I pretty much stopped when I got kids and a way to feed them during the day as the only time to make a lot of noise was in the evening when they where asleep, and sleeping kids and feed back loops don’t make good sleeping partners.

The other day I was playing with my 2 year old son with iTunes showing him some Pan Sonic and I found a track I had recorded back in the early 1990’s that was made with a home made guitar & tape device and recorded live.

The track is more of a sound scape then a song, I would hesitate to call it music, I may work it together with my other lost art of film making one day when life is less busy and hectic, I may not, who knows.

Anyway here it is: Rich McCoy – Downstream

Maybe one day I’ll get back to tinkering with sound again and rediscover those lost days with an added maturity and experience, maybe not, its fun and I enjoy it, and maybe a select few sonic adventurers will get a kick out of it too.

I’m not going to talk about how to make accessible forms or even how to make pretty forms that’s been covered elsewhere, what I am going to do is talk about things that I constantly encounter that drive me mad and curse the fact that I ever got involved in the internet way back in the early 90’s and damn my brothers and sisters who build these silly things!

1. Please remember me.

   The worse culprits for this are travel web sites and are the reason I hate using online systems for booking travel. This is the little story, are you sitting comfortably? I pop into a travel agents with my wife and kids, I have there passports and I sit down with the rather dim looking travel agent and I explain that I would like to go to Fiji for a couple of weeks, probably about the end of September. She asks for mine and my families names, dates of birth etc. and goes off to look for a suitable break, there is nothing that month, do I want to try another month?

   Yes sure why not! Okay she says, whats your names, dates of birth and… now come on do we have to go through that again, I just told you, did you not remember?

   Nope says the dim travel agent.

   Annoying is it not?

   Why the hell do we do that online, I know its easier on the severs and ho-has and technical whatsits, but as a user I don’t care, make my transaction easier and I’ll do it otherwise I’ll settle for a week in a caravan at the bottom of the road rather then deal with you.

   For forms that are part of a possible multiple use search, remember what I entered and let me change the variances I want.

2. Don’t tease me.

   The worse ones for these are job advertisement sites where… yes I know you should read a form all the way through before starting to fill it in but they are the old rules and there are new ones now, things have changed… anyway as I was saying Job sites and job applications, I lie to spend time on these an do them properly, crafting each answer to a question, as is fitting for a Creative Director position, and it takes some time but its always at the bottom that they ask you for some form of qualifying information, such as ‘You need to have the write to work in the USA in order to apply for this possible, do you have either a…’ If there is some qualifying information required ASK IT FIRST.

3. Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer, or make me tell lies.

   There are many different instances of this but the one I encounter most is the post code / zip code one. At the moment I live in a fairly rural part of the Republic of Ireland and we have a limited number of online services so if I want most things I have to order them from either America or the UK and that’s fine, its the price you pay for living in a beautiful tranquil and wet part of the world. However another thing that this area doesn’t have is Post codes, I don’t know why, maybe they just never needed them as every one knows everyone else anyway. So when I want to fill in a form an the postcode is mandatory even though I’ve told you I don’t live in the USA and don’t have a pesky zip code, your dumb arsed web site insists that I tell you one or you wont take my money, so I have to lie and make one up.

4. Realize its not always this or that, sometimes its a bit of the other.

   This point is somewhat related to the point above about not making me lie, in that form developers often forget that people are woolly and awkward and there lives don’t fit into one of five selection options so if you are going to ask me something like whats my eye colour is it: Blue, Brown, Red also add an ‘other’ option because they are green, and I’ve known people with eyes of differing colours, yes I know its a stupid example but its late and my eyes want to be sleeping not defining there colour.

5. I’m sorry I don’t understand the question.

   What the hells a whoozit? Its a common problem on the internet in copy & taxonomy (organizing the information into a categorization system other wise known in web design as a navigation structure) to use terms that only industry or company insiders understand, but the wounds cut deeper if its part of a direct question requiring them to understand your grammar in order to respond. There are some instances where the understanding of the terminology is an important positive qualifier for the conversation for example a job application requiring specific understanding, but they are more the exception to the rule then the rule. Use simple language that you granny would understand.

6. Don’t be a sneaky, nosey parker.

   I can not stand forms that are broken into many tiny pieces that require me to input a little bit of information then submit that bit go and make brew then come back and do a bit more and so on and so forth. Mind use I also get anxiety attacks when I’m faced with massive forms that want to know everything about me.

   As a rule if you don’t need to know something don’t ask, you’ll make my life easier but not making me fill in the name of my first dog. If you do need to ask lots of questions then break the form into groups and use something like a jQuery Accordian to allow me to collapse and show, perhaps even purposefully ignore certian parts of your form, maybe you would even want to develop a scrip that expand the next group of questions when you have finished the proceeding, but still allows me to read through all the questions at my desire.

7. Don’t play games, tell me where I went wrong, and tell me now.

   Imagine the slap you would want to give someone who did the following after you had just told them about your life and they replied with.

   Nope, you got some bits wrong I cant help you until you get them right…

   Any chance of a clue?

   Well you’ll have to look through what you’ve told me and guess what you said wrong, if you are observant ill let you know by raising my eyebrow but you’ll have to keep you eyes open and watch out for the eyebrow raising.

   Thwock, hows you’re eyebrow now I’ve slapped it?

   Even worse is his mate who will tell you that there was something wrong at the beginning and would you correct that bit then send the story on again, to then tell you that there was a little bit after that that was wrong and would you please correct that and send it again, you can only go through that cycle twice before you grab this chap and his mate with an aching eyebrow and bang there heads together (a slight disclaimer: I’m actually a bit of a piece loving digital tree huger and am not actually of a temperament that I would be compelled to physically abuse any person of piece of web code )

For some reason when I originally wrote this article it had another 3 points that seem to have been pushed out my ear sometime in the last 3 weeks and I cant find them in my mind, if I spot them around the place I’ll add them up there, not that anyone going to read the ramblings of a tired, beardy weirdy digital creative director rambling away at nearly 1am. but if you did read it and want to add you own form ramblings feel free to comment.

I’ll keep popping back every time I create a new list of things I’ve discovered in the last 10 years and add it to this page.

Films that have had an impact on me (in no particular order)

1. The Fountain
2. Mulholland Drive
3. The Happening
4. Children of Men
5. The Wrestler
6. The Darjeeling limited
7. Moon
8. El labarinto del fauno
9. Tonari no Totoro
10. Le Fabuleux destin d’Amelie Poulain

Authors that have had an impact on me over the last decade (in no particular order)

1. Anton Checkhov
2. Hunter S. Thompson
3. Raymond Carver
4. Roland Barthes
5. Christmas Humphries
6. Michael Gira
7. Franz Kafka
8. S.F. Said
9. Mark Sommerset
10. Oliver Jeffers

Places I’ve visited and loved

1. Waiheke Island – New Zealand
2. The Coromandel – New Zealand
3. Stockholm – Sweden
4. KareKare – New Zealand
5. Daybro – Australia
6. Sunshine Coast – Australia
7. The Old Kenmare Road – Ireland
8. Dovedale – England
9. Eymet – France
10. The gap of Dunlow – Ireland

There are several things that folks looking to use Twitter to recruit can do to ensure that they attract the right candidates by getting the right information out there.

1. Include a broad commonly understood Job Title, not every one you want to reach will be following you, even if they are the chances are you may get lost in the chatter, interested parties will set up filters for this term like I do for “Creative Director” or “Art Director”;
2. If the role has a specific segment include that too, I wont specifically set up a filter to include the term “Interactive” but it will catch my eye as being relevant;
3. Its also helpful to include a term that indicates that it is a recruitment advertisement Krop do it well in that they preface the posting with JOB: but HIRE: or RECRUITING: are equally as good, although a bit longer and your better of saving those characters and keeping it short. Using these at the start of a post with filtering out the chatter, Caps are good, but I would hesitate about putting the job title in caps as well;
4. It is also useful to include the location, and if possible who its for and any special requirements such as if its an immediate start or if its in an unusual location if relocation assistance is included;
5. But the most infuriating omission is failing to include a next step, it is off no use to any one so simply state that Studio X is looking for a Creative Director without giving me a link to find out a little more and apply for the post.

As a template for a job seeker friendly tweet I suggest the following:

JOB: Job Title, studio name, location, qualifying condition if applicable, http://www.webfellowforhire.com

Further suggestions, responses from recruiters, job offers, well wishers and general passers buy wanting to say hi are most welcome.

This posting concerns two points that I considered making two posts but decide instead to combine them as the needed each other. The first point concerns and open minded response to the creative process the second part deals with a loose definition of steps and tools to help nurture a creative solution, the process is mainly focused on interactive solutions, but are applicable to most commercial creative endeavors.

A non process – creative process

I know it sounds like I’m being obtuse when I say that my process is process-less but its half true (so is the comment about me being illiterate). The fact is I do have a loose process but its never aloud to define its implementation. I’m a firm believer in taking everything on at its own merits and for me to approach a challenge with a defined system would not give the challenge a chance to be met to its entirety and in tern lessens the integrity of the solution.

Defining the undefined

The closest term I have heard in a business sense is ‘An eyes wide open approach’ I quite liked and it helped me form the opinion that there was another way of embracing the natural nature of the creative process, a philosophy that I became interested in just after the burn out of finishing my Fine Art Degree, moving to London and then leaving London a couple of months later. I started reading the work of Alan Watts a a British philosopher, writer, speaker, who held both a master’s degree in theology and a doctorate of divinity. Most notably I was reading his final book Tao – The Watercourse Way. Now I wont blather on about the tenements of Taoism or Zen mainly because my understanding is not deeply intellectual on these matters and because these explanations are best served elsewhere.

Key principles from my explorations into Tao & Zen stuck in my mind as being relevant to the commercial creative process :

The first revolves around the question “Why in a heavy wind do tree’s get blown over but the grass’s remain?”

The second “That it is pointless to try and put obstacles in the way of moving water, it will find its own course”

The key principle that I took away and have implemented is that in order to solve a creative challenge you need to understand the nature of the driving force and move accordingly. This involves at first a lot of listening and a lot of questions before any action is taken. It also involves a lot of saying “I don’t mind” when asked what your requirements are. You have to be very open minded and take on board whatever is available, perhaps with a little poking under rocks to see if there is anymore interesting stuff that’s not instantly visible.

The problem of perception – That’s just lazy

One issue that I always anticipate and sometimes find is that there is a perception amongst many , even amongst those that should know better that they should expect a huge flurry of activity at the start of a creative challenge addressing, with lots of documents and bits of software. Some think that I’m just being none committal, really I’m just listening and observing and taking it all in. I’m not getting involved with issues that don’t concern me or my deliverables, if someone wants me to use a certain communication mechanism, then fine, if you want me to use a project management mechanism also fine, its not I’m not interested, I just don’t care (but in a positive way). I am more interested in letting you do your job I don’t often feel the need to get involved as for the most part I tend to work with project managers, technical developer who know what they are doing and how to do it.

The nature of water – a thin structure to help the child grow

This all being said even water needs a little help to move along so in general I tend to use the following mechanisms as tools, I don’t always get to use them as sometimes clients just aren’t interested in getting a considered response to there creative issue (more often they just don’t have any budget), sometimes its just not practical.

Step one: Try and understand the characters of the key project leaders (this will teach you a lot about what to expect from the working relationship and how to present responses back)

Step two: Try and understand the background to the creative challenge, whats driving it why does it have to happen, where does it have to go.

Step three: Try and understand the brand behind the creative challenge as if it where a person. I prefer to create or get the client to create a brand persona that defines who the brand is, what they where,listen to eat, value and act.

Step four: Try and understand the audience that the creative solution is to be interacting with, and how the owners of the creative solution would want its audience to react back. I prefer to establish a set of user personas for this stage.

Step five point one: Try and establish an over all aesthetic for the creative solution initially away from any technical architectural issues. I prefer to create a set of mood boards for this step as an iterative process.

Step five point two: Try and resolve the architecture and technical requirements. I prefer to create a set of wire frame documents that illustrate whats needed, what priority it has and vaguely where about it should be.

Then when all these elements and probably a few more or less are in a healthy state they get put in a comfortable room with some nice music a pot of fine strong coffee and are encouraged to dance sing and fornicate with each other until a fine child is born. This child who we shall name, rather dispassionately and unimaginatively – Uwe Concepts is then given all the valid markup and fine coding nutrients and love until he is ready to be presented to his audience and do his thing.

Sometimes the starting points will be different, sometimes they will not, sometimes the steps will differ sometimes they will not the important fact is that I try not to pre-conceive what Uwe’s face will look like before I see it for real, I try and not anticipate what stages his parents Wifram & Moody have to go through to make Uwi, but I do have an idea about what basics are going to need to happen (I do have three children after all).

In Summary

• Be alert
• Be responsive
• Be open
• Forget the ego (he’s not anyone’s friend)
• Don’t rush to do the colouring in before the outlines are drawn
• Go with the flow of the requirements of the creative solution

Happy to get feedback, comments and criticisms.

Watch this space, its going to be a beauty, and I just love working with folks like them, they are such a joy.

I had been a while since I had been back in the UK properly, several things struck me:

1. There are hell of a lot of us humans rattling around that part of the world, all busying around and bumping into each other.
2. It only takes a little self training to differentiate between nationalities based on demeanor and costume, especially with the males.
3. People look at you funny (even policemen) when you refer to them as ‘Sir’

Anyway, the coach journey lasted a little bit longer then I would have hoped and my mind wouldn’t let me sleep (probably over stimulated form the great meeting) so I started twitching with my pocket digital camera, there was nothing about to take photos of but myself and the traffic, so I combined them by setting the camera to ‘Night’, and I suppose digitally double exposing the photos. All these images where created in camera (just the type was added later).

larking about and seeing how far I can push the camera whilst bored in a traffic jam in the UK

Now if only I could get sponsorship of a nice Digital SLR to experiment with,  to really play silly buggers with.

Most of my photography stuff is at Little Hellos and a growing collection at The Mushroom Farmer.

All comments are gratefully received especially from fellow tinkerers, camera companies and anyone who isn’t a spam bot.

I chose Media Temple as they are pretty much the default designers choice since way back in the day when they started and came to the rescue of the then mighty K10K.net. So with brands and audiences being aligned it seamed an obvious choice.

My other sites I will eventually move over to a completely different hosting service, one that fits the other part of my personality, the other host is an Eco / Green web site hosting service by Host papa (daft name, but a great offering). All their servers are powered using renewable resources and since the lions share of my sites will be with them it makes sense in that instance.

• Move Movement – An Australian charity aimed at getting folks to exercise more and raise money for charity.
• Charity Champions -  A credit / debit card where a percentage of interest goes to good causes.
• My Building Site – An Australian web site that helps builders maintain their professional accreditation.
• Vacy Acres – A development of houses just outside of Sydney.
• Flagstone Rise – A development of houses just outside of Brisbane.
• Days4U – A Greek web site selling activity gifts.
• Dering – An international recruitment consultancy for deaf people.
• Toothcare – Sydney’s leading dental hygienist.

In addition to adding all these pieces to my portfolio I’ve also been busy tidying up the typography, navigation and general presentation of the site. There are still a few more things I need / want to fix but I need to fit in some sleep & play time first.