yet, one completely abandoned computer science for international law, and the other sets up some technological infrastructure in Ghana — and mostly because she wanted to work in the non-profit sector, not necessarily related to her degree. Is it all because of personal preference? How do we keep brilliant and ambitious female minds in the technology sector?

Any answers?

Some women, like Alison Lewis, (who is an electrical engineer) are trying to lure women to technology through fashion and craft. This actually hits on another issue of mine: some women feel the need to de-feminize themselves in order to “fit in.” I like how Alison’s charge is to completely subvert that — be beautiful and fashionable! — while integrating technology into it. Nothing being shameful about being feminine in a male-dominated industry.

I don’t have all the answers. All I know is that we need to ask different questions. Let’s stop treating the symptoms — randomly trying to find women to speak in conferences, etc — and address real problems.

They call me, “Mr. Tibbs.”

I started pondering the importance of spelling with brand recognition because of my own company name: Lealea Design. That is the proper way it is spelled. However, I’ve seen it in many other incarnations: LeaLea Design, Lea Lea Design, Lealea Designs, etc. I understand the confusion because the name is based off my real first name, despite the fact that “lealea” is an actual word with a double-meaning (happiness or pleasure in Hawaiian — and no, to clarify, I am not Hawaiian). Also, my logo has the words in uppercase, which means whoever types the name gets confused as to how it would look in a mixed case situation.

Meanwhile, my CMS of choice, ExpressionEngine is often incorrectly written as two separate words: Expression Engine. In fact, they even had a small forum post addressing the proper spelling and clarification, rightly advocating consistency in brand executions. People were confused, defended their right to misspell based on SEO, and wondered if EE was being a little too uptight. However, there’s a reason why brand manager or evangelists exist: even when it’s clearly written out what rules the brand must follow, many many people find a way to fudge it up.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Is that a bad thing? For the brand owners, it does hurt us in a way. Web wise, it lessens the our SEO web juice when people inconsistently try to search for different terms. It divides the search results. In another, it will convey the wrong idea to a new audience. Visually, it is also inconsistent. And lastly, it’s just a weeee bit annoying. :) But, as someone who has spent correcting pronunciations of her name (it sounds like that princess, not the other way) her entire life, and trying to convince people my last name is not Alcatraz, the little errors just start to roll off your shoulder and you just take it as something you just have to get used to correcting.

Or… should I get used to it? In my personal life, my sisters actually pronounce my name “Lee-yah.” Mostly, because everyone around me during childhood and growing up called my name improperly and I was too lazy/annoyed/tired of correcting. I finally took a harder stance during high school (new leaf and all that), and from then on, anyone who knew me PHS (Post High School) pronounced it “Lay-ah.”

However, I live a life where important people still call me by two names. And I’m okay with it. My sisters call me “Lee-yah” while my husband calls me “Lay-ah.” Is this the way we need to also address the reality of brand spelling and recognition? That, as long as people still identify you and still understand who you are, that it doesn’t matter as much if Coca-Cola needs that hyphen in between, or if it helps SEO, fine, let’s spell EE as “Expression Engine?”

At the end of the day, as long as you’re still recognized, and you yourself are consistent (EllisLab has always properly spelled their own product name), then even if others mistake it, as long as they know you exist in some form, is it okay? In my opinion, yes. However, I think it is always right to correct others when you do have the chance, and not stress if others still don’t follow suit.

Brand Nazi or Brand Savant?

What is your stance on naming? Are you more strict or are you more lenient? If strict, how do you enforce your naming? If loose, where do you let it go?

This is how I have it separated:

Projects

• Client/Project Specific folder
  • agreements
  • files
  • invoices
  • comps
• 2005,2006,2007,2008 (a folder a year)
• Completed (current year’s completed project files get moved here — at the end of the year, the Completed gets turned into a 2009 folder)

Resources

• huge dump of files that are general use like stock photography and icons; each have their own folder. I also have an EE folder where I place all the general plugins and modules that I’ll probably use with multiple sites

File Naming

I also number my projects and folders with this type of system: 2K9-01 Client Name. The first set of numbers represent the year the project was created, and the second set represents that it’s the first project of 2009. The next part is simply the client name. I also number all files and comps using this system. So, if I was going to send an invoice to this client, it would look like: 2K9-01_client-name_invoice.pdf. A comp would be 2K9-01_homepage_v1.jpg. That is the versioning system I use.

How do you organize your files and systems? Do you use a piece of software? Or are you old-school like me? :)

1. The Art of Self-Branding
   Possibly the most famous article I’ve written since starting this blog. It outlines my own personal branding journey and how you can apply it to your own brand!
2. Can you justify design decisions?
   Well, can you? Designers often struggle with this with clients and I provide examples and questions on how to move through it.
3. Handling Rejection
   I share an anecdote while reiterating why it’s important to handle rejection.
4. Lack of a Shared Vocabulary
   I try to define a problem with our industry.
5. Don’t limit your visual knowledge
   I give examples of where you can find design inspiration.

Do you have a favourite from the archives? If so, let me know!

I even enlisted the help of the always awesome Shaun Andrews to slice up a couple pages for me to save time while I worked on client projects, and I would finish all the other pages after he gave them to me. That was the plan, anyway. For a few days, it seemed do-able.

But life and other work happened, and thus, it’s been postponed. To give you an idea of why it had always been perpetually postponed…

In 2008:

• I traveled and spoke at four separate events, including the biggest stage at SXSW 2008. You can see the other three listed on my about page
• My husband and I decided to build a house — a long, grueling, time-consuming process. Our possession date, thankfully, is at the end of this month
• Had a record number of projects, some of which are featured in my portfolio

I will be posting separate entries outlining the design process, justification for the design, possibly show some past iterations, the EE implementation, and so much more. I will have eventual give-aways (yep!) and some other promos in store for 2009. I’m excited. :)

Of course, this isn’t the 110% finished work, as I have more plans to update the site to be better than now, but I think this will suffice until then. Some entries will have some weird formatting and I’ll have to comb through them to fix. Please let me know if there is anything glaring.

I want to thank everyone who has supported me and Lealea Design throughout the years. If it wasn’t for my amazing clients, site visitors, web folks, and last but not least, family and friends, I would not be where I am today. This redesign’s been a long time coming, so here it is.

Don’t worry, I have Lealea v1 archived

1. meet them in person
2. be awesome

Some of us don’t always have the luxury of one (though that’s part of the reason why I encourage people to go to conferences), and Number 2 is obvious but means different things to different people. And it’s #2 that I will have to take a little issue with.

Now, I love Merlin Mann and Brian Clark both of whom I had the pleasure of “meeting” (in quotes, because I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to sit down and talk to them) them both at the awesome IZEAfest event I spoke at last September. Both men deserve their reputation and business because they have worked very hard to be awesome in their respective fields and websites. Of course, that makes both of them so busy that a few times during the conference, they both said, “Please don’t email me” expecting a flood of inane questions, and just asked people to be awesome (I am paraphrasing, I know) and they will find you. Create a nice website, blog, etc. and the rewards will come eventually. And yes, that is true. But, it’s also too simplified.

And it bothers me a bit because I feel like it essentially alienates some from potentially reaching out genuinely. Is an inane question really that horrible? I guess if you get 100 of them a day, it does, and I understand, I truly do, in trying to discourage that. Of course, I disagree with commenters or respondents that demand you reply to every message. But, I think if we err on the side of Gary V who tries to engage with almost everyone that says “hello” to him, is that so bad?

Now, without trying to sound like a douchey name-dropper, I’m going to list a few of the “inane” ways I’ve connected genuinely with some very prominent people on the web:

• Years ago, I contacted this British programmer about a font he designed that wasn’t working in Flash. On IM. This was before I even started Lealea Design. I didn’t expect him to reply, but he did. Our conversations eventually moved beyond typefaces, and soon we were chatting about other things we had in common. I was a relative “nobody” at the time. I was not “awesome.”
• When I had my personal blog, this Florida-native designer wrote me an e-mail after I wrote an angsty post about my break-up with my ex (gasp! human, after all!) I had no idea he was one of the 26 people (based on Feedburner) subscribed to my personal blog. He sympathized with my situation, wrote me a sweet e-mail, and forwarded me an MP3 of his singing group to cheer me up.
• Another dance loving designer I know I connected with based initially at first because of our heritage, but also our love of anime.

Now, a lot of the other “cool” (man, it’s hard to not sound douchey) people I got connected with because they genuinely enjoyed my website design, or the articles I’ve written resonated with them. And the next obvious one was because they met me at a conference and liked me. So the two sure-fire ways are working on my favour, too. However, I wouldn’t want to discourage someone saying “hello” or asking a question, even if it might be a little lame. How do I know you’re not the next upcoming web star? Or a future client? Or someone who can give me a future client? Or future genuine friend, not web acquiantance?

I guess all I have to say is that we all started lame at one time, and someone out there gave us a break, a smile, an encouraging word. Sometimes that’s enough. Err on the side of Gary V, I say. Err on the side of Gary V.

I think the biggest problem people have with this concept is that we really, truly want to be the unique snowflake. We don’t want to summarize ourselves in five words, a sentence, or hell, even a paragraph. It’s always got to be the memoir-length novel to disguise insecurity that we can’t possibly be compartmentalized, categorized, etc. No! We are all different, because nothing’s worse than being all the same, right?

No one wants to be the “archetype” but archetypes are the ones that people notice. Most importantly, they’re the ones that people understand immediately.

However, what people don’t understand is that we are all generally the same (great thing about being human), with similar trials/tribulations: the difference is all in the execution. It’s the same with all television shows and sitcoms: the “plot” is the same (man vs. man; man vs. machine; man vs. society; man vs. environment) but the STORY is different.

I think more people need to understand that the front cover of a book, and the brief synopsis at the back cover, is what makes people want to read the entire novel. People should never be afraid of 5 word summaries, because if it’s pretty good, people will want more.

However, this is not without its pitfalls: this new site will be playing aroundnd with the current EE install and that may mean mistakes like plugins not working or pages getting shuffled, etc. In fact, in my zeal, I’ve already accidentally deleted my latest post about “My First Website” along with its comments it’s been restored! yay!…

I’ve already implemented the homepage and my about page. Designed, coded, and working in EE. :-) It’s also using sIFR 3 for the typeface and I have to say, wow, what a difference! I plan to be optimizing my blog section, and then finally, working on my projects pages. When that is complete, I’ll launch 2.0. And yes, I’ll write a blog post outlining what has improved from Ver 1 to Ver 2, including some ExpressionEngine details.

The big question is: when? The best answer I can give is early October edit: I suck. Honestly think it will be before the end of the year. With the momentum I have, I think that can actually be a safe bet. I’m really excited about this next iteration and I just want to take the time to thank all my loyal visitors, clients, and friends who have graced my website and helped my business get to where it is now.