iamzachreed

[iamzachreed]

Creating GIFs

By Jorn van Dijk

A great way of showcasing interactions or animations on the web is by using GIFs. Compared to video files, they’re relatively small in size. Here’s a short tutorial on how to export great looking GIFs.

1. You can use QuickTime from Apple to record directly from your screen. Open it and go to ‘File -> New Screen Recording’. Make sure to deselect 'Show Mouse Clicks in Recording' from the Screen Recording window.

2. It’s best to keep your recordings short. Think a bit up front about how you want to compose your recording. Background, perspective and dimensions are valuable presentation assets. Keep your recording under 5 seconds and your GIF will stay reasonable in size. QuickTime will export the video in 60FPS when you save the video as a .mov file.

3. Photoshop is great at exporting GIFs. Open the .mov file and go to ‘File -> Save for Web’. Select GIF as the file extension, and you’ll be presented with the settings from the screenshot above. Your GIF will look best if you set Colors to 256 and Dithering to ‘Diffusion' with a value of 100%. Keep an eye on the file size shown in the bottom left of the preview window. The optimal settings are different for every GIF, so play around until you're satisfied with the result.

Pro Tip: Try rendering your video in 30FPS for smaller file sizes. In Photoshop, go to ‘Export -> Render Video' to change the frame rate.

Final step: hit save and you’re done!

[iamzachreed]

Stock Photography is Ready for it's Return

In the past few years, I’ve heard increasing amounts of clients/colleagues discuss and ask for my opinion on the usage of stock photography on their websites. The various points of views and debates regarding stock photography usage can be all over the place. Some professionals think stock photography only dilutes your brand, and lowers the value of your content. Others will swear by its usage because of the many benefits like the costs or availability. It can sometimes be a tough sell to executives who have only heard the bad press buzz that stock photography has received. And in fact, when I was working at Angie’s List as a UX/UI designer, there was a big movement from executives for never using stock photography for the website user interface (UI), but there was never a clear understanding regarding why we were told this. So lets take a step back and look at the real problem of stock photography – the poor usage of stock photos that are seen in the wild and the true basic understanding of what stock photography is and isn’t.

Imagine you are talking to someone who has only ever tasted pizza once (impossible, I’m sure, but bear with me). They tell you about how much they hated it and how they will never try it again because the first time they ate pizza, it was just so horrible. So naturally, you query about their pizza, asking them where they got it, what toppings they ate and what of style it was made. You then try to explain to them that the gas station slice of pizza they had was nothing compared to the amazingness of Chicago deep dish pizza (let’s be honest – it’s the best). But there they are, unwilling to try it again because they assume all pizza is just as shitty as the single lukewarm slice they got at a local BP gas station. If you are anything like me, you would also be pretty upset that they had built up this misconception of pizza all because of the one bad experience they had. That is my (tasty) analogy about how stock photography is viewed by many people.

Using stock photography is constantly mistaken for being bad, a dying practice or is frowned upon all because people see poor stock photography usage and assume the worst. They see companies using cliché’ stock photos, or being lazy by not finding photos to match the brands marketing message. Or they can even sometimes see what is actually good usage of stock photography and don’t even realize that it’s stock. Good usage of stock photography sparks an emotionally connection with the user base to the brand. The role photography, in general, can play in marketing your brand is invaluable.

“Good usage of stock photography sparks an emotionally connection with the user base to the brand.”

What Stock Photography Is and Isn’t

A lot like Internet Explorer, stock photography has been given this bad rap for how it’s been used in the past years and not how it could or should be used nowadays. People have this idea that stock photography is automatically an image of two business people shaking hands in front of a pure white background or that it’s most likely a picture of an overly beautiful person in a call center with a headset on from the 90’s. That isn’t what stock photography is. I’m here to tell you that you have been living a horrible lie if you also think that it is. It seems that people have forgotten what stock photography is by definition. At it’s simplest, stock photography is just photographs that are licensed to you for specific uses. Examples of the most common uses are website graphics, Internet advertisements, reprints, copyright updates and marketing materials. By general definition, it has nothing to do with what the photo subject is or how good the quality might be. It gives you the benefit of saving hundreds of dollars from hiring a professional photographer to do custom photo shoots.

Stock Photography Done Right

Now that we are clearer on the misconceptions of stock photos, let’s focus on some key points regarding how you can pick stock photos like a pro. Using stock photography properly is no perfect science because it really varies on the image, style and culture of your brand. However, it’s safe to assume there are a few key components to using stock photography in a way that allows your customers or users experience your brand without leaving a bad taste in their mouth. These are also great general tips on using any type of photography for your brand’s website or marketing.

Find photos that match your brand’s lifestyle.

Your brand’s lifestyle is the way your users or customers live with your product or application. The ride sharing service Uber is known for being able to reserve rides such as Lincoln Town Cars, Cadillac Escalades, and Mercedes–Benz sedans on the fly via their mobile app. Uber has a user base with a high–end lifestyle to match their high–end service, and their photos reflect that very well. The images they use fit the Uber lifestyle to a T. They use pictures that capture how their typical customers would use the application, where they would be using it, how they would be dressed, etc. This type of photography wouldn’t match the lifestyle of a brand like Amazon.com, for example. Uber has done a great job with using photography that paints a picture of their ideal/typical customer. And to be clear, I’m not sure if Uber uses stock photography or not, but that’s the point. Users should feel like the photos you use with your brand are genuine. They want to feel a connection with your brand. How can they do that if you use photos that portray a lifestyle that doesn’t even match your brand?

Use photos that represent your users.

Using photography that captures the look of your users is an absolute must. Using photos with overly retouched, perfect faces of people is a prime example of bad stock photo usage. However, there is nothing wrong with using people that are “easy on the eyes” in your photos as long as that personality or look represents the majority of your users. Looking for photos that accomplish this can sometimes feel a bit like you’re stereotyping your users, but the benefits are there. For example, if your brand was the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and you wanted to use photos to represent your bus drivers, you probably shouldn’t be using photos of runway models. While that might sound mean, it’s realistic to the brand. You have to be honest and true to what your brand is. Every company should know who their typical user personality is. E–commerce giant Etsy is known for being the homemade/vintage marketplace of the web, and their site photos show that off perfectly. Some of their homepage photos showcase artisans working on their projects in shops. For example, a younger adult male who is working with his hands and an old ink press to make his stores products. This depicts very well the crafty hands on user base of sellers that Etsy has. Who cares if the photos are stock or not (they aren’t) because when I see them, I can easily make the connection between the photo and what the typical Etsy user looks like, and that’s what matters.

Make the photo style match the users’ “idea” of photography.

This point is more to focus on your brand’s targeted age group. Simple, a company that takes a spin on traditional banking probably has a main user base of people aged 20 to early 30’s. I like to refer to this age group of users as the “Instagrammers” (haha). They use Instagram or other similar photo apps consistently. They are continually making this connection between photography and “hip” photo filters. This is their “idea” of photography. The type of photography they see on a daily basis, by their friends, has this style so to these users, photos with this trendy style have a stronger sense of authenticity. The photo effect makes the connection of their friends taking a photo for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and adding a stylistic filter. Simple does a great job by capturing this style with their photos on their website. The photos are very professional looking, but they add just a slight “hipness” to the style of the photos in order to connect with their user base. While they are a banking company, they know their audience, and you don’t see them using photos of sterile businessmen because that isn’t their users.

Avoid overly symbolic imagery simply for the sake of having an image.

There are probably few brands out there that can really pull off the very abstract imagery you find on stock image sites. This is probably the biggest cause for the bad reputation that stock photography receives. Using generic symbolic images like the “sky rocketing graph arrow” or the “we are partners now handshake” are what cause your brand to have that stale look. Often, these types of photos are also used because there is this notion that you have to have an image on every page. That is definitely not the case. There are plenty of other ways to make very text–heavy pages more balanced, including everything from illustrations, graphs, icons, etc. For example, if you have a customer service portion of your website, avoid using a generic support center photo. Instead, try using a photo of your actual support team or maybe a photo of a user just happily using your service or product, implying they are happy with the customer service they might receive. E–commerce platform Shopify has a great example of this on their Point of Sale (POS) system app. They show just a picture of a tablet with the app open, instead of using something like an overly symbolic photo of a man yelling in frustration in a random field. (Yes, stupid photos like that are actually commonly used by companies!)

Great Stock Photo Resources

Finding stock photography that accomplishes the above points or doesn’t look bland and fake isn’t as hard to find as you may think. Here are some great sites that are not as well–known that you can dig in to help your stock photo search. Also, there is nothing wrong with stock photo giants like iStock or Shutterstock. However, you just have to dig a bit harder when using those sites because it’s easy to just pick the most popular pictures and fall into the traditional trap of using stock photos that look like generic garbage.

Stocksy – http://www.stocksy.com (my personal favorite)

Little Visuals – http://littlevisuals.co

Picjumbo – http://picjumbo.com

The Pattern Library – http://thepatternlibrary.com

New Old Stock – http://nos.twnsnd.co

ImageBrief – http://www.imagebrief.com

Compfight – http://compfight.com

Unsplash – http://unsplash.com

Veer – http://www.veer.com

Filter & Format – http://www.filterandformat.com – (NOTE: This was mentioned via a comment on Designer News & is a fantastic idea for buying stock photos)

Feel free to leave a comment with any other tips, comments or 2 cents about the usage of stock photography. Do you have a different take on it? I would love to hear what you think!

Oh, and just so we don’t give Internet Explorer the same fate as stock photography, be sure to check out why the newer versions of IE are not that bad (http://www.rethinkie.com/hello-again/).

[iamzachreed]

Adiós 2013. Hello 2014!

Now that we are a few days into 2014, I thought it would be a perfect time to go back and recap 2013, and then talk about the upcoming year of 2014. At the start of 2013, I made the post "Goodbye 2012. Hello 2013!" which went through my 2013 new year resolutions, thoughts, goals, etc. Little did I realize at the time how changing of a year it was going to be, though. There was quite a few unexpected turns early on in the year. Now before I dive to far into all of that and then 2014, I wanted to at least recap my goals I had set for 2013.

My work resolutions for 2013 were:

FAILED - Finish my first HTML5 game, Sulli

PASSED - Take a bigger stab at learning Ruby (via Treehouse)

FAILED - Launch "The Theme Fox"

PASSED - Continue to grow my skills in PHP, CSS, HTML, and jQuery/Javascript.

Based on the above goals I had set for 2013, I would have gotten a big fat stinking "F" (50%). Sighhhhhhh. Ha. I’m okay with this, though. I think 2013 was still quite the year for me. It was definitely life changing in many ways:

In May ‘13, I left work at Angie’s List in Indianapolis, IN for a job at ParkWhiz.com in Chicago, IL

I went to CSS Dev Conference in October (see my review) in Denver, CO

I released v2 of my jQuery plugin, JamCity

I redesigned my blog (as you can see! ha)

I had my "Golden Birthday" (turned 24, on December 24th)

I made a tons of memories throughout the year

While that is just a small list of some amazing things that happened to me in 2013, it does help give more light to my busy life in the past year. I also think it helps give credit to why I fell short on my 2013 goals.

Lets now focus on the future, onto 2014. I want to say that I have a good feeling about this year. I like to think that since I just had my Golden Birthday, that I’m now gifted with good luck all year while I'm 24. So, naturally, I like to refer to 2014 as my "Golden Year". Haha. Some exciting things happening during my Golden Year range from my brother getting married in the Spring, to taking a few vacations to new places that I have never traveled to before. I also have quite a few goals and resolutions for this year.

2014 Resolutions & Goals:

I’m going to take a second stab at getting "The Theme Fox" launched (after missing that goal in 2013)

I’m going to be journaling every day of 2014 (via Evernote) in a private notebook for myself

I’m going to try to get at least one speaking engagement at small conference or meet-up

I’m going to be more serious with using Mint.com to track my financial goals/budgets

I’m going to continue to grow as a front-end developer by pushing my skills and knowledge further

I’m going to be blogging more often (I even have a good list of topics/posts already)

Those are my main goals for 2014. There are plenty of other small personal goals I have for myself, as well. I think the main goals will be very challenging for me, but I feel very motivated, inspired, and confident that I'll accomplish them all and make 2014 one incredible Golden Year!

As always, wish me luck, and also have yourself the best 2014! :)

[iamzachreed]

Addding a blog to your Storenvy store

Recently, Storenvy announced an awesome new feature where they added support for custom pages in your store. I know this has been a long awaited featured because it now opens up lots of possibilities on new features and pages you can include in your store. One of the things this will now allow you to do is to integrate your existing blog service (Wordpress, Tumblr, Blogger, etc.) into your Storenvy store. After this feature was launched, I was approached by my good friend Adam Hendle (the Director of Community at Storenvy) to help them out by writing a nice little blog post tutorial on how to add a blog to your Storenvy store on their newly created blog for store owners. You can find that official blog post here on the new Storenvy resources blog for store owners. I also just wanted to briefly talk about the background of the blog post to give some more insight on the plugin I created.

The jQuery plugin

For this blog post, I created a jQuery plugin (via Github) called jQuery.blogRSS (repo here). It is a pretty straight forward plugin that gets the RSS feed of a blog sites then outputs the entries in a nice layout. You can also customize the layout (via CSS) to change and match your store/site.

jQuery.blogRSS links

View the plugin demo

View the plugin code on GitHub

jQuery.blogRSS Elsewhere

The beauty of how I created this plugin is that it is not necessarily specific to Storenvy. You can use this plugin on your BigCartel site to add a blog, your normal website (if you need to integrate an outside blog), or even your Shopify store! The same basic concept is there for all of these other type of mediums. Feel free to contact me (or tweet me) if you need help adding the plugin elsewhere.

jQuery.blogRSS questions/comments

You can view the blog post here on Storenvy's blog: http://resources.storenvy.com/adding-your-blog-feed-to-your-storenvy-store/. You can also tweet me any questions on Twitter via my username, @Bluetidepro. Or feel free to comment on this blog post, and I will hopefully have an answer to your question. Thanks!

[iamzachreed]

CSS Dev Conf 2013 Review

Earlier this week I attended the CSS Dev Conf 2013 (put on by Environments for Humans) in Estes Park, CO at the famous Stanley Hotel (where Dumb & Dumber was filmed, and where Stephen King got his inspiration for The Shining). The conference went all out and spared no expenses at this amazing location for a small to medium size group of us CSS hackers. While expensive (for me it was $545.00 after a $50.00 discount code), the conference aims to make it the ultimate CSS conference in the USA. Before I dive more into the in-depth review, I would like to give a quick Tl;dr:

Tl;dr

Overall the conference was great. It was a bit pricey for only 2 days of speakers after you factor in the flight from Chicago and hotel (easily over a grand after everything), but not many conferences these days are cheap. There were probably only 2 of the 12-ish presentations (that I saw) that were sub-par from what I was hoping/expecting. I would easily go again next year as long as the distance and price are right again, and don't go up even further.

Conference Structure

The conference began with a kick-off with a party on Sunday evening, but I was pretty tired from the 2 hour drive up to Estes Park (from Denver) so I decided to take a nap and skip out on the opening night drinks/S’mores event. Then both Monday/Tuesday began with breakfast provided by the conference at 8:00AM, an opening keynote, 9 morning sessions (you could choose 3), lunch provided by the conference at 1:00PM, 9 more sessions in the afternoon (again, you could choose 3), and ended with an evening party each night. Tuesday also had a speaker Q&A, and a closing conference keynote to wrap up everything. If you paid extra there were also workshops on Wednesday that you could attend, but I did not do that part. The overall structure of the conference was pretty tight, but manageable. There were 3 rooms where talks took place throughout the day. Two of the rooms were right next to each other, but one required you to walk to it (not that far from the other two). The layout was pretty convenient other than when sessions wouldn’t end perfectly on time with the schedule thus requiring you to hustle to the next session that you wanted to see. I will now dive a bit more into the sessions that I chose.

Monday Sessions

Opening Keynote - "Just One" by Zoe Gillenwater (@zomigi  - Author of Flexible Web Design):

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/zomigi/just-one-css-dev-conference-keynote

Other than some technical difficulties of the projector (nice job hanging in there Zoe), it was a solid kick-off to the conference. It was a good talk to get the momentum of the conference rolling. Zoe talked about developing focus on the power of "just one" and that simplicity to your approach has power in learning, failing, and accepting. This was a great "feel good" talk about not being afraid to try new things in the design/development world.

"The Future of CSS" by Tab Atkins (@tabatkins - Google)

Slides: http://www.xanthir.com/talks/2013-cssdevconf/

Tab had a great talk about the upcoming features in the CSS web standards pipeline. He went over quite a few features that you can look at through his slides, but I think the one that got me the most excited was that CSS will soon have nesting without using a pre-processor like LESS or SASS. Tab was a great public speaker, and covered a lot of upcoming CSS features.

"Storytelling with CSS and Game Design" by Rachel Nabors (@rachelnabors - http://rachelnabors.com/)

Slides: http://rachelnabors.com/alice-in-videoland/talk/

This talk by Rachel was easily one of my favorites. Rachel went into depth on how she created an upcoming Adobe Inspire article called "Alice." Everything from the creation of the characters in sketches to issues she came across with making the CSS/JS work well on both a desktop and iPad. Rachel was great at keeping the presentation fun/entertaining, while still telling us all a lot of the insights of her project.

"Modern Style Guides for a Better Tomorrow" by Shay Howe (@shayhowe - Belly)

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/shayhowe/modern-style-guides-for-a-better-tomorrow

Shay's talk about creating modern style guides was something I was very interested in because I had recently just gone through that process at Angie's List, as well as it being something I've been working on at ParkWhiz. Shay showed a lot of good examples of how having a living/modern style guide is much more useful than an old standard PDF style. He also had some good insight from his time at Groupon. I will also mention that Shay is from Chicago, so naturally I had to rep him! haha

"Developing Responsive HTML5 in a Native App" by Sharon Chen (@sharoniscarin - Viggle, Inc)

This talk by Sharon was a bit different than what I was expecting, but not bad, nonetheless. This talk was more focused around a case study by Sharon when her company made an app using HTML5 features, rather than native. There were a few good insights in her presentation of things to keep in mind when you are down that road.

"Automated Tests & CSS" by Kevin Lamping (@klamping - Rackspace)

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/klamping/automated-testing-and-css

Kevin talked a lot about something I had been looking into quite a bit lately, which is CSS unit testing. He went into depth on a few good options to automate your CSS testing flow. Wraith by BBC news (https://github.com/BBC-News/wraith) was an interesting project that he mentioned that I hadn't looked into much. While CSS unit testing is still in its very early stages, Kevin showed off a few decent options that are no where near perfect, but at least give you a leg up from manually testing CSS changes on bigger projects.

"Responsive Typography" by Clarissa Peterson (@clarissa - Peterson/Kandy)

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/clarissapeterson/responsive-typography-27460071

Clarissa was quite the trooper during her talk because she was battling a cold, but that didn't stop her from having a great session. Typography has never been one of my strong points so this was great for me, in general. There is quite a bit of awesome tips I got out of this that I will definitely use on every project in the future. One the best tips was that keeping your paragraph text at a 45-75 character range, and using media queries to scale your font size so this stays true at various screen sizes. There were lots of great everyday usage tips in this talk by Clarissa!

Tuesday Sessions

Opening Keynote - "How To Stay Up To Date on Web Stuff" by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier - CSS-Tricks/CodePen)

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/chriscoyier/how-to-stay-up-to-date-on-web-stuff

If you ever have an opportunity to see Chris speak I would highly recommend going, because it's beyond worth it. Chris's session was full of entertainment (you'll have some laughs), resources and knowledge. I have followed Chris' blog CSS-Tricks since my very early designer days, so it was very awesome finally getting to meet him in person and hear his keynote. The biggest takeaway I got from the presentation was some helpful advice on the decision making process for projects.

"Unfolding the Box Model" by Chris Ruppel (@rupl - Four Kitchens)

Slides: http://rupl.github.io/unfold/

Chris had a great talk full of very helpful visual demos when he talked about exploring CSS 3D transforms. Everything from performance tips on certain types of transformations to going over some CSS 3D properties that I wasn't 100% sure how they worked. This talk really let my mind explore all of the awesome possibilities that the coming CSS3 3D properties will unlock.

"Secrets of Awesome JavaScript API Design" by Brandon Satrom (@BrandonSatrom - Kendo UI)

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/brandonsatrom/secrets-of-awesome-javascript-api-design

While this was obviously not CSS directly related, this was also probably up there as one of my favorite talks during the conference. Brandon had a lot of good indirect applicable knowledge on API design--a lot of helpful advice that could easily be applied to your CSS designs. Also, if I can be frank, this talk was towards the end of the conference so it was good to have a fresh session on JS, because it was starting to become a bit CSS overloaded. Haha

"Wrap-Up Panel"

This was just some good ole' Q&A with all the speakers at the conference. I think the best advice during this session was how to become a speaker at a conference yourself. Speaking at a conference would be a neat experience to me, so it was nice to get some tips on how to make that dream come true (hint hint, conference organizers…!)

Closing Keynote - "Creating Living Style Guides to Improve Performance" by Nicole Sullivan (@stubbornella - Object Oriented CSS Framework)

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/stubbornella/styleguide-jsconf

Nicole ending the conference strong with her keynote on living style guides. She went into depth on her project with Trulia, that detailed how they went from nothing but inconsistencies everywhere on the site to creating a living style guide. It was also neat to see all of the conversions that went up on Trulia's site after implementing this style guide. There was also some great advice in how to work towards a living style guide with larger teams that require more and more "political" buy in.

Summary

    I think that all in all it was an inspiring conference that had a lot of talented speakers/sessions. If your company is willing to pay for you to go to a conference next year (or you want to drop some of your own money), and CSS Dev is a close option then I would highly recommend you go. Environments for Humans does an excellent job finding speakers that have great talks around the CSS world. I will admit that at first I was a bit skeptical about a conference fully dedicated to CSS, but it definitely proved me wrong by providing very relevant CSS talks that were full of great new info. I think all of the speakers did a great job, and I think all those who went to the conference are very grateful they took time out of their busy schedules to teach us a few things.

[iamzachreed]

Goodbye 2012. Hello 2013!

2012 was very good to me. I got a new job, new place, met lots of new people, built up lots of friendships/relationships, and many other great things. One thing I always try do in a new year is make new year's resolutions, however I have never actually publicly shared those resolutions. I'm going to try something different for 2013 and share those resolutions here on my blog, in hope that they push me a bit harder to stay on track with them. I feel that if I post them online I will be more accountable and pushed harder to stick to these resolutions for the full year. I have broken down my resolutions below...

Work Resolutions:

Finish my first HTML5 game (it will be free), Sulli.

Take a bigger stab at learning Ruby (I already started learning on Treehouse), on a more serious level.

Launch "The Theme Fox" and get a few themes/plugins finished then put on sale.

Continue to grow my development skills in PHP, CSS, HTML, and jQuery/Javascript..

I feel like this is a good start. I'm very determined to knock out all of these resolutions by the end of the year. I want to make 2013 even more awesome than  2012!

Wish me luck! :)

[iamzachreed]

From Quora: What should I do when my client says that my design is plain?

Read Quote of Zach Reed's answer to Mobile UI Design: What should I do when my client says that my design is plain? on Quora

[iamzachreed]

From Quora: Where should be the best location for a search bar on a website?

Read Quote of Zach Reed's answer to Web Design: Where should be the best location for a search bar on a website? on Quora

[iamzachreed]

Yesterday we introduced a new version of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days. These two documents help communicate as clearly as possible our relationship with the users of Instagram so you understand how your data will be used, and the rules that govern...

[iamzachreed]

From Quora: Who are the best iOS UI/UX designers to follow on Dribbble?

Read Quote of Zach Reed's answer to Dribbble: Who are the best iOS UI/UX designers to follow on Dribbble? on Quora

[iamzachreed]

From Quora: Are people with visual problems something UX designers need to think about?

Read Quote of Zach Reed's answer to User Experience Design: Are people with visual problems something UX designers need to think about? on Quora

[iamzachreed]

How I got to know "everyone"

One thing I hear a lot from friends and family is, “Zach, you know everyone!” While they are obviously joking to some degree, they do often wonder how I got to know all of these people from around our city to all over the world. If there is one thing I understand in life, it is the power of networking. I will admit that I’m a very personable person which makes networking easier for me. I have always been the type of person that loves getting to know new people. I enjoy hearing stories about people’s lives, their work, and making relationships. I wanted to write this post for people who brush off networking because they are just simply bad at it or don’t recognize the value. I want to show them that the work put into networking is well worth the tremendous value it holds, and that it is not very hard to do.

Who to network with

I think this is the biggest confusion people get when they are trying to get better at networking. They don’t identify the right group people they should be networking with. The key is to find people you can get along with without being someone else. If you ever have to change your values or the way you act while you are meeting new people, you are doing something wrong. The best networking is when you can make a real relationship that will last. You will never build a real relationship on a fake personality. Never.

Be friendly and genuine

When you are friendly and genuine while meeting new people, it makes the conversation a lot easier. When that conversation is a lot easier, you are much more likely to give off trustworthiness and to be remembered. Plus everyone likes meeting someone friendly; who wants to build a relationship with someone that is mean and “fake”? Normally, this seems like an obvious thing to say, but you would be surprised how many people I meet that just seem very “fake,” or are not that friendly. I don’t understand what value there is in not being nice to someone you don’t even know.

Get out in the community

One of the best ways to meet new people in your area, and to get to know them, is to attend community events. While that may seem like a “Duh” thing to say, I’m amazed at how many people do not do this. For quite a few years, I have constantly attended community events around Indianapolis (where I live) that are focused around the design/development world. Finding local meet ups  on sites like http://www.meetup.com is a great start. There you can easily find people in your area that share common interests with you. Anytime you can meet people in person, you are much better off. You can really show people “who you are” in person much better than online. However, it’s okay to start with meeting people online, as long as you have the intentions of one day getting to meet them in person at some point to add that that level of personalization to the relationship.

Network online and use the tools

There are so many mediums online that really utilize networking. Everything from Instant Messaging to Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn all are focused on networking. You need to learn to be able to use these sites to your advantage. You will hardly see 80% of your network on a daily or even monthly basis, so staying in touch with them by using online tools is the difference between being remembered and forgotten. I could take all the time in the world meeting people in person, but if I don’t keep in touch with them what is the point? Send them interesting articles (that you know they will enjoy), give them a quick, “Hey, how are you?”, or invite them to do things. There are many ways to use these different sites; it’s mainly about keeping the interaction frequent.

Connect others with others

A great way to keep in touch with people you network with is to extend the network even when it is not “just for you.” For example, when I know someone needs help with X problem, and I know someone else that can help, I try my best to bring the two together. To be good at networking, you can’t be selfish. If you try to keep all of the connections you have all to yourself, it has the potential to backfire on you. Plus, if you are good are connecting others with others, that alone creates a special kind of value that you provide to them.

Follow through

Not following through with the people you network with is the quickest way to ruin a relationship. It’s huge that you follow through and do things you say you will when you meet new people. How can you expect to build a good relationship if you can’t be reliable, especially in the early stages of the relationship? It’s always better to be honest and say “no” to something than to say “yes” and not follow through. People always seem to remember the one time you didn’t follow through verse the five times that you did.

Call in favors at the right time

When the time is right and you feel confident in a relationship you’ve built, that is when it’s okay to call in a favor or two, if you need. However, don’t forget that asking for favors is a two way street. No one likes the person who is always asking for favors but never returns them when he/she is asked. You just have to be good at striking that balance of keeping a genuine relationship, but also using the network to your advantage. My general rule is to always give more than you take so people really see the sincerity of when you need a favor. In that case, they are much more likely to help you out, if they are able to.

"People do business with people."

Never forget about your best friends

The biggest thing about networking is to never forget those you have the best relationships with. Those people are the foundations of your network. Technically speaking, everyone you meet in your life is through networking, but obviously there are those people that stay a business relationship verses those who become some of your best friends. Just never forget the people you can always rely on, like your closest friends and family.

Conclusion

There have even been times I have been all the way in the UK and recognized someone I once met or talked to. There is just a cool feeling about knowing people from all sorts of backgrounds all over, especially when you keep in touch and keep those relationships going.  I realize networking comes easier to others, but if you try really hard and sometimes go a bit out of your comfort zone, I guarantee you will see the value in it and really end up making some great friends along the way! Good luck! :)

Leave a comment if you have any awesome networking stories and how meeting someone may have changed your life!

[iamzachreed]

From Quora: Are social networks really necessary for a freelance designer?

Read Quote of Zach Reed's answer to Are social networks really necessary for a freelance designer? on Quora

[iamzachreed]

From Quora: What are tips for designing UI for both the iPhone 4/4S and the iPhone 5?

Read Quote of Zach Reed's answer to iOS Design: What are tips for designing UI for both the iPhone 4/4S and the iPhone 5? on Quora

[iamzachreed]

My new tattoo by Dane!

#picstitch#space#tattoo sorry for the contrast only way I could get a good shot:( (Taken with Instagram)

[iamzachreed]

Well, we don’t like it at all.

But first, what is spec work? From the NO!SPEC website:

“‘Spec’ has become the short form for any work done on a speculative basis. In other words, any requested work for which a fair and reasonable fee has not been agreed upon, preferably in writing.”

In a...

[iamzachreed]

End of June - Life Update!

My Work Life

In early June, I parted ways with ChaCha and took a position as the new UX visual designer for Angie's List, downtown Indianapolis. It's only been a little over a week since I started working there but, I love it so far! There are many factors of why I moved, some good and others bad, but I don't want to get all caught up in that rant. At the end of the day, Angie's List is a much better fit than ChaCha was and I wish everyone at ChaCha the best of luck with their future. I will miss quite a few people amazing people that I've met at ChaCha, but this new position is an amazing opportunity for me and my career.

My Personal Life

In mid May I moved from Fishers to a new place downtown Indianapolis and forgot how much I love the city life. It's great to be back in the middle of all the city chaos! I'm a city boy, at heart! haha This past weekend, June 23rd, I ran the Run For Your Lives - 5K Obstacle Course Zombie Race for the first time with an old co-worker, Brian Fisher (from eGov Strategies). It was a lot of fun but they also had some areas where they could improve. It will be fun to go next year and see how they change it and/or make it better! I included a few pictures of that race, below!

Obviously, I'm probably missing a few things in this update but I figured I would try to do a quick summary of what's new! Feel free to ask me anything, if you have any questions or want me to elaborate!? :)