New Year, New Site, New Outlook

POSTED IN General, News | TAGS : branding, creativity, Design, focus, idea, logo, new year, news, notes, outlook, output, perspective, planning, Project, re-branding, technology, website January 3, 2012

The New Year is a time a celebration for most, as for me it’s a time of reflection and learning.  Since I don’t get a lot of time for myself during the year to unwind, the holidays bring more than just family and the copious amounts of alcohol that follows; it brings me clarity.  It’s the only time of the year where everyone just stops, probably because we’re all sleeping off that food-coma.  I don’t think I received a single shred of work related email during the whole time.  Since my mind can relax while I munch on a second serving of turkey or seafood, it gives me time to ponder what could have changed in the past 365 days.  In my case, I feel like I’ve worked very hard in the past year, but haven’t accomplished much.  I’ve sacrificed sleep, free time and my health all for menial returns.

I’m not saying 2011 was bad; I’ve gone to speak at conferences, I created an HTML5 demo application which is still in use today, I created a successful Parsley workshop, became my niece’s Godfather, went to work in Australia for 3 months and visited Vietnam on the way back to New York where I’m spearheading the engineering side of a start-up company.  Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I haven’t accomplished as much as I could or should have.  Maybe it’s because I have a lot of projects and ideas in my head, but I just can’t seem to finish or even start them in some cases.

One thing that did change in 2011 is that I became a notorious note-taker.  Anything that came to mind which peaked my interest, I wrote down somewhere; for the most part in Google Tasks.  Maybe it’s the sheer number of ideas (hovering around 60 right now) that just seems to sit there or maybe it’s the fact that in the last year I haven’t expressed myself creatively in a proper form.  I’m hard-pressed to remember the last time I brewed beer or played the bass for that matter.  One of the few creative outlets that is still kicking around is cooking, which I love, but I hardly have time to do it or so it seems.  I need a new plan, a change of perspective and greater focus.

I needed to re-brand myself and this website is the first step to that.  I’m not just talking about the design of the site (which will be changing a lot in the next few months) but the content as well.  Since this site has been created, the content has always been very technical and, let’s be honest, dry because of the subject matter;  I plan to change that in the coming months.  Not only will there be tech how-to’s and interesting tidbits, but I will strive to add musings, opinions, creative projects and the occasional video; this website will become a hub for my upcoming creative experiments.

All I can do now is hope that you will follow me on this venture and wish you all a happy new year.