After working on Friday, I thought it would be in my best interest to check out the final day of IZEA Fest on Saturday.  Waking up a little late, I made the unbearably long 5 minute treck from my house to the Grand Boehmian hotel in downtown Orlando.  I was impressed by the couple of sessions I saw and learned some great new things.   I also happened to know John Chow was attending IZEA Fest, so one of my missions was to meet up with him.

John and I go way back to the original dot com boom when we both ran successful tech websites that grew up as members of the Maximum PC Network.  My site, AbsolutePC.net fell by the wayside as the college life of studying, girls, and partying claimed AbsolutePC.net as its victim and so did a domainer.  John’s site, TheTechZone is still going strong and continues to earn a good income.  He may now be best known however for his personal blog, which while focusing on making money online, it is truly his personal blog with cool restaurant reviews and funny stories to go along with his money making tips, and of course his posts about how much money he makes by telling you how much money he makes.  So since speaking with him online since 1999, we finally met in person in 2008.  After a quick chat during a break, we checked out the last sessions of the day and parted ways.  I returned downtown for the IZEA Fest party and had an absolute blast.  Open bar is always a good idea… which then turns into a bad idea and a little too much fun.  Suffice it to say, Sunday hurt.

Wednesday was John’s last night in Orlando, so I invited John and his wife Sarah out to experience what I consider one of the finer culinary experiences Orlando has to offer, HUE.  We had an amazing dinner which you can read all about and take in the pictures on John’s blog.  It was great getting to know John and Sarah and I thoroughly enjoyed our dinner and conversation.  I learned alot and made 2 great new friends.  Thanks John, it was great to finally meet!

The College Park neighborhood is having its annual Jazz festival. The concert begins at 6pm and seating is available on a first come, first serve basis and the cost is free. “Just pack a picnic basket with your favorite food and beverages, grab a blanket or lawn chair and sit back to enjoy a warm fall evening under the stars, filled with beautiful jazz music and good friends!” Sounds like a good time to me. Interestingly, Alcoholic beverages are permitted for those 21 and older. I love being able to have a drink outdoors.

Additionally, Leu Gardens is hosting its Fall Jazz Stroll, consisting of live music and candlelit walks through the gardens. “Enjoy an evening of jazz & blues music performed by Beautiful Bobby Blackmon, The Robert Harris Group and Lindy & Sol Y Mar with candlelit walkways in Orlando’s most beautiful garden. Pack a dinner picnic basket and bring a blanket or chairs.” I enjoyed my first visit to the gardens recently and can think of no better date night. Tickets are $17 and went on sale October 22nd, the gardens will close at 3pm and reopen at 7 for the stroll.

I may just have to figure out a way to do both!

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups have been taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups… And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.
Savour the coffee, not the cups! The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

We have returned from the ACTE conference in Miami. Overall the conference was a success, both for ACTE and for NFi Studios. ACTE reached every goal they aimed for despite a few setbacks due to inclement weather. The nQuest Event Browser supported decent usage and great feedback from attendees, particularly on the newly released features.

The Green Movement is catching wind among many associations and events. Due to this they are not releasing conference collateral or presentations via printed hard copies any more. nQuest was equipped with a new Paperless Portal allowing attendees to insert their USB flash drive to easily select and download some or all of the conference presentations. The process is almost completely automated. Overall we received tremendous feedback from users on how quick and simple the process was to grab the presentations.

Usage of the Event Browser was consistent with previous events although usage of the Messaging component was down. This was most likely due to the conference location being in the United States with a large amount of U.S. attendees having access to mobile devices which support messaging and email. We tend to see higher messaging usage at overseas conferences that still have a large U.S. attendee base where these devices do not work. Usage of the new Paperless Portal was very good despite attendees learning of the feature late in the conference. We now look forward to future events in Singapore, Munich and Washington D.C.

(Via Derek Gallo.)

…Here’s the problem: You agree that feature X can be done in two hours. But four hours into it, you’re still only a quarter of the way done. The natural instinct is to think ‘but I can’t give up now, I’ve already spent four hours on this!’.

So you go into hero mode. Determined to make this work, but also embarrassed that it isn’t already so. So the hero grabs his hermit cape and isolates himself from feedback. ‘I really need to get this done, so I’ll turn off IM, Campfire, email, and more for now’. And some times that works. Throwing sheer effort at the problem to get it done.

But was it worth it? Probably not. The feature was deemed valuable at a cost of two hours, not sixteen. Sixteen hours of work could have gotten four other things done that individually were at least as important.

That’s where the concept of sunk cost gives us a guide on what to do. It doesn’t what you’ve already spent. That time and money is gone. It only matters whether spending what’s left is worth it or not. Business school 101, but one of the hardest lessons to internalize.

In other words, stop being so afraid of calling it quits. You’re playing to win the full season, not a single game. Every time you play the hero card, you’re jeopardizing the next game. Heroics are for when you have no other choice. When you can afford to take on tremendous risk because there’s no alternative.

(Via Signal vs. Noise.)

So is third-party web design a dead business?: “Many of your comments to the last blog were quite depressing. Most of you made one of two points:

1. Web design for clients doesn’t pay well. The only way to make money in this business is by designing your own sites and making money that way.

2. Most clients want a lot but won’t pay.

If that’s true, then there is no reason for web designers to do anything other than design for themselves.

But I don’t think it is true at all. I have always thought that most people think way too small.

I think one can design great web sites for their own purposes, and also get out there and market your knowledge and wisdom at a high price to firms and clients that will pay big bucks for the results you can get. If you don’t have all of the knowledge, you can partner up with others who do and provide a complete solution.

If I am wrong, and you are trying to market to clients who want a lot and won’t pay, get the heck out of this business! There are plenty of other ways to make an excellent living, and web design can be a hobby for you.

Otherwise, some of you need a major attitude adjustment, and need to start being more creative and seeing possibility and opportunity.”

(Via SitePoint Blogs.)