I almost wrote “2007 Resolutions” as the title, then realized that I was two years off. Where the hell did the time go?
I graduated from college in June 2007, ready and able to take the world to its knees. And while I didn’t publicly write down any goals, I still remember my major goals for the last year.
2008 in Review
South by Southwest
Probably the best thing I did all year. I was a bit disheartened to find out that my work would not pay for me to go (since they’ll pay for conferences within the state already), but I ponied up the money, bought my hotel room, and threw myself into the melee of web design completely alone and knowing no one at the conference. It was intimidating, as I am by nature a very shy person, but I came out of it with knowledge and a few friends. These friends would help me network within my own area and jumpstart the networking process.
Geek Dinner
I had my first speaking opportunity, as small as it was, at the Silicon Valley Geek Dinners. I spoke about multivariate testing (being that it is now my main job at work) and was astonished by the amount of people who haven’t heard of it before (quick explaination). I will probably capitalize on this for future speaking opportunities.
Websites launched
I now have THREE unfinished websites, all in my name:
All of these are in need of serious work (this website needs to have all the formatting finished; veggieblog needs the last bit of graphic work plus actual blog posts; dream list needs its own skin) but I definitely have gotten more into the habit of writing. Since I only barely passed my writing courses in college, a lot of work (and practice) is needed and I’ve gotten on the right track.
2009 Resolutions
That’s it? That’s all I’ve done, professionally, in 2008? Rather annoying, if you ask me.
Resolutions:
- Finish Limedaring. I want to add in hand-drawn elements, and I don’t have a scanner. Really, this is the largest obstacle to finishing this website; I get so frustrated that I can’t (easily) do what I want to do so I put it off. So: In 2009, I will finish this website, finally.
- Write more at Veggieblog (and give it a better name): This is simply for writing practice, but I should get back in the habit of working on it.
- Write more on my Dreamlist.
- Speak professionally at least thrice. I need more practice if I’m ever to speak at a conference.
- Finish projects — first, the project I’m working on with others, and then start my own idea for a webapp. As I’m not skilled in stuff like Python, I will need help to get this webapp off the ground.
- At some point this year, look at my current job situation and determine whether it is fulfilling my needs. Move on if I have to (and especially if I NEED to).
- Look into getting myself into a position to consult, if I ever lose my job and need a backup.
- At the end of the year, submit a topic to speak about at SXSW.
May this year be fulfilling and exciting; may this year bring myself to higher levels professionally, and may this year leave me in an even better place than before.
{ respond }
Keep working, keep learning, and don’t be discouraged. Apprentice yourself to, or work with, people who know what they’re doing. Don’t settle for easy. Don’t be too lenient on your own work. Don’t accept the first job you’re offered. Don’t stay in a bad job, you’ll be miserable all the time, and you’ll have nothing to show for your years.
Be excited! You’re inventing something new on the planet. Imitate to get started, sure, but don’t settle for copying any master, because nobody has really figured this out yet, and the person who figures it out best just might be you.
~Jeffrey Zeldman at designinterviews.com
{ respond }
- Climb a mountain
- Skydive
- Make a million dollars
- Hang-glide
- Bungee Jump
- Act in a movie
- Write a book
- Live in another country for at least three months
- Backpack across Europe
- Scuba dive the great barrier reef
- Open a restaurant
- Sell a piece of art
- Become proficient in a martial art
- Become proficient in an instrument (?)
- Complete a Century (100 mile bike race)
- Appear in a magazine
- Learn to surf
- Sing in a band to an audience
- Build my dream house
- Learn another language
- Meet the President
- Work a season of a renaissance faire
- Swim with dolphins
- Visit the Amazon
- Visit the North Pole
- Hike the Pacific Crest Trail
- Dogsled
- Learn to sail
- Learn to read Latin
- Attend the Oscars
- Be in New York for New Years
- Attend a movie premier
- Snowshoe
- Compete in a triathlon
- Live in the south of France for awhile
- Get a motorcycle license
- Attend Burning Man
- See the Northern Lights
- Go on a Hot Air Balloon
- Pierce something other than my ears
- Achieve a healthy BMI
- Pet a tiger
- Run a mile in less than 10 minutes
- Own a business
- Own my own house
- Spend a night in a haunted house
- Learn to dance
- Safe a life
- Speak at a conference
- Do a cartwheel
- Ride a unicycle
- Work a day at Charm City Cakes
Well, thar it is. How shall I start going about this?
I can’t stop thinking of things to add…
EDIT: AUGH. So the original perpetrator of all these wishy-washy dreams has his own TV show. I have it TiVo-ed, and you should too: YouTube Preview
Someday I’ll be awesome… someday…
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Six years I wrote this.
Six years ago, if I was told that, when I was 24, out of college and holding a job, that I hadn’t gone anywhere or done much, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.
I’m a dreamer. Wisher, day-dreamer, optimist, et cetera. I believed that life was the meaning of life was having the fullest, biggest life you could have. Reading “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, I read a story of a dying teenager who wrote down everything he wanted to do in life, and proceeded to go through as many as he could. And I wrote a list of my own. Skydiving. Mountain climbing. Backpacking through Europe. Learning another language.
Something changed in my mentality, and I believe it was when my father passed away from cancer. I’m scared of death now. I’m scared, period. And I began to play it safe. Got a job I didn’t particularily like, made money, put my dreams on hold. It was a game of, “Someday, I’ll be able to do so-and-so. But not now.”
I don’t know what happened the last few days, but I’ve been thinking of all my missed opportunities. I realized that the life I’m living now is not the life I dreamed of. And yes, at 24 years, I feel old. I feel like I’m wasting my time.
I’ve been kicking around ideas of opening (yet another) new blog about dreams and specific things I’ve always wanted to do. Force myself to achieve one thing a day that helps me achieve those dreams that I’ve had since I was little. It’s probably ridiculous of me to add another thing to my plate, but maybe I’ll be smart about it.
Stay tuned.
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The day after my presentation on multivariate testing at the Geek Dinner, I kept thinking about how I was so astonished that almost no one there knew about or worked with multivariate testing. Perhaps I am being a bit self-deprecating, but I keep thinking that everyone else knows more than I do; so it’s strange (and enlightening) that there is a field where I can educate. I wanted to give a quick down down of what I talked about, and hopefully get a bit more information out there.
A/B Testing; smaller and easier
A/B Testing (or Split Tests) is the more well-known, easier to understand cousin of MVT. Basically, take your website, and create an alternate version — different design, different copy, anything you like — and set up your server to send 50% of your visitors to one version and 50% of your visitors to another. Then, you use your basic analytics package (like Google Analytics) or a click-tracking software (like Clicktracks), and determine which version of your website performs better depending on a certain metric (like how many visitors on each filled out a “Request Info” form).
Enter Multivariate Testing, A/B’s intimidating but really awesome cousin
The simplest difference between A/B and MVT is the number of “versions” you have on your website. In MVT, generally you set up a number of “factors” of things you will change. These factors could be:
- Link Color
- Header Image
- Introductory Text
- Background color/pattern
- Button color
- Button Text
- Logo Location
- Form Location
- Number of Form Fields
- So on and so forth…
Variations of these above factors, for something like “Link Color”, would be “Blue Link Color” and “Green Link Color”. A MVT is simply taking of all these factors and variations to create every single combination and finding out which combination of everything would create the best possible version of your website.
Full Factorial vs. Fractional Factorial
Obviously, the more factors and variations you combine, the larger exponentially the number of versions to test would become. A full factorial is simply every single version is tested, and a fractional factorial is only a subset of the number of variations — testing a random fourth of the entire number or so. This isn’t going to give perfect results, but my particular package will analyze how each of the groups perform, and determines which factors give the most positive impact and which give the most negative impact. So if you have a ton of ideas and things to test, you can use a fractional factorial to weed out the bad and negative ideas, then run a full factorial to find the best combination of the winning variations.
More information to come…
Hopefully the above makes sense; I’m going to write more about MVT testing soon but this post should give a good, quick overview of what A/B and Multivariate testing are and what they can do. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments!
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