Recently from the journal
AuraViva Chooses Hold Fast Creative as Design and Development Partner
AuraViva is a new company based out of Boulder, Colorado that aims to help people improve their overall health and wellness by providing education, tools and resources on circadian rhythms and synchrony. Hold Fast Creative will help AuraViva create a content website, community portal, web service, product storefront, mobile application and all the back-end wizardry to make everything work together harmoniously.
We are absolutely thrilled to be working with AuraViva on this project! They have a great offering, exciting product roadmap and are all around very smart, friendly folks. A dream client by any definition. This large and challenging project will require everything we offer: web design, custom web development, database design, user interface design and mobile application development. Over the next several months Brett and I will be hard at work doing what we love: design and development for web and mobile, and we couldn’t be more excited about it.
Brett Duncavage Joins Hold Fast Creative
Brett and I have worked together for years and collaborate on projects frequently. Our diverse skill sets and experience compliment each other perfectly. We have discussed partnering our businesses for some time now, and today we are making it official: Welcome to Hold Fast Creative, Brett!
Brett Duncavage has been writing code professionally for over 10 years, most recently as a freelance code warrior through his web and mobile development company, X Forward. Along the way he has become well versed in mobile technologies such as BREW, iPhone, Android, and Celltop; and various web technologies such as PHP, Python, Java, and Django. Brett has also been known to crush code for custom Facebook applications as well.
All of this knowledge combines like Voltron so he can provide end-to-end solutions for world-class digital products. Brett becoming an official member of Hold Fast Creative is a major win for the company and our clients, and will greatly enhance our web design, web development, user interface design and mobile application development services.
Make Time For Your Passions
“Sorry guys, can’t do it. I’m slammed with work right now.”
“I would love to, but I have to put out some fires at the office.”
“Looks like another week without an end to make deadline. Next time, fellas.”
Sound familiar? I know I’ve muttered those lame ass excuses a time or two before. To be totally honest, I’ve found myself deflecting opportunities to have fun with the excuse of being “too busy” for years now.
At first I didn’t notice. I was too focused with getting my career rolling. Shortly after that I woke up and realized I was married. Then I had a kid. Now there’s two kids, holy shit! I definitely can’t take a break now, I have to work to keep this all afloat. What happened? How did I end up here? You would be amazed how fast life can move sometimes.
No matter how hard I worked I never seemed to finally “get there” and resume a normal pace. With every milestone accomplished there was always another to take it’s place. I realized I had become one of those adults who chooses to work their life away. When I was younger I had a name for those types of unhappy people: assholes.
Last month I decided it was time to slow down, get selfish and quit being an asshole. Now this isn’t a quarter-life crisis or anything like that. I adore my family and I love running my own design studio; absolutely! However, those were not the type of things I would day dream about as a kid. What I did fantasize about was making the main event at Washougal and pulling a holeshot at Glen Helen. That’s right, I’m talking about motocross.
I started out racing 80’s when I was 14 and kept at it all the way through college. For me, there isn’t any greater feeling than riding with friends on a sunny afternoon. It’s my thing. It is what I am passionate about. All the reasons for selling my race bikes years ago still exist today: I can’t afford to get hurt right now, I don’t have any time to ride, I should probably save some money, etcetera; but it didn’t matter. Riding has always made me happy. Recently I decided it was time to get back in action and, on a whim, I went out and bought a new race bike.
One month in and I can already see a huge change in my life. I’m not stressed out when I am at home with my family. My creativity and productivity have skyrocketed at the office and most importantly, I’m happy. So if you shelved a personal passion for whatever reason, it’s time to put it back in your life. Don’t wait another day. Dust off your cleats, get the band back together. Do whatever it is you used to do and remember what it’s like to have fun again.
SXSW 2010: Meat, Beer and HTML5
For years I’ve heard that SXSW is the place to be for anyone interested in web design, development or just making connections with like-minded folks. I decided 2010 was the year I would finally head to Austin and see what all the hype was about.
The amount of available panels to check out on any given day is absolutely overwhelming. The mobile web application, Sitby.us, that was created by Naz Hamid of Weightshift was a huge help. I was able to sift through the available panels for every time block of every day and mark anything of interest to my personal schedule. This was especially handy for figuring out where to go at 9:30am after retiring from a Hampton Inn second floor balcony whiskeython™ at 5:00am.
Of all the panels I attended at SXSW this year, there was one in particular that really excited me; HTML5: Tales From the Development Trenches by Bruce Lawson. Bruce gave a great broad stroke review on the events that led up to the creation of HTML5, what exactly HTML5 aims to achieve and who is making it happen. For anyone involved in any aspect of creating anything for the internet, you really should read up on what Mr. Lawson has been writing about. A powerful and truly device agnostic internet really is just around the corner and we should all get busy with making this happen!
Outside of taking in presentations, I spent a fair amount of time exploring the city, meeting up with old friends and making a few new ones as well. I’m normally rather shy when it comes to meeting new people. If I don’t have a friend to make an introduction, I will generally stick to the sidelines and then spend the rest of the night regretting a missed opportunity to share a pint with a personal design hero. This year I made a conscious effort to break out of my shell and get social. I was pleasantly surprised that everyone I spoke with was extremely friendly and welcoming to conversation; even those snooty, elitist rock star designers everyone’s always complaining about.
The ExpressionEngine community was out in full force as well. I was blown away with how engaging everyone was at the EECI party. It seemed everyone there was hellbent on making connections, sharing advice on EE, business and methods to succeed with running an agency. I met a ton of really nice and talented folks and it really made me appreciate being a part of the ExpressionEngine community.
Speaking of nice and talented folks, I would like to call out one individual who takes the cake: Mathew Hoy. I had the pleasure of meeting Mathew for the first time this year and he is an absolute machine! I’m certain he is capable of transcending space and time because he attended just about every panel, conducted multiple interviews for his podcast on a daily basis; and still managed to find time to attend parties and then blog about everything, every day! I should also point out that Mr. Hoy is a Canadian and likes to give ‘er!
I would say that SXSW met my expectations and definitely lived up to the hype. I made it back home with a renewed excitement for getting back to work and focusing on being a better designer and developer. Thanks to all of you responsible for making this trip to Austin so much fun!
SMS Donations Finally a Reality
The recent devastation in Haiti triggered a global cooperative effort to aid people that were suffering and in need of help. Virtually every available medium was flooded with requests for donations. It seems that within a moments notice every television, radio station, computer monitor, and even mobile phone, was prompting you to help do something. One of the most prominent calls to action was the Red Cross SMS campaign: Text HAITI to 90999.
This particular campaign, as is any campaign on the 90999 short code, was made possible by the good folks over at mGive. I worked with the founders of mGive a couple years ago and helped design their logo and website, and remember the simple utility in what they were hoping to create: The easiest way to raise money for a cause. If you stop and think about it, it’s amazing that SMS donations are not more popular in the United States. Everyone has a mobile phone that requires some method of payment for monthly use. Everyone uses SMS to communicate and receive notifications and alerts. People are comfortable texting to short codes for acquiring mobile content to their handsets. Why not use SMS as a donation platform?
This is exactly what mGive has created, an SMS donation platform that enables qualified 501c3 Non-Profit Organizations with the ability to raise funds for their cause through text messaging. It’s unfortunate that it took a massive tragedy to bring the benefit of SMS donations to the lime light, but through the unified efforts of many people around the world; mobile donations generated more than $25,000,000 in support for Haiti. In a brave new world, it’s comforting to see that all this technology really can make the world a better place.