So, I’ve redesigned this website many times; on a development server, in Photoshop, in Illustrator, or on paper, or in my head. None of those redesigns ever saw the light of day. I would work on them for long stretches as time permitted between client projects and I never made my own website a priority. I have many folders on the hard drive that are littered with started attempts to redesign my own ID and the website—inspiration would strike and off I went. Then I would get busy with a good deal of work and my own website and projects get put on the back burner.

Whenever I would happen upon my own home page, it resembled something like the image at the top of this post—a place looking long abandoned and rarely visited (even though there are some popular posts on here). I’ve decided its time to change, and know that the website is going to iterate rapidly over the next few weeks and then slow as I dial things in.

Last night I made some significant changes which are meant to inspire me (aka motivate me) to take the next steps in the process. I disabled the Thesis theme I had been running since 2009 and enabled WordPress’ Twenty Twelve theme. To me it’s like going from the place in the image above to something more akin to a prefab home. For now that is fine, I just needed to take the first step—more to come.

I was speaking to a friend the other day and for some reason or another websites became part of the conversation. I was asked,

“What about your website? Where is it so I can go look and see?”

And I have to admit to them that it is in a horrible state of affairs—it has been over 9 months since I had written anything at all on the site. I told them that I’ve fortunately been too busy to do anything about my own website and they said,

“Ah like the cobbler’s children that have no shoes!”

And I said, “Precisely” and thought to myself how piss-poor an excuse that is.

In that moment I didn’t fully grok what just went down. A day later I get an email referral, they ask me to have a look at my work online, and the conversation above all came back to me.

Really? Had I forgotten about my own website all this time? Was I really too busy to update it, keep things fresh and relevant? No, I would look at it from time to time. I’ve had many things I’ve wanted to share and I’ve hatched multiple “ideas” to update it. I’ve thought about what I want it to be, and so on. However, all this thinking never produced any type of plan, or set of steps to get things going. I’ve never made it a priority really. In fact what is super embarrassing is the post previous to this that is 9 months old that talks about how the website overhaul is underway—well now it is.

I’m going to make this happen. An hour a day (or more if possible) until website is up to date. There, I said it or rather typed it out in black and white (not just a thought in the head). It has been far too long, and an update does need to happen to this website. Blog posts about changes may follow.

For now, I did find this question posted on Quora and thought I would share.

Every night for about the past year I’ve said to myself, “tonight I’m going to work on my website.”

Yeah right. You all know what I am talking about. It’s the feeling that your looking at 100 miles ahead of you with fumes in the tank. You just can’t find it in you to work on your own website. You stare at others websites all day long. Work long hours trying to solve unique, interesting problems with websites. It can be fun, saturating, and ultimately mentally exhausting.

But what about MY damn website?

• I have this whole website redesigned in my head.
• It’s partially redesigned in Illustrator right now, meaning what little time I’ve had to fiddle around getting what’s in my head onto the screen and into binary.
• I really like it.

I’ve done the above about 15 times in the last 18 months. A jolly good recursive loop.

Well tonight I’ve taken action. I took the first step at actually making a real, substantial change to the website.

For a long, long time I’ve been using Contact Form 7 to create forms on this site so that people could start a dialogue and tell me about their business, projects, and ideas.

Internally that comes to me in a raw format email. I then have to copy/paste everything into Highrise (I use it for contact management). Total pain knowing that there are tools that will automate all this, but I always feel like there is no time.

Wufoo to my emotional rescue.

I got into Wufoo forms and built out a new “intake” form for new projects. Wufoo, through the use of API goodness, integrates into Highrise to eliminate all the data entry I was doing previously. So now I’ve streamlined my intake and made an improvement on the website.

Actual concrete progress on the website.

I have many more things in store for the website and plan to share what I do to the website as I go along.

Some things I imagine will become tutorials along the way—who knows?

Until then…

The past few weeks of this year have helped crystalize a series of separate thoughts I’ve had about both professional and personal issues that have surfaced, and come to the forefront for me this year.

There are times in your life when your life takes turns whether big or small. Sometimes you have no idea that you’ve turned until later reflection. Sometimes you have the luck to see things coming at you, and can see the turn coming. In this instance the turn in your life offers you a chance to make some decisions about how to move forward, what actions to take, and ultimately more of a say in how things turn out—essentially more pro-active than re-active.

This is something I’m in the midst of right now.

I have more to tell and some new things planned.

Wishing you peace and prosperity in 2012.

Happy New Year to all.

Love him or hate him, the man was simply a genius.

I think everyone who knew of him and his health knew the end was coming. Particularly after his recent resignation from running Apple.

However, is still leaves me sad that he is gone.

The news of his passing acted like a wakeup call to me.

I’ve had my head buried in the sand for quite some time. Suffice it to say that I’ve not been very motivated, as if in a long state of burn-out, slump, or “creative block” and its been going on for a while.

This news woke me up.

It’s time to Think Different and get back in gear.

So thank you to Steve Jobs for his contribution to the advancement of technology and for helping people take notice of the importance and impact of design. Thanks for making great products I use everyday like the MacBookPro I am typing this on, and for the Apple IIe I used 29 years ago.

Thank you for your inspiration.

Thank you for your creativity.

Thank you for your contribution.

Thank you for “one more thing…“

Posted via email from berchman’s posterous

I’ve known my Uncle Nick for well over 20 years. He is a “one-of-a-kind” person and personality. Always kind and giving, with firmness and one of the best sense’s of humor I know. He is a solid man, a presence in the room, but as he would say he’s “just a simple country boy.”

There are many long-standing jokes and mythologies he not only created but helps to maintain up to this day. For example, he has the unwavering belief that my father has numerous coffee can’s filled with money buried throughout his backyard. My Uncle thinks my father’s claims of not having money are B.S. and that he keeps putting money in cans, and burying them. Over the years any time the topic of money would come up, Uncle Nick would be sure to mention to my father that he needs to stop being so stingy and dig up some of the coffee cans and “give the kid some money.” Of course this drove my father nuts, and everyone would have a good laugh.

I visited with my uncle 3 times over this week. Each visit he seemed to be a little better than the last primarily because he has decided to stop radiation and chemotherapy.  Being at stage 4 with his type of cancer, combined with his age (77) puts him in a situation of either enjoying what time he has left as best he can, or to poison himself and be in pain for his remaining time on Earth. He has come to terms with the idea that the finish line of life is near. He is blessed in that people that love him can come and say their goodbyes as I did. His passing is imminent but he has time left and has decided to live it as best and comfortably as he can and for that I admire him as I always have.

This visit to see my uncle for the last time has reminded me that money and work, while nice to have, is not the end-all be-all of our daily existence. Having strong connections with friends and family is very important and those people show up in your life when you need them.

The TIME you have to spend in life, doing whatever it is you do, is the most valuable and important thing we all have other than life itself.