Jessica Enders.

I've been involved in a few debates about this question lately and would like to write an article summarising the different positions. It would be great if you could spend a few minutes emailing me or posting your personal position on the following query:

"As a matter of best practice, should forms on the web be designed to look like their paper equivalents? Why/why not? "

I recognise that this is a fairly "open" question but there are lots of different ways that one could come at this issue and I'm keen to hear about them all! Will send around a link to the article when done, for future reference.

Thanks in anticipation,

Jessica Enders Principal Formulate Information Design

http://formulate.com.au

Phone: (02) 6116 8765 Fax: (02) 8456 5916 PO Box 5108 Braddon ACT 2612

[Apologies if you get this email more than once - I'm casting a wide net]

Vytas Gaizutis.

Well said, Will.

Will Evans.

I would say just as important, perhaps, as those things mentioned so eloquently above, is having a clear purpose about what exactly you want to do. "Only a clear - even idealistic - purpose can provide the direction, unity and mutual respect that bind a company to itself and its customers and creates a truly unique and exciting brand [...] Purpose becomes the moral engine of the company, the source of its energy" ~ Nikos Mourkogiannis

Your purpose should be a true re% uFB02ection of why you do what you do and why you think you can achieve your personal purpose better as a freelancer or as your own company than within a larger organization. It should live at the intersection of what you truly do better than anyone else and what your clients truly care about, and where that is best served.

I'd love to continue this dialogue, but I challenge you with - what is your purpose - what really is your passion and vision that lives at the core of why you wake up every morning and do what you do - and what are the ideas and motivations leading you to consider becoming a freelancer, or starting your own business. The ideas behind your purpose should transcend your company. The truths of your idea should exist whether or not you do it as a freelancer, consultant, or within an organization. What matters is what vehicle is best to get you where you want to go. My humble 2 cents. I have been on my own since last November, by the way - as a consulting user experience architect.

I love it!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=31583

Vytas Gaizutis.

Wendy,

You didn't mention what area you'd be freelancing in. Is it

- visual design for web and software? - marketing communications? - branding, corporate identity design? - packaging? - IA? - Interaction design? - A combination of the above? - Something else?

Some of these areas lend themselves better to freelance work that others. Some can easily be done 100% off-site. Others involve lots of client face time and working directly with teams (deep brainstorming sessions and iteration).

In addition, there's a greater demand for some of these specialties than for others. There's also cheap, offshore competitors to consider. Many clients are clueless with respect to quality. Case in point: Those schlock logo shops that spit out clip-art-looking corporate identities for $99.99. Many business owners think these are such a deal :-)

Also, some larger companies won't contract with you unless you meet certain criteria, such as having a liability insurance, etc. Plus, from my own experience, larger companies tend not be be timely payers (a generalization, I know). Often, your invoice goes into Accounts Payable hell where it can sit there 90 days and beyond. You have to plan for this.

You may wish to consider partnering with someone you can focus on getting new business. When I did freelance work in the past I found that when I was deep in designing I wasn't setting up my next gig. Then when the assignment ended, I went dry for awhile until I could secure new work.

Christine Boese.

There's one calculation that is helpful, to figure whether you can actually live as a freelancer. I was a freelance photographer back in the 80s, for instance, and it would have helped me immensely to do this little piece of math, but I was young and had no clue.

Figure out what you're gonna charge, on average, per job. Figure out how many jobs at that rate you could conceivably do/finish (depending on time frame) a month. Subtract monthly expenses. Multiply by 12.

That's just a quick and dirty reality check, not actual accounting. When the bottom fell out of the photography market, when photos started appearing on CD-ROMs for less than pennies an image, I knew I was destined to lose, no matter what I did, even in best case circumstances. Same for newspaper shooting, killing yourself with long hours, nights and weekends, for something people will throw away every day, if they even see it. No resale value whatsoever.

Granted, wedding shooters have benefited from a neo gilded age acceptance of massive charges for wedding photography, a black box combo of both skill and puffery. They make money, and pump the volume in and out the door. The puffery side of the business sort of made me nauseous, as did the feeling that I'd be scamming people out of their money. That's what I get for growing up blue collar. I thought less wealthy people deserved nice wedding pictures too (and fellow grad students, as that was how I made extra money in grad school, doing weddings--if you're working together scraping up beer money, are you going to charge $5K-$10K per wedding? It just felt exploitive, but the shooters who made that shift from the $1K wedding to the $5-$10K wedding got rich--fleecing people, if you ask me). But even if you are in the $5K wedding shooter club, you gotta shoot at least 12 weddings a year to make $60K (before expenses and taxes). The actual shooting takes up the least amount of time in the entire wedding job.

But the hard part is, you have to realize that whatever you are wanting to do has to be converted to a unit that multiplies into an annual income. (I applied this test for a friend who was wanting to start a video production service for real estate agents, for instance, and it sobered her up real quick to realize that even pumping the max number of paying jobs in and out the door in a year that any one human could conceivably complete (without relying on subcontractors and increasing expenses), she'd at most be able to clear about $30K a year (a major pay cut for her), for the price she was thinking of charging.) And that's not factoring in a freelancer's dry time between clients, and the fact that there is only so much space in any person's head to give to creative projects at one time, or you have a stress breakdown.

Chris

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Ron Edelen <ron at myjive.net
> wrote:
> There is very little difference between freelancing and having your own
> business, especially when you freelance from home. Making the transition is
> not hard, but requires you to maintain simple business habits.
>
> Here's what worked for me.
>
> 1) Maintaining a killer reputation with the firms (or clients) you previous
> freelanced with. Referrals from these contacts are critical to keeping a
> flow of work.
>
> 2) Occasionally take work that you may not like to do, as long as it is
> within your ethical boundaries and minimum budgetary needs. This will keep
> work flowing in and expand your market/network of clients.
>
> 3) Use contracts. Protect yourself, your client, and your ability to
> represent your work to prospectives. AIGA has a good, free starting point.
> Look specifically at the Basic terms and conditions, and Supplement 2:
> Interactive-Specific Terms and Conditions.
> (http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/standard-agreement)
>
> 4) Keep up with all the latest trends in advertising/design/marketing. Even
> if you are tech-focused and have little interest in campaigns - Starbucks
> Ideas for example (www.mystarbucksideas.com), which is no more than a blog
> with a rating system - it is good to be able to know the market, the
> successful trends, how to apply your knowledge to solutions that have high
> ROI probability, and be able to sell (talk it up) your abilities to
> prospective clients.
>
> 5) If you are starting a company, think about working with a business
> partner who can add similar or complimentary offerings to your own. This has
> been a critical ingredient for me. Your business will grow faster, and you
> won't go insane trying to do it. Example: someone who can bounce absurd
> client request (good cop - bad cop), share the day-to-day business tasks,
> and continually provide alternate perspectives to challenging circumstances.
> More often than not, a problem can't be solved by the person who created it.
>
> You have to weigh the pros-cons between freelance and running your own shop
> - of which I will let someone else chime in on. I was told that any new
> business won't see profit for first two to five years. This model is
> slightly obscured in the internet-service industry, which is relatively low
> risk and requires very little overhead. In others words, all you need is a
> computer, a few pounds of vanilla-nut coffee, and air conditioning.
>
> :) Ron
>
> On Jul 25, 2008, at 2:26 PM, erpdesigner wrote:
>
>
> I'm at the point where I am looking for a job, but also doing a lot of
>
> contract/freelance work. In regards to the job front I'm not finding what I
>
> want or I find something and the position gets put on hold.
>
>
>
> I'm trying to figure out how to turn my freelance work into a sustainable
>
> business, something that can provide me with a steady stream of revenue and
>
> income. When I was younger, I tried freelancing but didn't turn it into a
>
> sustainable business. I was not charging enough for services nor was I at a
>
> point where I really understood how to run a business (nor did I really want
>
> to).
>
>
>
> I think the biggest issues for me are 1) marketing myself 2) business
>
> development and 3) contract rates.
>
>
>
> Can anybody share their experience of how they went from freelancer and
>
> built themselves a business? I'd be interested to hear people's stories.
>
> What are the pain points, how did you solve them?
>
>
>
> -Wendy
>
>
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
>
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
>
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
>
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
>
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

Oleh Kovalchuke.

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Jeremy Yuille <overlobe at isomorpho.us
> wrote:

> re 'patterns': I think something like Pattern Tap compliments other
> resources like http://welie.com or http://ui-patterns.com/ for the reason
> that it approaches selection from a different angle: 'Tasty Design' ;-)

I think you are right, Jeremy.

In our approach to building a corporate pattern library, we plan to provide generic pattern description with snippets of code in a wiki, and link the description to the visual "live" examples of various implementations of the patterns (this visual index is somewhat similar to the PaternTap). The live examples would link back to the detailed pattern descriptions. This looks like a good idea so far, since different examples could utilize several patterns and the other way around.

By the way, thanks to Jared Spool for putting together generic pattern description template. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, we simply use the one he has compiled.

-- Oleh Kovalchuke Interaction Design is design of time http://www.tangospring.com/IxDtopicWhatIsInteractionDesign.htm

Andrea Steurer.

Big Fish is looking for an Interactive Prototyper for an assignment with a software company on the East side. We are looking for someone who can hit the ground running and has experience with interaction and visual design. Professionals with experience working on new software applications for emerging markets are a definite plus. We are looking for candidates who can think outside the box on projects with fairly constraining parameters in terms of technology available and access to technology.

You must have strong communications skills and be able to work in a very collaborative small team environment with little supervision. You should be able to work on a range of deliverables: story board prototypes (more linear), demos and interactive prototypes (Flash or Silverlight based). CSS knowledge would be a plus.

Skills/Education * Demonstrated proficiency with Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, Silverlight, and HTML/Web authoring * Microsoft experience a plus * Higher education degree in HCI, Visual Communications or other related field * An online design portfolio showing strong creative skills, ability to generate solid design ideas, and thorough understanding of good design process.

Apply online for this job (#4606) and others at

http://www.gobigfish.com/jobDetail.aspx? jobid=4606 - Register with Big Fish today!

J. Ambrose Little.

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 9:10 AM, matthew Smith <matthew at squaredeye.com
> wrote:

> @Jared
> How would you best describe what Pattern Tap showcases? What language
> would you change or redefine? I'd be interested to see how we can
> gaurd those terms well, and honor the work of folks like yourself,
> while hopefully at the same time, offering a bit of expansion to
> terms like "pattern".

Hi Matt,

I'm not Jared, but I've been watching this thread with interest. I appreciate what you've done and want to do in terms of helping provide sources of inspiration, but I share others' concern about the extension of the 'pattern' term. I think there is already too much confusion around it and think it'd be better not to extend it to mean 'example', which is what I take away from patterntap. I think what Alexander was trying to get at in his books on patterns is more than this and has a lot to offer the interaction design community that we shouldn't overlook or water down.

Again, I think what you're doing is definitely valuable and appreciated; the concern's just about the terminology.

--Ambrose

Will Evans.

Read 2.0 now. You already have it. It's great. It's useful. Reading that now is better than waiting to get 3.0

That said - 3.0 is worth the money to "upgrade" so to speak, but I would recommend reading 2.0 now and waiting about a year, and then reading 3.0 when you have a chance.

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Mark Ahlenius <m_ahlenius at comcast.net
> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have a copy of the About Face 2.0 The Essentials of Interaction Design,
> which I have not cracked open yet (but was going to soon). Now I see that
> the third version is out, called About Face 3. Does anyone know if the 3rd
> one is that much better than the 2nd - enough that its worth spending the $$
> for it?
>
> thanks
>
> 'mark
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

-- ~ will

"Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems"

Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com twitter: https://twitter.com/semanticwill

Will Evans.

Someone asked me in a meeting last week if I had started to see Twitter conventions seeping into online discussion boards and email lists. MS's use of @Jared is the first time I have seen it on the list - although it's not his correct twitter name.

:-)

Interest -- Might start another thread - Twitter conventions becoming commonplace in other online mediums - examples?

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 9:10 AM, matthew Smith <matthew at squaredeye.com
> wrote:

> @Jared
> How would you best describe what Pattern Tap showcases? What language
> would you change or redefine? I'd be interested to see how we can
> gaurd those terms well, and honor the work of folks like yourself,
> while hopefully at the same time, offering a bit of expansion to
> terms like "pattern".
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=31495
>
>
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

-- ~ will

"Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems"

Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com twitter: https://twitter.com/semanticwill

Michael Tuminello.

Hi -

I am looking for someone for the following job. I think it will be pretty fun (I&#8217;m a jealous that I don&#8217;t have time to do all the work myself, but will be working with the designer). We will be gathering the requirements, so I'm mostly looking for someone to work in a graphic design capacity, although if they can effectively help with the research in this short a time frame, that would definitely not be a minus.

Seeking a talented graphic designer with data visualization/ information design (and preferably UI/interaction design) experience to help design graphics for web-based system. The goal is to present system data in a way that will help/speed decision making. Dashboard design experience a plus. Flash experience a plus. Fans of Tufte, please apply. For visual references see NY Times interactive features, Google stock charts, etc. Freelance for 1-2 months. Transition to fulltime a possibility.

If you're not looking but know someone, I'd appreciate leads as well. You can send portfolio links and resumes right to me at this address. Might want to put IXDA in the subject so I can easily spot them among the enormous number of unqualified applicants flooding in from the big job boards.

thanks &#8211;

Michael

Will Evans.

As an update - I just was contacted by the WSJ who is doing a story about Sean Tevis, and wanted to interview folks who gave donations ending in $0.88 after reading the source code. I plugged the IxDA community.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=31457

Kamila Jagnanan.

Hello

Please post the attached job on the IXDA website. Should you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thank you

Kamila Jagnanan

Human Resources

Ithaka

151 East 61st Street

New York, NY 10021

212-500-2369

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>

Ron Edelen.

There is very little difference between freelancing and having your own business, especially when you freelance from home. Making the transition is not hard, but requires you to maintain simple business habits.

Here's what worked for me.

1) Maintaining a killer reputation with the firms (or clients) you previous freelanced with. Referrals from these contacts are critical to keeping a flow of work.

2) Occasionally take work that you may not like to do, as long as it is within your ethical boundaries and minimum budgetary needs. This will keep work flowing in and expand your market/network of clients.

3) Use contracts. Protect yourself, your client, and your ability to represent your work to prospectives. AIGA has a good, free starting point. Look specifically at the Basic terms and conditions, and Supplement 2: Interactive-Specific Terms and Conditions. (http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/standard-agreement )

4) Keep up with all the latest trends in advertising/design/marketing. Even if you are tech-focused and have little interest in campaigns - Starbucks Ideas for example (www.mystarbucksideas.com), which is no more than a blog with a rating system - it is good to be able to know the market, the successful trends, how to apply your knowledge to solutions that have high ROI probability, and be able to sell (talk it up) your abilities to prospective clients.

5) If you are starting a company, think about working with a business partner who can add similar or complimentary offerings to your own. This has been a critical ingredient for me. Your business will grow faster, and you won't go insane trying to do it. Example: someone who can bounce absurd client request (good cop - bad cop), share the day- to-day business tasks, and continually provide alternate perspectives to challenging circumstances. More often than not, a problem can't be solved by the person who created it.

You have to weigh the pros-cons between freelance and running your own shop - of which I will let someone else chime in on. I was told that any new business won't see profit for first two to five years. This model is slightly obscured in the internet-service industry, which is relatively low risk and requires very little overhead. In others words, all you need is a computer, a few pounds of vanilla-nut coffee, and air conditioning.

:) Ron

On Jul 25, 2008, at 2:26 PM, erpdesigner wrote:

> I'm at the point where I am looking for a job, but also doing a lot
> of contract/freelance work. In regards to the job front I'm not
> finding what I want or I find something and the position gets put on
> hold.
>
> I'm trying to figure out how to turn my freelance work into a
> sustainable business, something that can provide me with a steady
> stream of revenue and income. When I was younger, I tried
> freelancing but didn't turn it into a sustainable business. I was
> not charging enough for services nor was I at a point where I really
> understood how to run a business (nor did I really want to).
>
> I think the biggest issues for me are 1) marketing myself 2)
> business development and 3) contract rates.
>
> Can anybody share their experience of how they went from freelancer
> and built themselves a business? I'd be interested to hear people's
> stories. What are the pain points, how did you solve them?
>
> -Wendy
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help

John Chin.

Thanks to MJ and the rest of the organizing committee and hosts for this event. I appreciate all of the effort in making it all happen! Yours, John Chin

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 2:03 PM, MJ Broadbent <mj at mjbroadbent.com
> wrote:

> NYC IxDA sends out kudos to Luke Williams of frog design, who gave a superb
> presentation last night to a standing-room-only, overflow crowd of 75
> attendees. Our deep appreciation also goes to event host, Icon Nicholson.
> The group was enthralled by Luke's thought-provoking discussion on how
> humans interact with shapes and objects at a fundamental, cognitive level.
> Last but not least, a big thanks to everyone from our vibrant local
> community who came out to participate!
>
> See you next time: Wednesday, September 17th when Dan Saffer of Adaptive
> Path will present "Tap is the New Click" from his upcoming new book.
> (Details to follow.)
>
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

brendan.

I'm a big fan of Textpattern (http://textpattern.com/) myself.

I found myself stripping out a ton of inline PHP and stuff trying. to learn how to template Wordpress, Txp seems to just stay out of my way.

I'm pretty much a strictly front-end ((x)HTML/CSS/JS) guy, and found myself "just getting it" with Txtpattern, had my template plugged into Txp and was up and running in one night.

There's a super active comunity and a great book (Textpattern Solutions) that really brought my understanding to a whole new level; it's a deceptively simple CMS with a lot of power. I consider it to be somewhere between Wordpress and a full on Framework/CMS like Joomla or Drupa (nothing against those at all, by the way).

Here's a pretty good Textpattern gallery: http://welovetxp.com/

I've played around a bit with Expresion Engine (http://expressionengine.com/) as well, but not ready to drop $99 for the license just yet.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=31537

Mark Ahlenius.

Hi,

I have a copy of the About Face 2.0 The Essentials of Interaction Design, which I have not cracked open yet (but was going to soon). Now I see that the third version is out, called About Face 3. Does anyone know if the 3rd one is that much better than the 2nd - enough that its worth spending the $$ for it?

thanks

'mark

Christine Boese.

This came up in a discussion I was in the other day too, about whether blog software is a de facto content management system. My argument here would be, if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

So, like there were lots of people who turned up their nose at HTML back in the early days, because it was such a thin and pale imitation of SGML, a REAL markup language, after all.

So why did HTML in effect trump SGML? Could it be because its ease of use enabled far greater widespread distributed or democratized uses than the more powerful and full-featured SGML?

For that matter, why would anyone use a PC, a weak, desktop machine, when mainframes are so much more powerful, and do so many more things. Could it be because the ease of use enabled far greater widespread distributed or democratized uses than the more powerful and full featured mainframes and "microcomputers"?

Chris

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 12:15 PM, Elin Sjursen <elin at elinesca.com
> wrote:
> I wouldn't think of typepad as a cms anymore than I would blogger:)
> But that said, there is another really neat "typepad" like publishing
> system out there - squarespace.com. It is really easy to use and very
> customizable &#8211; it even contains an analytics system. They've just
> launched a new version. Have a look,
> Elin
>
> On 7/25/2008, "Christine Boese" <christine.boese at gmail.com
> wrote:
>
>
>Thanks, Elena. I'm also feeling that Typepad is getting dated,
>
>however, and I chart that directly to the disaster that was the
>
>Movable 3.0 launch, which was when the entire Movable community
>
>started migrating en masse to WordPress and Drupal. That didn't hurt
>
>Typepad, but it took most the strongest design energy away from the
>
>Movable/Typepad platform, as if a center of gravity shifted.
>
>
>
>I had an advantage, being a Typepad beta tester, of having 20% off the
>
>monthly Pro fee for life, and for years after, any guest I invite also
>
>gets my discount grandfathered in (don't know if that still works, but
>
>it means $11.95 a month, unlimited blogs, unlimited something else,
>
>space, I think). I wouldn't get anything but the pro account.
>
>
>
>But then I'm looking to spend at least $6.95 a month now, for
>
>WordPress hosting, so I figure, six of one... l just suck it up and
>
>support my habit.
>
>
>
>Chris
>
>
>
>On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Elena Melendy <emelendy at gmail.com
> wrote:
>
>
> Christine Boese wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nobody is speaking up in defense of Typepad
>
>
>
> Here we are,
>
>
>
> interaction designers, and nobody is talking about the subtle
>
>
>
> colorations the blog input interface brings to the kinds of things one
>
>
>
> writes about, and how writers FEEL about the interface.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> If you want the best control over your CSS, you can't beat Typepad.
>
>
>
> Custom CSS is brilliant, even if I've only needed it for teaching.
>
>
>
> That's just cuz I was too lazy to move out of my Advanced Templates,
>
>
>
> but if I had to start from scratch now, I'd be in nothing but the
>
>
>
> Custom CSS stuff
>
>
>
>
>
> Chris, I'm bowled over by your passionate defense of Typepad! To be fair,
>
>
> though, I think it hasn't been raised as a possibility because in my
>
>
> original post, I specified that I was looking for a free CMS. To get control
>
>
> over CSS and advanced templates in Typepad, I'd have to pay $15/mo.
>
>
>
>
>
> I'm not making any kind of statement about the business model--just about my
>
>
> current budget.
>
>
>
>
>
> I'm definitely interested in the kind of discussion about interface you're
>
>
> describing. It seems to me that one of the reasons Typepad can charge $5/mo
>
>
> for the basic, single-blog, non-customizable feature set is because of the
>
>
> high quality of its UI. When I said that Drupal's interface was "easy to
>
>
> use," I meant that it has very sensible architecture. The UI is nothing to
>
>
> speak of, though.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
>
>To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
>
>Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
>
>List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
>
>List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

erpdesigner.

I'm at the point where I am looking for a job, but also doing a lot of contract/freelance work. In regards to the job front I'm not finding what I want or I find something and the position gets put on hold.

I'm trying to figure out how to turn my freelance work into a sustainable business, something that can provide me with a steady stream of revenue and income. When I was younger, I tried freelancing but didn't turn it into a sustainable business. I was not charging enough for services nor was I at a point where I really understood how to run a business (nor did I really want to).

I think the biggest issues for me are 1) marketing myself 2) business development and 3) contract rates.

Can anybody share their experience of how they went from freelancer and built themselves a business? I'd be interested to hear people's stories. What are the pain points, how did you solve them?

-Wendy

MJ Broadbent.

NYC IxDA sends out kudos to Luke Williams of frog design, who gave a superb presentation last night to a standing-room-only, overflow crowd of 75 attendees. Our deep appreciation also goes to event host, Icon Nicholson. The group was enthralled by Luke's thought-provoking discussion on how humans interact with shapes and objects at a fundamental, cognitive level. Last but not least, a big thanks to everyone from our vibrant local community who came out to participate!

See you next time: Wednesday, September 17th when Dan Saffer of Adaptive Path will present "Tap is the New Click" from his upcoming new book. (Details to follow.)