clear.your.mind

It has been said, that 90% of business never grow up like they could because their owners lose, sometime in the battle, the goals they once thought for their business. It’s hard out there, with a lot of business being created each day, that means competence each day. 37signals were the cool kids on the block until WeBreakStuff came out of the floor, right behind them. I saw that happened 20 times since I started my business, with blogs, with other business, with writers, with cool “marketing guys” of the moment (someone remember Seth Godin? how is he doing?) and it repeats once and once again.

Now, I never hit the sky with Emagiancion (yet) because I had lost my goals earlier, before I went into the “battlefield”. This is a 3rd world country gentlemen, it gets ugly sometimes down here and you may get your head screw up from time to time if you don’t move away from all the madness going on here. Yes, I admit it. I have lost the original plan, the goal and I’m now in the trenches with no map at all; I don’t recognize in what side are the allies, and in what side the axis are; totally lost.

But, there is a solution for that. Our job, our main job is to find solutions each day, to problems. Can be a website usability, a design that doesn’t fit well with what the client wants, users that are complaining about a specific feature and how it works, it can be anything, but we solve problems. And it’s a daily task in our business administration too; so the “lost goals” issue, has a fix for sure.

Make a plan

This is what I’m doing right now. Think about what you once wanted to accomplish by going into business. Yes, being your own boss, not working for [[insert boss name here]] never again, not seeing his/her face, working from home, making millions. Yes sure, those are good reasons in fantasy land. Here in reality, a business needs to make a difference; not just for you but for others. No business that makes a difference just for their owners goes anywhere beyond the backroom in the owners house.

Is not always about the money; but about what you can do for the others or what you can avoid to happen. Example: McDonalds is a fast food place right, the only reason for those business to exist is to make money for their owners right? wrong! they don’t sell hamburgers. No sir. That’s not their product. Their product is that you, or I, or anyone, all of us live in a world where nothing works as it suppose to work, everyone is always late, everyone is always running and not being there in time, everyone always have an excuse. You, me everyone.

Not in McDonalds they don’t. You go there, for a meal, ask for it, and under 4 minutes, you are on your way with what you asked for. That’s what McDonalds are producing, that’s their product, that’s what they sell. The peace of mind to know you can get a full meal within 4 minutes. Sure they won’t win the prize of the year for nutrition, but it’s not about that. Again, is about going there, asking for a meal, and witting 4 minutes, having it in your hand. Then, you walk through the door, and you are again, in the imperfect Real World ™ where everything fails.

That’s McDonalds business. The easiest example I can think off right now.

First, you make a plan. What are you going to change? what are you going to deliver out there? It can be changing something you know is wrong (37signals guys changed how the web works, they made web apps easy and accessible for everyone, by price and by features), it can be helping something good to stay how it is, it can be working to fix something that is absolutely wrong; you follow me? it needs to be real. It needs to be there, right in people’s face.

Once you have that, once you have your “cause”, you are ready. THEN, you make a plan. Then you work on how to go from here, to there, and what you will need.

The Plan Sheet

I made a quick plan sheet that folds into my pocket and I carry it everywhere. I actually carry it inside my Moleskine Pocket. I use it twice a day: when I wake up, and after I eat my yogurt ;) and when I’m about to leave my office. How do I use it? I just read it and imagine what’s my next move.

On that Plan Sheet I have wrote down where I’m, where I want to go, and how do I plan to get there, it’s a mini-plan, with numbers ($) and notations everywhere. It doesn’t need to look pretty, it just needs to work. Right in the middle of it, there is our “EmaStudios motto”, or our cause per say. I will reveal it once EmaStudios goes live. But, you can place it on the top, on the bottom, whenever you want, but it has to be there, big enough for you to see. Bigger than everything else. Dominant.

If you don’t forget where you are, and where you want to be, and if you don’t forget WHY you wanted to begin the journey in the first place, I believe you, as I, could go right to the top of our dreams.

It’s not hard. It’s DAMN HARD. And that’s why we are doing it, right?

Javier Cabrera
From the EmaStudios HQ. Bs. As. Argentina.

Our small group is growing up very fast at Emaginacion (you will see soon…) so we are looking for a Designer who is willing to learn the current web “trends” to improve his/her skills. This is Junior position and you won’t need to touch any HTML/CSS code, just graphic and UI design. We don’t put much value about your formal education, we do like passionate, intelligent, motivated people; we like practical experience. Even if you don’t have 10 years of experience, if you know what to do what you are doing, then you may be a good candidate.

You will be approached as a junior web designer and be trained to work with us until you can imitate our style perfectly. All levels of skills are opened for this position, if you have the minimum set of skills to design a web with the “2.0″ look, don’t suffer, we can help you out. There is more than just making nice buttons and blue gradients, there is interface and usability approaches that you will learn by working with us; so you have to be willing to learn a lot! just try us and see if we can work together. More details once we start talking!

Educational background can get you so far in life, then it’s experience and willing to learn, that’s what we value here. So, if you are in this world (no matter where) and you want to work with a small group of smart, funny people who make the web a little better; just drop us a line to javier = at = emaginacion.com.ar and let’s see what we can do together.

If you know someone, just send him/her to meet us!

I didn’t knew Twitter at all, just by name until I saw Guy Kawasaki has an account there and I thought “wait a second… that may be an interesting online app”. With all the mambo-jumbo going on around web 2.0 and 15 web applications coming out every few seconds that actually don’t do too much or nothing at all, I wasn’t very aware Twitter was the ultimate system to keep clients, friends and family updated about daily tasks.

Of course, first I went and see if there was anything better in Design terms (sorry, can’t help it) and found Pownce which is a more clean version of Twitter and beautiful as well. Both have weak and strong points, but Pownce has a better interface than Twitter which is calling me until today.

Have to say it, I went and opened my account in both, but I will stay with Twitter because is much more easier to make updated through my messenger account, and through my cellphone (pownce doesn’t let you do that!).

If anyone wants to follow me, my twitter is http://twitter.com/doncabrera and I’m updating everyday.

I never though people liked this blog since I changed the subject so often and posted so sporadically, and since I was locked at the Phantom Zone and wasn’t able to post properly (not to say, I didn’t had any time to post) I actually believed no one, no one would ever came back to my blog, to CYM. Got lots of emails asking me if everything was ok! and people still was coming back to my old blogposts, so I HAVE to give it another shoot.

This is what’s coming: the new, improved Emaginacion. We are taking Emaginacion to the next level, and I say “we” because is not just me here, there is a bunch of other people who is working for Emaginacion since day one. We are new at the web, and we didn’t give the blog the proper attention, I personally apologize for that to everyone reading. It could be a different story, but it is what it is… at least until today.

I’m activelly working on the web, and also my team, we are getting a LOT of work done and you will hear from us since tomorrow every single damn day, I will be here posting about everything, is a new beginning for us. Today, will be the first day of our lives, so I have to start gathering all the info and organizing myself to blog every day, and will ask some of the boys to post every now and then.

15tags is going very well, one of the reasons we didn’t finished was because Anty, my good friend is swamp into a LOT of work until today, and I was actually berried into work until a couple of weeks back… almost died working. I’m taking it easy now, I’m doing things one step at the time and trying to give the best for Emaginacion’s clients. 15tags is an early Alpha stage, and it’s working very, very well. We will be opening a private beta in the next couple of weeks. Believe me, you will be amazed with this.

Last news: try to think on Emaginacion… as a studio…. we are changing the name soon. ;) Tomorrow will be around, so keep an eye on CYM and tell everyone you know about the blog! we need to get those readers back ;)

update: Luca! welcome to my blog, nice to see you! (will post on flickr when it’s the time! :_D) Anty, Chernyshov, Danny, thanks for stopping by!!

After a lot of time I got back from a long, long, long period of “busyness”. Emaginacion got a lot of work in the past few months (from August!) and I was cluthered and literally burried in it. Thanksfully, we are making some changes in the house that you guys will notice right now with this blog (notice the little visual upgrade? ah! I knew it!)

Google search is one of them, from now on you will be able to search via Google on the ClearYourMind content, and the integration is great, so you can’t say I’m not making efforts for this blog! As I said before, “Content is King”, so we will go right into it!

I’m thrilled! we came second on the RailsDay under the User Interface Category! I wasn’t expecting even to came into the first fifthly, but hey what do you know!

We are very happy, my friends Tom, Jeff and of course me! they did it on 24hs and it came clean and beautiful; they code like gods and it’s there for everyone to see. On my defense, I have to say, I let them down on them that day, because I supposed to stay 24hs and because of work (clients, clients,…) I had to go in one hour; so yes, they were mad at me. And they were right, I said I was going to be there and I couldn’t. Tom almost hit me on the neck because of it. But hey, we came 2dn on user interface so, like Jeff said, that’s 50% of the path and I’m glad I was there to be a part of it.

Now, we won a couple of prices, between them, a Nintendo DS Liite. One for each? Who knows… it’s going to be a happy christmas anyway ;-D

This is a special day for us (you, me and everyone else who read this blog). For those who doesn’t know it, JoeGoals is a web application aimed to help you in your way to become a more productive person, in every aspect of your life. Today, on the joe goals blog I saw a post that made my day more happy than what it was planned to be. Joe Goals passed the 10,000 registered users; that’s amazing guys!

But there is more; it seems that all started when Ian Smith the founder of Joe Goals saw one of my posts about the system that Ben Franklin used grow as a person in life; the famous list of 13 Virtues; the post was called Gain More Virtues, by Benjamin Franklin. Here is a small part of the interview Matt Pressnall from EnjoyYourDigital Life did to Ian:

MP: What does Ben Franklin have to do with your Web 2.0 application?

Ian: A while back I saw a blog post talking about how Ben Franklin developed and tracked a list of 13 Virtues in his effort to improve himself. He used a pen to track his daily progress on a pad of paper he had printed up for himself. I thought the grid format was innovative and I soon figured out a way to incorporate it into my idea for a goal tracking application. A number of people even use Joe’s Goals to track Ben Franklin’s original 13 Virtues.

So, here is to JoeGoals! I hope you guys get 10,000 more registered users in the next couple of months!

Yes, you noted it. We are starting all over again, with a new design and a more clear goal for this weblog. I started it as a collection of thoughts where I used to write about productivity tips, design (in some strange instances) but mostly, as a personal weblog; but now the goal is another.

This blog aims to become a resource for news about science, gadgets, productivity and everything a geek want -or needs- to know; clear enough! Due my tight schedule I will be posting with a couple of fellow guys about all those subjects several times a day, and not just to “make X quantity of posts per day” but, to have a place to gather up all those interesting news we see and hear day after day while work online.

Some people may think “gosh, you are serious about this?” I would have to say yes, I’m very serious about it. The goal will be having fun and of course, clear our minds from the work day from time to time. So get ready, because posts will come and go every day…

One more thing: I’m thinking on turning off the comments for those posts that probabbly won’t need them, and only leave from now on the comments turned on for those posts that would require some feedback from you guys/gals (the readers!). Comments take some time to moderate… askimet is doing fine (2454 spams and counting) but I think comments should work when they should… in a more clear example, I believe that because we have a mouth, that doesn’t justify speaking all the time.. isn’t it? of course not. Just when we need to ;) but that’s jut a tought.

What subjects we will be presenting? well, a little bit of everything, but mostly, geeky material; so if you are compute related, you will enjoy this blog from now on. Spread the word, we begin on Monday!