Dia Media

Comments Off … Radio Silence

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Drawing from my daily project where I draw first thing in the morning before turning my phone off.

I just turned comments off on this blog. If you want to get in touch use the contact page, or visit us at goodybank

No doubt I should, and likely will, simply re-direct this site at some point, but for now there *is* some trickle of juice, a smidgen of value that keeps me hanging on.

Also I want to transfer over some of that g0ogle juice over to the new site, once I find make the time. I wrote about time once or twice.

There is a brutal efficiency in just lopping off comments that is quite satisfying and helps literally retrieve time, by no longer moderating spam.

I’m going to write an article about what to do with old sites, re-design, re-align (hey wait I already wrote that in 2014!) but it’s 2019 baby and times have changed. Several projects have shown their fragility (2 clients, 3 ours) and I’ve noticed many sites in general that really need re-vamping, so I think the time is ripe to write about what to do when faced with the perils of obsolescence (also written in 2014). But tearing that bandaid off is hard. I know. That’s why this site is still here. For now.

Soon Come. Soon Come.

Why Is It So Challenging To Estimate Time?

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I mean specifically time as it relates to tech activities. Maybe it takes longer than you think it will to buy groceries, or fill out your taxes:), or even go for a run. But it definitely almost always takes at least twice as long as you think when it comes to anything that touches tech.

Why is it so hard to estimate time?
Is it some kind of optimism bias I wonder?

Scenario: It’s just a minor upgrade.

Oh Sure, I can do that is, say  ~4 hours.

Tick.
12 hours later, a widget that used to work doesn’t work anymore because it’s no longer compliant with the upgraded piece of code that, oh yeah, had to be updated as soon as you logged in. Your shoulders have started complaining. Really they are shouting. Stop. But there’s just one more little thing you can try.

48 more minutes go by.

Productivity Measures, Techniques, Hacks…

I try them all.

My favourite is the pomodoro technique – this is roughly the 80/20 rule. (ie: you only wear 20% of what’s in your closet). So you put a timer on for 25 minutes and work without distraction and then put a timer for 5 minutes and take a break — do jumping jacks, breathe deeply, drink water, check emails…

Oh wait 18 minutes went by.

Ok, no that technique does tend to work. I find it’s perfect when you have a specific list of tasks that are executable. ie: All (ha ha) that needs to be done is

    • a – Add this bit of content
    • b – Change the background image(s) here and there
    • c – Re-style all the headings….

When the elusive flow is required… for creative stuff, for  troubleshooting problems, for composing just that oh so quintessential email whose job it is to attract/repel/impress/tell them to buzz off whoever it is;  I find the buzzer going off at 25 minutes breaks the flow, even though it does help with that shoulder problem. For those types of tasks, it’s better to get a whole heap of it done and then go for a walk.

Being Realistic About Priorities

I think it was Merlin Mann (mr inbox zero) who said, you can only have one priority at a time.
I’m paraphrasing him — If you’re not sure what a priority is, then notice what happens when you’re attempting to juggle a few tasks at once, and your kid or loved one cries out because they slipped. Even imagining the best case scenario and there’s only hurt feelings at stake, you probably dropped everything you were doing and ran to the rescue.
That’s a priority.

I love lists. I try (yes Yoda I hear you) to keep it to 3 major goals (aka priorities) per day. Those goals have tasks attached and I love it when they all get crossed out. If they don’t they move onto the next day’s goals. And generally on Mondays and Fridays, that’s aok. The rest of the week, those carried over tasks – grrrr:)

I’m a recovering perfectionist. I have a spreadsheet I created to keep track of time. Of course, there’s an app for that. I used to use iBiz but they moved on to greener pastures, and the idea of putting my time and tasks out in the cloud caused me to object internally, thus forcing me to edit spreadsheet formulas to come up with what I want. It has colour-coded graphs and everything so I’m happy.

But whilst it might tell me I spent 6 more hours on that client project than I estimated, it doesn’t tell me that in advance. I can see why though. Essentially I generalized and lumped into one task what really should have been broken out into a series of tasks and then I would know that even firing up all the various software, files and notes already takes up 15(!) minutes.

 

So, yeah, if you’re still reading, sorry to disappoint. There’s no perfect formula. All I can say is that it’s probably best to double, triple or quadruple right off the bat how long you think something tech related will take and then if it only takes 1/4 of that time, you’re both pleasantly surprised, and maybe you even made a , gasp, profit.

Then you can go for a walk and throw a frisbee, cause, you know, your shoulders don’t hurt.

 

 

2017 Word of The Year

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AppreciateFor the last 4 or 5 years I choose a Word of The Year to represent the year. This is as an alternative to New Year’s Resolutions. I “organize” a small group of women that meet a few times a year to reflect upon this word.

It operates as a touchstone of sorts. You usually only choose one word, and then in June, if you decide the word isn’t appropriate, you can select another one.
This year, 2 words spoke to me right away:) and I decided to allow them. One more orientated, but not exclusively to my personal life, and the other towards business.

They are:

Appreciate – Personal
Consistency – Business

In terms of consistency for business I specifically mean things that range from the boring things that get overwhelming if you leave them to grow dust in the corner of the filing cabinet…; and also the exciting stuff that fires up your little grey cells at the beginning of the year with enthusiasm and joy but also has a tendency to fizzle out as you realize and become aware, that , hey , getting to that exciting goals requires breaking it down into micro tasks, that are, well, boring?
<ul>
<li>Get book-keeping / accounting on auto-pilot (more or less)</li>
<li>Blog more often and consistently.</li>
<li>Set up newsletter and</li>
<li>Start a mailing list. I have one, but it’s a spreadsheet that needs pruning and attention.</li>
</ul>
I mean – creating a LIST. Develop, grow a new audience through one of those little annoying pop-ups that convert so well – except I will have to be clever and figure out how to make them obvious and subtle at the same time, and probably not pop-up, at least on mobile, that annoys me too much — you?

Yawn.
Stretch.
Nap.

Return to task at hand.

To wit I’ve now got a list of ideas for blog posts that are all more business / client orientated. Except for this one . It’s geared to the fellow creatives out there who also wear the entrepeneurial/business cap, and might just want to know what inspires me to keep pushing through the pixels.

I appreciate you. There’s a lot to slog through in the digital landscape, and you’ve taken the time to read about my word of the year. Thanks.

[ Side Notes:

I originally learned about WOTY from the marvellous Christine Kane (previously singer/songwriter now business maven/coach).
Last Year’s <a href=”http://diamedia.net/2015/12/22/end-of-the-year-lists/”>WOTY</a> ]

End of Year Lists

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Next year my lists will be all hand-lettered.

 

The Winter Solstice is here and with it Mercury Retrograde. Although the latter comes with a little more woo woo (then again thinking about Stonehenge, perhaps they are equally wooish), they both offer the opportunity for reflection and planning. In what is now an annual tradition, here’s my end of the year business list for 2016.

Annual Digital Business Goals

1. Blog more often and on a consistent basis.

You, me, everyone with a stake in this interwebs game. My personal goal is 27 posts in 2017. I’m getting that number counting 2 posts per month , with an extra three thrown in for good measure/luck as the year ends in a 7:)

I reckon it takes me a week to think up a topic, and begin a rough draft (outline format) and then another week to flesh it all out with pretty pictures. Given my profession, I tend to overdue the images bit – i.e.: they’re definitely not just grabbed from the internet and stuck in there. Even when they are plucked out of the ethernet, they are always altered. In short, can take some time for the image aspect of the post, this post proving the exception to the rule.

Whatever your current blogging schedule / post count is, why don’t you try setting a goal to ramp up output in 2017? Mine is a four-fold ambitious increase, but 20% is good too. There’s a lot of debate about long post vs short posts, that’s a topic for another post (!), but the importance of consistency cannot be overstressed. Google definitely favours new content.

2. Review All Social Media Accounts.

Keep, exterminate or even, gasp, add more? This year I blogged for 153 days in a row as part of a public art project (A fictional blog set in 1938, I don’t count it towards business blogging) where I focused solely on twitter as an outreach platform. Yet, I noticed way more likes on the instagram end of things even though I didn’t post anything there (my account is dormant — it was all other folks sharing). Last Saturday, I took a delightful calligraphy workshop  at Fox and Flourish.  The owner Christina had a hashtag, but noted she mainly uses instagram.  Both of these got me wondering if I should (despite loathing this word) reboot the account.The value of said likes etc is also up for debate, and that too is a topic for another post.

3. Start a Newsletter / Develop A Mailing List

This is the year we too, will offer one of those annoying pop-ups to subscribe to the newsletter full of unicorns and other magical wisdom.

4.Plan to unplug

Every year I attempt to conquer my inbox and get down to the mythical state of “inbox zero” (coined by Merlin Mann). I do, and then a few days later the breeding begins. This year, I will plan to conquer the inbox every quarter at a minimum. Also to unsubscribe from e-mail lists that no longer align with my personal or business goals. Sometimes the newsletters are great, and yet they can represent a pressure to perform, to be, to buy into something….after a while you realize it ain’t gonna happen.

Creativity comes from boredom and doing nothing. It’s been proven. I can’t find the source quote, but intuitively you already know this.

5. Nap more.

Ok, this one’s not digital, at least not yet.

Cheers, and Happy 2017!

Should you D-I-Y when it comes to your website?

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the prep

Should you take the Do It Yourself Approach?

First, a story about one of the ways I’m completely into D-I-Y.

I spent a relaxing Sunday evening making homemade spearmint lip balm. The recipe is at the end of this post – patched together from various sites – and based on what I had on hand. I was doing it as an experiment. Here’s what I found out:

  1. It was much simpler and not as fussy as I thought it might be. Essentially (pun intended) you slowly melt together the “carrier” oils with the beeswax, add a few drops of your choice of essential oil, pour out into container and allow to solidify. And voila – you are done!
  2. That said, gathering the ingredients is part of the process: I had spearmint oil and coconut oil on hand, and had to go buy the almond oil and beeswax. I did not have a double boiler, so I improvised.
  3. I only purchased 2 metal tins to start with, not having a clear idea of how easy it would be to make, nor of the volume /proportions. I have an immense amount of almond oil leftover and so just yesterday went back and bought 10 more tins:)

Ultimately, it was quite a pleasurable experience. I like the mindset of being an alchemist and can see myself tinkering some with flavours, and labels (!) in the future.

Did I save money?
On the ingredients cost per volume, and not counting my time, then yes, no doubt. With the leftovers and the newly acquired extra tins, the plan for this coming Sunday is to make some more lip balm. [ Once of course, the fruit cakes are taken care of — the fruits have been soaking in rum for 3 weeks 🙂 ] This increased my costs a wee bit.

I purchased the beeswax and almond oil  at the delightful Soap Dispensary  (where you can refill many things to your heart’s content). The same size tin of pre-made lip balm cost $6.

My costs were: $2.50 per tin, $7.00 for the almond oil and I already had the coconut oil and essential oil on hand. Those probably cost $12 and $14. So say $35.50. or roughly $40 with tax. I don’t know how many tins I could make with the whole lot, but I suspect at least about 30 offhand. Who knows, maybe 60. I’m a newbie. So substantial savings on the ingredients front. My time, research, purchase and make = 2-3 hours about. Without labels. That will probably be a black hole time-suck altering the course of the universe.

THE STEPS INVOLVED

  1. Research what I have to do (find a gadzillion blogs right away – process quick and easy)
  2. Purchase ingredients and containers
  3. Set aside time and make

It happens to be the holiday season, so if you’re on my nice list – keep an eye out;)…

the finished product
The Finished Product -Spearmint Lip Balm

 

How does this relate to a D-I-Y your business website?
3 factors to consider:

1. Budget

If you have a very small budget, then of course this goes without saying. Go with something like WordPress.com (WP – my first choice) or SquareSpace where you don’t have to mess around too much.If you’re selling products, Shopify is a good choice. (They also have a plug-in for WP). The reason I would recommend WordPress.com first is that if your business takes off, then your database can be readily imported into a WordPress.org site. The .org means that it is a self-hosted website and that it can look however you want, do whatever you want it do:)

2. You enjoy it and take pleasure in learning.

Building your own custom(ized) website involves a blend of tech and design. Do you enjoy opening up Photoshop and tweaking your images? Do you enjoy figuring out what’s under the hood? Do the words HTML5, php, css excite you? Then D-I-Y might be for you.

3. How many steps will it take and does it really save you money?

Yes, to the latter, if like me and my lip balm, you don’t count your time. How much? That depends on who you would hire to execute your site otherwise. You can get quotes from $500 to $50,000 for what appear to be the same thing.  In general, you get what you pay for, and at the higher end, (which of course can also have more zeroes tacked on at the end), you are not buying a “website”, but a relationship with a company that will hopefully help you grow and expand your business, and, they take care of all the details for you. They might even suggest ways for your business to prosper that you hadn’t considered.

THE STEPS INVOLVED

  1. Research what free/cheap platforms are out there.
  2. Purchase domain name ($7-20)
  3. Decide on platform and theme — buy a premium theme if you want to go fancy ($70-$150)
  4. Enter your content.

The last point can is deceptive and can be also eat up a lot of time. Even though you don’t need to know how to code, you do have to: write content, write headings, style content, take/buy photographs, edit photographs…not to mention the marketing angle SEO and all whatnot. Also it can be frustrating if you don’t know how to use the CMS (content management system) that well, so have patience with that part. And remember that you are going to have it end up being like the template — not something custom.

But basically it can be done, if, of course, being much more time consuming than making lip balm…;)

On the flip side, if you are looking at setting up a WordPress site yourself, I just got an email from iThemes pointing out the over 80 (EIGHTY!) essential WordPress website owner checklist tasks that are involved in setting a up a WordPress Site.

I got exhausted just reading it, and basically I know what I’m doing (ahem).
Of course the process can be streamlined when you know what you’re doing and certain steps eliminated if you pay for certain services.
Leaving perhaps a mere 60 steps:)

Take Away Thoughts:

1. TIME. What is your time worth? And, cliches being oft repeated truths, where is your time best spent?

2. FUN. If you don’t take pleasure in either the tech or the visual…then DIY isn’t for you.

3. FOCUS. You’re using tinkering with your website as an excuse to delay the process of actually running/launching your business.
Even if you can do something it doesn’t always mean you should. Case in point – we are quite efficient when it comes to using Illustrator and really enjoy it most of the time, but for relatively quick and dirty icons etc, we will turn to Getty images (iStock) or other sources first, and then modify rather than create an illo from scratch.

Ultimately it might come down to this:

Is this a hobby or a business? If it’s a hobby, then probably the D-I-Y (or hiring your neighbour’s daughter who lives in the basement) approach is the way to go.

Or perhaps if your are a small start-up and you’re not sure of your metrics. Start a free blog, write about your stuff, see if there’s an audience for what you are doing / selling.

If it’s a business that’s already underway, unless you have a keen interest in learning and doing the tech and design aspect of things, it’s probably best to hire a pro. (ahem:)

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Lip Balm Recipe I used:

  • Approx 2 TBS beeswax*
  • 3 TBS coconut oil
  • 3 TBS almond oil
  • 6-10 drops spearmint essential oil.

On low-med heat, melt the beeswax and oils together with a chopstick.
When melted, remove from heat and add a few drops of spearmint essential oil.

Poured into the 2 lip balm 1/4 oz containers and the rest into a leftover small mason jam jar. Let set. Took about 2-3 hours before it seemed fully solid.

Notes: Approx 2 TBS beeswax – I cheaped out and bought the beeswax in bulk – so chopping off a hunk that more or less resembled a tablespoon was the truth of the matter. For the next batch, I have splurged on the beeswax pellets.
The essential oil I had on hand was spearmint. Any flavour will do. Some say it can be damaging for your lips. I like the scent. Also, the adding of drops is not an exact sciene.

A Few Lip Balm Recipe Links:

2 (yes 2) ingredient cosmetics from the venerable David Suzuki Foundation – DIY Lip Balm & More

And 2 other semi randomly chosen links:

Every Day Roots DIY Lip Balm – I like the graphic/drawing they’re using

Natural Skin Care Junkie DIY Kits – extensive and detailed list of ingredients, like myrrh – going on my to do list for sure. Myrrh – yum

Everybody Knows #influencers

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En grece
Before there were tweets there were summer nights filled with song


So I’ve noticed a recent wee bit of an uptick in followers on my personal twitter account – and have also started seeing the dubious #influencer hashtag used in their profiles. They usually follow a lot of folks (>10K) and have a lot of followers (>10K) and some even in the millions. Borderline absurd. They are slightly more subtle or sophisticated than the old #pumpAndDump strategy (follow heaps of accounts and then unfollow them all so your twitter ratio makes you look like a star). But only slightly.

Who uses the hashtag #influencer to say that they are an influencer?
Surely if you are an influential tweeter (and I’m not even thinking celebrity status) this goes without saying? What happened to show don’t tell?

I’m getting more cynical about social media.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.

It still retains the element of fun, so I stay on the platform. I’ve promised myself on my personal account to largely engage with other artists, curators and those in the arts. On our semi-dormant business account the sphere of engagement is that of design / tech.

Side note, I started the company twitter profile in 2009 and at the time there was this kind of general vibe about making it personal – so not using a company logo / etc; hence it has my shiny face and name in the profile. This is all thrown out the window and beyond of course (with promoted tweets on offer even) but I have yet to get around to re-branding the profile.

I am still occasionally guilty (ahem) of reacting to current events (The Trumpster point in case) and getting grumpy at corporations, but in general I stick to the stated themes I want to engage with.

What I know is that social media (whichever platform) is really quite a bit of work. To get to true influencer status is no-doubt a full-time job. I don’t have 7 or 10 pithy tips to help you get there.

Everybody knows that the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still picking’ cotton

All can say is keep it authentic and play nice and keep chipping away at the marble block. And ignore the puffed-up #influencers svp.

RIP Leonard Cohen.

Underwater Chinatown

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009-uwc-fp2

Artists Deanne Achong and Faith Moosang have produced an interactive website that peeks into the history of Cantonese opera and theatres in Vancouver’s Chinatown at the turn of the 20th century. Various stories from the time (1890s – 1920s) are presented using altered archival imagery, film and audio, newspapers and historical documents, creating a visceral sense of the theatrical community in the context of the time and place. Three major opera houses and several “Underwater Theatres” house the immersive narrative.

The project was commissioned by Cinevolution Media Arts Society and can be viewed at underwaterchinatown.com

Role/Tasks

Website Design
Website Development – Custom Theme
Graphic Design
Archival Research
Project Management
Collaborative Process

p.s. It’s odd to write about oneself in the third person. There were many aspects of this project that were quite engaging to work on, both from a coding point of view and an artist pov. As an artist, one of the sections that I was very engaged with was The Actors – exploring the gruelling conditions that actors/actresses faced in the early 1900s when coming to Vancouver to perform at the Opera House. From a coding perspective, getting the fading and scrolling as well as the multiple background images working, and figuring out how and where to pull up the range of content was quite challenging and rewarding.” — Deanne Achong

Pier D – A Public Art Project

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007_achong_pierd_verticalweb

PIER D – A public art project by Deanne Achong (principal at Dia Media). On till the first week in October, 2016, Georgia and Granville Street – Vancouver City Centre skytrain.

Pier D  looks at a specific historic moment in the life of the city’s port— when, on the afternoon of July 27, 1938, a four alarm fire broke out on CPR’s Pier D in Vancouver, BC. After the fire, the pier was never rebuilt, representing a moment of rupture for the artist. The ‘portholes’ present a central image shot by the artist showing where the pier used to be, book-ended by two altered archival images of the 1938 fire.

Their is a QR code installed in one of the windows, that links to a daily (for the duration of the installation) blog that accompanies the site, matching the dates exactly in a happy coincidence. ie:  September 27th was also a Tuesday in 1938. Some posts are “QR only” meaning they do not get transmitted to the blog and exist in the ephemeral moment of the specific day they were on the QR code.

The artwork is installed at the Canada Line Skytrain Windows on Georgia and Granville Streets from May 16th to October 16, 2016. It is  commissioned by the City of Vancouver’s public art program, as part of their Coastal 25th anniversary project.

More about Pier D project | Pier D QR blog [set in 1938]

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Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others. —Orson Welles

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