All this tab candy makes me think, do I need more RAM memory on my computer?

For me the key point of this talk comes between minute 11:24 and minute 13:05.

Mike’s advice is not to follow your dreams, not to pursue your passion but instead understand the world around you and do what you need to be thankful and successful at what you do and eventually happy doing it.

“Start building a network of fellow entrepreneurs that understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty about always chasing it.”
Cameron Herold

Personally, I love the idea of raising kids to work for their money instead of just giving them money. Let’s incentive and teach them to be creative on ways to make more money instead of just getting them as an allowance. On the other hand entrepreneurs don’t really have all the advantages a normal worker has such as the obligation of full paid vacations, sick days and dental care and eventually retirement.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be an entrepreneur but I also believe that in my country there’s no solid ground for this.

I’ve love to get your point of view on this. Do you believe being an entrepreneur is suitable for your children or even for you? Or do you prefer the financial security of a company worker?

Konigi has been one of my favorite websites when it comes to IA related subjects. On top of that Konigi also sells some interesting products. The Wireframe Notepad is a paper block containing contains 50 sheets of paper (8 1/2 x 11 inches (~ 21 x 27 cm)) with grids created specifically for sketching wireframes.

The grids are drawn with a non-photo blue (cyan) ink that allow you to scan the sketches without the grid. Also the 24 columns grid system makes it compatible with CSS grid frameworks.

The biggest upset come when you want to order it. It’s only available in the US.

Cost: $9 each block (50 sheets)

Alternatives to Konigi’s wireframe notepad

• Paper Browser – A free grid system with 960px width separated by 32×32 pixel squares. The paper is proportionally scaled for 1024×768 screen resolution.

  It comes as a PDF format so you can use it for digital work or simply print it for sketching.

• Browser Sketch Pad by UI Stencils.Cost: $9.95 (each Pad comes with 50 sheets)

  Download PDF format:

  • A4 Browser Sketch Pad Template
  • Letter size Browser Sketch Pad Template

Other useful resources

• Free Printable Sketching Wireframing and note taking
• A Collection of Printable Sketch Templates and Sketch Books for Wireframing

Pencils, pens & markers

photo by pigpongm

A while ago I remember reading about Pencils, Pens & Markers Sets used for offline wireframing.
Personally I’ve been in love with a Staedtler Noris H3 pencil for years. I’ve tried other models and brands but this one is the special one for me. I also own some coloring pencils of a brand called Milan and I find them great.

Usually if you are sketching wireframes you are not supposed to use color, but when sketching with paper you might want to describe certain actions or add notes and color can help in certain concepts of your visual information.

On Wireframe Magazine post they point out the most popular brands for wireframe hand sketching are Copics, Tombow and Primacolor. Unfortunately they are also some of the most expensive.

Website Stencil Kit

Although this resource kind of goes against the main idea of this post, practice productivity by hand drawing freely, sometimes, as information architects we need to do accurate straight-line sketches.
UI Stencils has this really cool set of kits of website stencils, iPod stencils and iPad stencils for offline sketching.

The includes a stainless steel stencil with commonly used iconography and a pixel based ruler, a Zebra Mechanical pencil, 2 UI Stencil stickers and a downloadable .PDF letter or A4 paper template.
Personally I like to sketch freely although having a notion of space, especially compared to

My personal resources

Although I made this list based on what some of the most known people in IA and UX use for their work, my personal resources are a bit similar but from different brands and economically more accessible.

• A4 Ambar drawing block
• Staedtler noris H3 and B2 pencils
• Uniball UM 100. The Uni-ball eye needle UN-167 also seems interesting.

It’s a very basic stock, I’m always trying to keep expenses down. On the other hand it’s important the people you work with, co-workers and clients, get a good impression from you and your work. I was fortunate enough to get a free wireframe notepad at UX LX, courtesy of London User Research Centre, afterwards I bought a decent set of pens and pencils.

Sometimes I print Paper Browser or this wireframe template by Alfonso Bozzelli for some quick sketching. Problem is that if I draw the whose website on these templates, clients usually think this is how it will show on their screens with no scroll. A quick workaround is drawing a straight line and explain what is above and bellow the fold.

I guess I’ve covered the basis for offline wireframe sketching. There are some color and visual concepts to be considered but that will be another post

I’d love to get feedback from you. Feel free to add to this post. Leave a comment.

Communicating with other users in Yammer

Like I mentioned Yammer works very similar to Twitter so you can use basically the same commands to communicate and search. For example you can mention someone by adding @username to your “Yam” or send a personal direct message by typing to:username.

Yammer allows you to attach files up to 50Mb with no limit in the amount of data stored at your network, meaning you can upload as many files as you want, as long as they are not over 50Mb.
Another great feature is the ability to follow people and tags, allowing you to be on top of project conversations via Yammer, E-mail or RSS feed.

Pricing

Yammer has 3 pricing plans with fairly reasonable pricing per user per month, Free, Silver and Gold.
If you are simple looking to communicate the free version is all you need but if you are looking for more control a paid version is advisable. Check Yammer’s pricing page for full list of features available on each plan.

How I use it

In March 2010 I started working on a startup company called Oferta Global – Web marketing services as a web and seo consultant. I felt the need to implement a few tools to improve our archiving and communication.

In April Oferta Global implemented Yammer to help improve organization and project management and with it the whole theme has a common place to share conversations and files regarding the projects we are working on, categorize messages using tags and keeping an archive of all the exchanged messages. The best of all is that Yammer works just like Twitter which made it a whole lot easier to use.

For me the biggest difference I find using Yammer comes when I’m searching the archives for a specific message or file when comparing to the hundreds of emails, many times what I want is a reply between many other replies and the whole email system is just a mess.

I recommend you give it a try, it’s free. It might not be the perfect tool for all businesses but can really improve internal communication. And in case you are still suspicious about giving it a try, companies like Adobe, AMX and Fox use Yammer so why shouldn’t you?

Visit Nikon’s CoolPix website and try their augmented reality experience using your webcam and basic gestures to navigate and zoom their gallery.

My co-worker Susana Vilaça published her 1st post on her new blog called What drives you? – motivation theories which talks about motivation techniques implemented in business that have been scientifically proven wrong but are still being implemented on current business management. The video it about 20 minutes long and presented by Daniel Pink at TED Talks.

Marketing

One other video I found very interesting is a marketing campaign created by BBDO Argentina using an iPhone, voice to text recognition and Twitter.
This innovative marketing campaign allowed thousands of people to interact, cheer, share opinion and follow the racers throughout the race.

Using an iPhone strapped to their arms and an earphone, simply by pressing a button, the runners were able to share their experiences with the world in real time. The voice message was turned into a text message that was automatically published at thehumanrace.com.ar/envivo/, in their Twitter accounts, and banners on sports vertical portals and news sites.

I am a strong defender that to be successful at anything you must love it and you must enjoy it. If you don’t than something is not right.

link: Stefan Sagmeister

My co-worker Catarina introduced me to the Pomodoro Technique, she found it quite interesting and a bit funny since Pomodoro means tomato in Italian. I decided to take a deeper look into the technique on my extremely short free time and test the results. This post is based on my 2 week experience of the Pomodoro Technique trying to GTD in my personal projects and life.

The Pomodoro Method

Like I mentioned the Pomodoro Technique has rules you must respect in order for the technique to be effective.

Rule #1
The most important rule and also the most basic one is knowing that 1 Pomodoro is equivalent to 25 minutes and you cannot subtract or add any minutes to it.
During these 25 minutes you must do only the task you committed yourself to do with no distractions and no breaks.

Rule #2
After each 25 minute period you must take 5 minutes off to relax.
You are not allowed to talk about work or engage in any activity that will require any mental effort such as making phone calls or writing emails that will require you to make decisions, etc… This is time for you to relax and completely disconnect from what you where doing, even if you did not finish it.

When you go back to an unfinished task reset the clock to 25 minutes and start the Pomodoro process from
the beginning. This means that the task you are doing will now last 2 Pomodoros (two 25 minute periods).

When you reach 4 Pomodoros (four 25 minute periods) increase the break to 15-30 minutes.

The way of the Pomodoro

Over the past two weeks I have been applying the Pomodoro Technique to myself and I’ve found extremely complicated to respect the 25 minute rule during the first 3-5 days but I managed.

The improvement is visible mostly on myself and on organization aspects like knowing exactly how much time I took to accomplish tasks and knowing that I was able to know exactly how much they cost.
On the other hand when I was working from 9pm I knew that I would get tired, slower and less motivated around 11pm so knowing that and breaking a coding process every 25 minutes isn’t the smartest thing to do.
But take in consideration each case should be handled as a single case but you must respect rule #1 do the Pomodoro Technique.

The hardest part is disciple, making yourself follow the rules but the the results are gratifying. You will sleep better, get things done and have them under control. Trust me, I have a rough time dealing with anxiety and this technique has helped.

Resources

I advise you to visit The Pomodoro Technique Website and download the free e-book complete with helpful sheets you can use with the Pomodoro Technique. It’s an excellent reading and will teach you The Pomodoro Technique and how to implement it to yourself and you team.

I use an Adobe Air based Application called Pomodairo which is a timer created to be used when applying the Pomodoro Technique.