Technology, mobility and a Pomeranian.

(The following blog entry was originally posted on Blogger on 05/05/13)

My wife's brother and his family live in Zurich (they've been there about 20 years), and my wife and I felt we'd put off a visit to them long enough so we made the trip in mid-November. My wife's family is Swiss, and have dual citizenship. I'd never been to Switzerland, and I'll tell you, it's a pretty impressive country. But if you decide to go there anytime in the near future, brace for sticker shock. Wow. Take NYC prices and add 25%. However, after seeing Zurich, Basel, Lucerne, Baden, and the little towns along the train ride south and into the Alps (like Pontresina for example), I now get it. Go if you can. The Alps alone are absolutely awe-inspiring.

That's a segue to my next set of ramblings. One of the things a lot of marketers, manufacturers, companies, contractors, and many others have been focusing on for the past 3-4 years is mobile technology. It's almost as hackneyed a phrase as "social media" but has stayed high on the list of trending topics for a good reason. The increasingly fast adoption of smartphones and tablets is really quite startling. It's just hitting its stride now, with more growth on the horizon.

Being a graphic design professional, I probably won't see a tablet powerful enough (or large enough in screen size) to do serious design work anytime soon, but it's coming. Us designers were probably the last of the business computer buyers to buy laptops powerful enough and RAM-upgradeable enough to become our primary work machine. (Digital video editing was probably one of those too.) The MacBook Pros that came out in the past year that allow expansion to 16 GB of RAM have now supplanted the desktop Mac. Just plug it into an external monitor and you're ready to do your work. And if you don't need the monitor, unplug and go. Love it.

So taking into account our frequent trips this year once again proved to me that it is possible to work remotely with mostly an iPhone and an iPad, and when needed, a MacBook Pro. Adding a foreign country layer to the digital mix, made the trip to Europe just a bit more challenging. Here's how it went down.

First thing I needed to think about, and verify with my brother-in-law, was the power plug type used in Switzerland. If you've been to mainland Europe, you'll know that the required power plug is a 2- or 3-prong, 6-sided polygon shaped plug. I had one for my laptop and/or iPad already, but not for the iPhone. That one's unique: you need USB on one end. You can't buy them here at the local Apple Store. Once we got to Switzerland however, we took a tram into the city center, and while, uh, "sightseeing", I located their little Apple Store and I grabbed one for a cool 19 francs (about $23 or so). Ok, I confess -- the main reason for the sightseeing trip that day was to go to the Apple Store. There, I said it. Anyway, once all my plugs and adapters were Swiss-compliant, it was only a matter of getting WiFi access for doing work (which my brother-in-law had), and decent cell service speed for the iPhone for keeping on top of business emails. I was actually a little surprised that Zurich is only 3G for mobile. With my AT&T international plan, that's the best I ever got. Still, it worked reliably well.

For the small amount of actual client work that I had to do while on vacation, I'm still amazed and impressed that I can access our office server and client files remotely from anywhere. With internet access, I could log in to our office NAS that holds our client jobs, artwork, logos, etc., and related graphic assets. Aside from the relatively slow speed for basic network tasks (like opening and saving files, renaming files, exporting PDFs, etc.) the technology worked very well. And the 6-hour time difference actually worked in my favor. I could coordinate jobs with my office for an hour or so in the evening Swiss time, while it's early afternoon NYC time. And if anything was needed first thing in the NYC morning, I just cranked through it late on a Swiss night, and it was waiting for my team in the morning. Working remotely went very smoothly for the 10 days we were abroad.

On a personal note, my wife and I added a 2nd family member in July 2013 — a boy Pomeranian to play with our little girl Pom. They're both adorable, but causing a bit more sleep-deprivation than I'd anticipated. The boy just got neutered so that brought a special form of guilt. But it's necessary. He's all healed up now.

And with that, I'll say "later" and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Cheers from NYC!

A crazy year so far, turning 50, and big upgrades.

(The following blog entry was originally posted on Blogger on 05/05/13)

When I originally started this blog I thought for sure I'd be able to post something once every 3 months. It's hard to accept that that was wishful thinking. I last posted in December 2012, and at that time, business was picking up steadily. Then in the first quarter of this year, it just went bonkers. I can't even describe how challenging it was. If my business was an image with a Photoshop filter on it, it would have been a Motion Blur.

In February I turned 50 and had some mixed feelings about that. Staying in the design industry, and staying relevant, has been something of an achievement. I know many people who've gotten out of the industry. On the one hand I've gained so much experience and continue to learn new skills as technology evolves. On the other, I feel it's a younger person's field. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I see myself moving out of the "hands-on" day-to-day design work and more into managing our business. In an upcoming blog, I plan to examine this more closely. I'm not the first person to experience this transition in one's career, and I hope to pull together some real-life examples of people who've made the shift and side-stepped the ageism of the workforce.

On a personal, non-business note, the celebrations surrounding my 50th were incredibly fun and full of surprises. The afternoon of my birthday was spent with my wife, who treated me to my first-ever helicopter ride around Manhattan. It's quite an interesting perspective from a chopper — to fly over the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Governor's Island, the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, Yankee Stadium, and then back down to Lower Manhattan. It's a noisy ride in one of those birds, but all kinds of fun. We then had cocktails at Rolf's, and old German restaurant in the east 20s, then a fantastic steak dinner at BLT Prime, also in the east 20s. At dinner, I had my first taste of Krystal when my wife surprised me with a bottle at dinner. It's definitely the best champagne I've ever had, and withe the smallest bubbles I've ever seen. A couple days later I threw a cocktail party at The Campbell Apartment in Grand Central, and my wife brought out an iPhone-shaped cake that was so good and eaten so quickly that I didn't even get a piece of it. About 35 friends, many of whom I hadn't seen in years, showed up for the party and shared the drinks and laughter. A couple days after that, we had a dinner party as well, at a private room at Craftbar. Again, fantastic food, drinks and company. But wait, there's more. We then spent a week in Florida with my family, where the celebrations continued. It was such a good week!

But I digress. Even during the birthday celebrations, work was galloping along at a ferocious pace. The rebranding work that we pitched last December got approved right at the end of 2012. In January 2013, we launched into logo development and rebranding phases for 6 separate membership clubs for a large food and travel magazine publisher. It took 3 months to get them all designed and going in the right direction. It was all going well until it was put on hold in mid-March due to a big new push for direct mail promotions that had been on hold for the 2nd half of 2012. One of the clubs was shut down altogether, which was disappointing since it was one of the more upscale brands, and represented the most radical overhaul in terms of identity and rebranding. That, as they say, is business.

Running parallel to the increased client activity in the first quarter was a full-scale technology upgrade of all our office Macs, including a sexy new Qnap server. Existing Macs got expanded and/or maxxed-out RAM, and all machines were upgraded to Mountain Lion. We also upgraded our design software to Creative Suite 5.5. New iPhones, iPads and iMacs came into the mix as well. The new server vastly improved our office network speed, and allowed us to make critical Time Machine backups, faster logins and data access for working remotely, and a host of other improvements. We had a small hiccup with a poorly executed Qnap firmware update released in April, but with their tech support we were able to revert back without losing any data. Sighs of relief were heard all around the office. We'll also probably be ditching Microsoft Office in favor of Apple's Mail app, which appears to be much more reliable with IMAP mail than Outlook is. We'll also move to the iWork suite for all other non-design productivity tools. We're also now fully iCloud compatible, which is a must for a small firm like ours.

In March I went back for surgery to have the clavicle hardware removed that was put in place a year prior. Thankfully, the post-op recovery time was just a couple days and it barely set us back at all. Now that I've put off the clavicle rehab and reconditioning I was supposed to do in March, it's time to get back in shape and get firing on all cylinders again. Note to self: drink less caffeine, get more sleep, eat fewer grains, eat more veggies, fruits and antibiotic-free meats, juices, greens and food that's good for the mind, body and spirit. When life and work deplete you, you have to replenish. Right? Right.

Resurrection in 2012.

(The following blog entry was originally posted on Blogger on 12/09/12)

If you read my June entry, you gathered that things weren't going so well. Since then, my physical health and our business health have improved. The clavicle has healed up well (though next spring I'll have to go back into surgery to have the corrective hardware removed), and client activity has steadily risen.

That's not to say it's been Easy Street since then, but many new assignments came through in the 4th quarter. What a relief. We had an awful October, a good November, and a very good December. January and February 2013 look pretty decent as well.

One assignment we took on in October was to provide all the promotional creative media (print ads, banner ads, emails and landing pages, for both desktop and mobile) for a new app being launched by a major magazine publisher. This was a very satisfying project, despite one 3rd party bonehead vendor of the client's nearly sabotaging the launch of the email promotions.

We also submitted a proposal and a quote for a rebranding effort for one of our existing clients, which has 5 distinct membership products, all of which are a bit underwhelming from an identity and branding standpoint. And none of them have had a branding program built for them in 10 years. This, from a fortune 100 company.

We also wrapped up a large-scale email program for a big publisher, spanning 6 different titles and containing up to 16 emails per title. It took a year start-to-finish. I think it's the longest running project we've ever had.

I'm also happy to report that much of the stress surrounding our office space in the form of construction noise has diminished, though it's far from over. Another building across the street from us in undergoing a gut renovation. Sigh. The city that never sleeps also never stops jackhammering.

In response to that, we felt there was no other option but to contact our building management and request a different office space — on the courtyard side — NOT on the street side. At least we renewed our lease in November with the option to move as soon as something comparable becomes available in our building. We're not in love with the Port Authority area, but it is changing as more new construction seems to be underway west of 8th Avenue. It's good news bad news.

So that all said, it looks like we'll be sliding into the holidays this year on an upbeat note. The holidays are always an exciting time in NYC, and I won't be traveling for a change. Staying in the city and spending time with my wife and our relatively new family member — a Pomeranian puppy we acquired back in April — will be just fine. Happy Holidays!