Unfinished Business

I imagine if I told people in advance that I was talking to director of UX at MailChimp Aarron Walter and Founder of User Interface Engineering Jared Spool on Unfinished Business this week, they’d imagine we’d talk about user experience design and possibly education. Instead, they and I talk about action figures and Action Man and whether fighting Nazis is cooler than fighting aliens. It’s not all Smurfs and Stretch Armstrong though, because we also discuss the art of public speaking, how to prepare for a talk and tips for a successful presentation, whether you’re speaking at a conference or pitching an idea to a manager or a concept to a client. Here are some URLs from this episode Wilson Miner “When we build” Owen Gregory, editor Mandy Brown “Hypertext as an Agent of Change” Cennydd Bowles “Tips for speakers” Centre Centre, user experience design school

Fresh from our adventures at Smashing Conference in Santa Monica, on this week’s Unfinished Business I’m joined by user-experience professional, author (of some CSS book or another) and director at ClearLeft, Andy Budd. Joining us was one of my favourite people; designer, author and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll.

On this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by designers’ designer Dan Edwards and, one of my favourite people, designer Veerle Pieters. We start by talking about magazines, including 8faces and the new edition of Lagom. Then we discuss how the perceptions that people can have about us, our companies or even how busy we are can be really different from the reality, plus an event that we’re planning for designers and developers to get together to share business experiences. Finally we talk about whether our contracts should prevent clients from making changes to our work after we’ve delivered it to them. (I’m sorry for the drop in audio quality (on my channel) this week. Annoyingly, my recording stopped unexpectedly and I had to rely on the Skype back-up. Thanks GarageBand. Thanks for nothing.)Here are some URLs from this episode Lagom magazine 8Faces magazine Frankie magazine Dan’s “Treading Through Treacle” Contract Killer Cornerstone razor blades and men’s shaving supplies. Use the code CS5 at checkout

I‘ve been looking forward to publishing this episode of Unfinished Business for over a month and I looked forward to recording it for even longer, because I got to talk about art direction and creativity on the web with two of the creative people that I respect most, Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman. Video of my ‘Counting stars: Creativity over predictability’ talk from Beyond Tellerrand in Berlin Your CSS bores me Cinderella Past Midnight Stephen Hay’s Art Direction and the Web Dan Mall’s Art Direction and Design Dan Mall On Creative Direction Jeffrey Zeldman’s Art direction vs. design

The best podcasts listen to interesting people having interesting conversations about work, and life and for episode 104 of Unfinished Business I’m joined by two fascinating folk. Trent Walton and Stephen Hay. In a lively and wide-ranging conversation, we talk about ‘designing in a browser’ and whether or not today it’s a given (to some degree or another.) We discuss not showing clients static design visuals and why ‘comps’ in a browser and prototypes should be the first thing that we show our clients. We talk about where graphic design tools now fit into our respective workflows and why static visuals can still be an important part of the design process. Finally we discuss tools for designing (in a browser) and whether the technical barrier to entry is sometimes too high. Responsive Design Workflow (book) Walls Come Tumbling Down Time to stop showing clients static design visuals Ignorance Is Bliss Make Your Mockup in Markup Harry Roberts’ conference email gist Make Your Mockup in Markup Lets Get Social (Yo

Back for episode 103 of Unfinished Business is my favourite comedy duo, ‘Pipe and Pyjamas,’ Paul Boag and Jon Hicks. We had a list of things that we weren’t allowed to talk about, a list that was surprisingly topped by Dr. Who, food and bicycles. Instead we discuss about Paul’s green screen, his motorhome and why he left Headscape, the company he founded thirteen years ago. We end up talking about how we’re redefining our places in the web industry as the three of us get older. In the after-show segment (for non-boring people,) we talk about Vic and Bob’s ‘House of Fools’ and as we weren’t allowed to talk about Dr. Who, we discuss Dr. Who Lego instead. No one should complain about that. Jon pops for a wee House of Fools House of Fools (episode 1) on YouTube Shooting Stars Vic and Bob Masterchef sketch Doctor Who Locations Guide LEGO Doctor Who

A little later than advertised (and by “a little” I actually mean a week) I’m joined on Unfinished Business. Episode 102 by Rachel Andrew and Zoe Mickley Gillenwater. Despite being two experts on bleeding edge CSS layout modules, they don’t talk about CSS (much.) Instead we talk about how to keep doing when keeping going is hard and what gives us that motivation. We also discuss making big decisions including when we might want to take, or leave, a job.

We’re back. Back in business. Unfinished Business. Episode 101. For this, the first episode of 2015, I’m joined by two of the best well-known writers about how to implement CSS on a large scale Harry Roberts and Jonathan Snook. We talk about if the ways we talk about CSS today have made learning it less accessible for beginners. I worry that people are being encouraged to jump straight into Sass without learning the basics of CSS first and ask why people don’t write long books about it anymore? A new format for 2015 This year, Unfinished Business will be on a bi-weekly schedule, every two weeks, to give me more time prepare better content for each episode. Most episodes will also have two guests. I’ve lined up some fabulous pairings including Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman, Stephen Hay and Trent Walton, Rachel Andrew and Zoe Gillenwater, Andy Budd and Cameron Moll, Brad Frost and Tim Kadlec and Paul Boag and Jon Hicks. These should all be lively discussions and I really hope that listeners will enjoy the new fo

This week is the one-hundredth episode of Unfinished Business and who better to join me than the person who helped me start it all, almost two years ago, Anna Debenham. We celebrate by talking about what went right and wrong in 2014 and our resolutions for 2015. Then we talk about meetings and how we can improve them. This being the final episode of the year, I’d like to say an enormous thank-you to everyone I’ve spoken to on Unfinished Business, this year: Ashley Baxter, Benjamin Hollway, Brendan Dawes, Christopher Murphy, Cole Henley, Clare Symons, Harry Roberts, Jeremy Keith, John Davey, Jon Hicks, Jory Raphael, Laura Kalbag, Liz Elcoate, Paul Boag, Rachel Andrew, Relly Annett-Baker, Sara Souidan, Sean Johnson and Trent Walton. I’d also like to say thank-you to all the companies who’ve helped make Unfinished Business possible through their sponsorship. Antetype, BigBoard, dConstruct, DeviceLab, DotYork, Espresso, GatherContent, Ghostlab, Forge, Hover, Logical Elements, Native Summit, ShropGeek, Simply FixI

On the penultimate episode of Unfinished Business of 2014, I’m joined by my design hero Trent Walton to talk about if an integrated responsive design and development workflow makes working out what and how to charge more difficult. We discuss Paravel, the three person studio that he helps run, how their business works, how they charge and if they negotiate on price. Of course, this being Unfinished Business, I couldn’t help talking about burgers and this week’s stupid cheeseburger stuffed crust pizza. This week’s episode is sponsored by Espresso and Perch.

Conference impresario John Davey joins me again on Unfinished Business this week. We talk about anticipation and scarceness, how some cinemas create an experience around watching a film, how looking at album artwork in a record shop enhanced the experience of buying music and whether the experiences we’ve lost were valuable enough to revive in new and different ways.

It’s a special week this week on Unfinished Business as I’m joined by not one, but two regular co-hosts, Ashley Baxter and Laura Kalbag. In a bumper episode, we talk about cakes, brightly coloured fizzy drinks and Yorkshire pudding burgers. We discuss podcasting, sounding good as a podcast guest, then whether we allow Christmas decorations in our offices. Finally we talk about what we’ve achieved this year and what our goals are for 2015. It’s a fast and fun episode. I think you’ll really enjoy it. We’re sponsored this week by MacRabbit’s Espresso and by the DotYork conference 2015. Get 10% off both by using the code unfinished at checkout.

Artist and designer Brendan Dawes is back on Unfinished Business this week. We get started by talking about past popular pop princes and princesses S Club 7, The Handsome Family and Bren’s one day trip to Argentina. For the remainder of the show, we talk about when it’s acceptable to give our time for free and when we should say no. Why every project should include a ‘goodwill’ budget and what the heck are those party paper and whistle things that come out of Christmas crackers called? We’re sponsored by MacRabbit’s Espresso. Get 10% off by using the code unfinished at checkout. And by the DotYork conference 2015.

A complete change of subject for this week’s Unfinished Business, Relly Annett-Baker and I talk about parenting and education and specifically how she’s homeschooling her two young children. This week we’re sponsored by the fabulous new Perch Runway and by DeviceLab. Please support our show by supporting them.

This week on Unfinished Business, Paul Boag, Jon Hicks and I dispense with any pretence that this is a show about business and spend 90 minutes talking about something much more interesting. Peter Capaldi’s first series as Doctor Who. We talk about our thoughts on Peter Capaldi’s Doctor and the best (and worst) episodes of the season. Then we finish up by discussing the series finale, Clara and Danny Pink and of course Missy. If you haven’t seen the final episode of this season, there are spoilers galore. This week’s episode is sponsored by GatherContent and by the DotYork conference 2015.

The week’s Unfinished Business was recorded live at The Web Is… conference in Cardiff, as part of Geek Mental Help week. I was joined on-stage by Christopher Murphy, Cole Henley, Relly Annett-Baker and Dr. Clare Symons to talk about a wide range of mental heath and mental illness issues. I put the lower audio quality this week down to everyone wearing lapel, not using condenser microphones, (sorry about that,) but recording live in front of an audience was fun, and I’ll definitely do it again. There are no sponsors this week, as it didn’t seem appropriate.

This week is Geek Mental Help week and on Unfinished Business I’m joined by Liz Elcoate, one of the people who helped to spark the idea. We ask if our industry attracts people with issues or cause them, does our working environment add to our problems and what we hope the outcomes from this week will be? But not before we talk sport, Liz’s obsession with wrestling and my Uncle Haystacks. This week’s episode is sponsored by Perch Runway, a new version of Perch that’s been designed for bigger, more complex projects. We’re also sponsored by Hover, the best place to buy and manage your domain names. You should give them a try.

Brighton-based developer Benjamin Hollway loves a burger in a brioche bun and joins me on Unfinished Business this week to talk about how young people feel excluded from some industry events and how conferences and meet-ups should cater for people who don’t want to or are too young to drink. Benjamin was shortlisted for ‘emerging talent of the year’ at the Net Awards and oh, did I mention that he’s only sixteen? This week’s episode is sponsored by Perch Runway, a new version of Perch that’s been designed for bigger, more complex projects. If you’d like to be the first to know and to hear about their special launch discount price, sign up to the Perch Runway notification list. We’re also sponsored by Hover, the best place to buy and manage your domain names. You should give them a try.

Designer and artist Brendan Dawes is back on episode 90 of Unfinished Business this week to talk about his recent commission by Mailchimp, Six Monkeys, which explores interactions with email through physical objects named after six famous chimpanzees. Before that though, we talk more about what’s happening with Geek Mental Help Week, including whether the word ‘geek’ takes something away from the project and is somehow derogatory.

This week’s an emotional episode of Unfinished Business. After talking about why a burger in a donut should never, ever have become a thing, Laura Kalbag and I discuss mental health issues in our industry. We talk about my own struggles with depression and depersonalisation disorder, issues that stem from my father’s own mental health issues and suicide.