Tag Archives: Team

Bear Fruit

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‘According to trend watchers, defriending will be the trend. Large numbers of people will delete vague acquaintances from their networking sites, such as Facebook, and Linkedin, because they only want to keep quality contacts. It has to do with slowing down, the need for quality time, and perhaps some network site fatigue, according to all sorts of trend blogs, which seem to echo each other.’

I just read the above snippet in an online newspaper, it confirms my feeling about the whole networking issue. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that someone refuses to reply to a friendly email that I’d sent responding to the invitation that I received from the same person. In the meantime I’ve sent another email making her aware of her non-responsive manners. I told her that it’s okay if she doesn’t want to stay in touch but that I’d like to know where I stand. So far no reaction… I was assertive but friendly so obviously the next friendly thing to do is to defriend her from the network.

I’ve always seemed to look for excuses or reasons to justify other people’s behaviour but I’ve learnt over the last few weeks that the only way to find out what’s on a person’s mind is to be clear about things and be straightforward, in other words assertive. I’m not used to being assertive and I have put myself in situations that became utterly frustrating because of this. I take full responsibility and I can’t blame others for misreading my mixed signals. I’ve changed my ways, since it didn’t make me happy having to deal with the consequences and I’ve noticed that it started to bear fruit!

If I can get rid of clutter in boxes than I should definitely be able to get rid of the clutter in my social life. The other situation seems to be slightly improving as well although I’m reluctant to trust this person to keep her promise and pay me back my money. The good thing is that if there’s no progress soon that I’ve collected enough facts to see a solicitor over time and trust me, I will… the friendship is finished as far as I’m concerned. It hurts in a way, because I’ve know this person for a long time but she broke my trust many times over the last three year so it’s best for me to let go and move on.

I have some exciting news but it’s all depending on a few circumstances so I’m going to be a bit cautious. I’ve had to deal with so many disappointments that I’ve decided not to mention anything until there is some real results. That way I won’t have expectations and I won’t disappoint myself if things are canceled once again. One has to do with a possible job offer the other has to do with a new study that I’ll start and a future plan I’m working on that involves a partner in crime… I’ve teamed up with someone but it’s all still very fresh so we have to discuss the details and plan soon.

If all goes well, I will let go of the old career slowly while preparing for the new career. I’ll have a meeting on the 8th of June to see if the study is what I expect it to be. If so, than I’ll need to prepare a case to make sure that I’ll get the funding. I have a lot of work to do in the next couple of months but it feels good to be working on my future… it does! I already met some really nice people who offered help even when I didn’t ask, they just did… Those are the kind of people I’d like to surround myself with, people who appreciate you for who you are, quality contacts and possible friends…

It all starts to bear fruit!

© Dreamstime – Mouthwatering

The Quiet Me

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I’m quiet… I realise I am… That’s because I seem to be in a whirlpool again. Not a bad one though but one that consumes my time and leaves me drained. It’s kinda weird but work seems to be coming in more and more and I have to keep lists of people that I need to contact otherwise I simply forget. I’m about to team up with a Dutch coder, he sent me an email last week with a very interesting proposal and he sounded genuine which is extremely important to me because I learned my lesson and refuse to deal with time-wasters.

I’ve met a few over the last months that contacted me through my blog but it only confirmed my feelings that I should keep personal and business separate. So I no longer accept requests through this blog in fact I’m thinking of setting up another blog to write about design and business which will be directly linked to my business website. Something a friend suggested a while ago, clever man he is, he was right and it would be great to show my recent design work there as well, that way I will have a splendid showcase.

Back to the Dutch coder, the deal is that he will do the coding and I will do the design and from what he told me, he seems like the person who knows what he wants and who has his act together. I’ve been approached in the past to team up with others but after some time I could always tell the other person turned out to be just hot air. These days I’m more cautious but this one sounds great and most of all enthusiastic and even better: with very interesting projects lined up [yes more things to do! *hehe*].

Then there is another team option which I was asked for but somehow I feel that that one -again- is just hot air… I keep my option open though and haven’t decided yet, let’s see what’s on offer first before I’ll jump to conclusions. This is a UI designer who wants to set up a team of people probably worldwide, he would contact me again soon, we’ll see what happens. Then there is a client that I will have to approach this week, a contact that I got through my accountant, he is in need of a website so I will send him an email today.

In the meantime I’m still working on the online leather gloves shop, if all goes well the software should be installed on their server/domain this weekend so I can finally start transferring my design to their server. Once that’s done I will start the last phase which is building the product pages, add the press and news pages, test the website, and replace current images with the new autumn collection ones. In between projects I will start building websites for friends, they’ll be small ones so they won’t take much time.

I was asked to design business cards for the garden designer and I also have to design an advert for my own business which will be placed in one of London’s black cabs. I was offered this brilliant way of advertising for free by a client who wanted to show his appreciation, isn’t that cool? So I need to come up with a marketing plan, I need new business cards that will be placed in the cab as well and I will have to start designing and installing that business blog so people will be able to see and read what I’m up to.

I realise the list is long but I am extremely excited about the whole thing. So to ease my mind a bit and to work out ways to deal with all this I needed some quiet time, some ‘me’ time to reflect… And while I reflect, ideas are born and sketches and notes flow from my Staedtler leadholder like water flows from a tap once turned on. But letting the water run without using it is a waste of a valuable source so for now the tap is off again while I start changing sketches and notes into digital designs… Being creative is fun!

[off to read and comment on blogs now, reply to emails and write a few and install Movable Type on my business domain]