I found the fact that you’re particularly young pretty unusual for someone to share your thoughts, experience and expertise. It just confused me.

My apologies to the kind and sensible person that said this to me if this is wrong. He mentioned prejudice along the comment and sought to put it apart while I was speaking. I understood and accepted what he meant. You don’t face a young rebel like me who happens to feel his life intensely that often.

I am 23 years old. I experience as much as you (I guess): mad boss, bad salary, trouble every now and then, I get sick, scared, happy, angry, sad; just like you. I want to move in together and get married; like you might dream or already accomplished. The difference between me and most people is that they don’t care. If you do care, then you are a friend.

It’s a matter of energy and emotion.

I went to see a wedding a time ago. It was supposed to be the happiest moment of the couple’s lives. Except it wasn’t. The beautiful couple wasn’t connected. There was no magic in their eyes when they looked at each other, that sparkling glow.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, they didn’t care about their marriage, why should they care about the rest of their lives?

You don’t need to be 30 or 40 to start caring. Start caring right now. Start feeling. Write about it. A couple of months after you start writing, you’ll notice how much you’ve learned. I know I did. My Barcamp presentation is the result of 2 months of writing and caring about my growth and my happiness.

Age is not a prejudice anymore. Information is spreading fast and people’s awareness and conscience levels are rising. It’s a biological process.

Dmitri Gaskin started caring at the age of 11. He is one that taught me jQuery and he was only 12 back then. I can’t find a better example.

What is Micromanagement?

No, it’s not about Starcraft; but it can be related though. Quoting Wikipedia:

In business management, micromanagement is a management style where a manager closely observes or controls the work of his or her subordinates or employees. Micromanagement is generally used as a negative term.

So yea, micromanagement is a bad thing. In an industry where motivation and passion are the ultimate requirements, anti-trust behaviour is the killer. If you don’t trust your colleagues / subordinates, then something is wrong. It’s either you or them. Which one is it going to be?

What makes you not trust your peers?

Take your last bad project and analyze your actions, your behaviours and also their actions and their behaviours. Write them down. What did you find?

• Did your peers change their way of talking to you?
• Did they approach you less often?
• Have they tried to cut the conversation short? Like, hurrying things up so they won’t have to talk to you?
• Have they stopped doing stuff the way you wanted?
• Did you start resenting their presence, the moment you even see them at the office?
• Did you start feeling they are not following your “orders” ?
• Have you been shouting and cursing more often?
• More headaches? More stress? Nausea?

I could spill a dozen more. I experienced these behaviours in some way a while ago. They are real and you can experience them as well, should you choose to.

How can I turn Micromanagement around?

You can choose not to micromanage your peers. Instead, you can lower your bar and let them manage the project they are working on. You just manage outer communication. They might even call quits. If that happens, you don’t need to panic; you’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to ask them what should change and share the learning experience with everyone in your company. I’m sure they’ll come up with an answer and I’m even more sure that the learning experience will be welcome and rewarding.

“Let’s talk.” Never do that!

If someone said that to me, I’d talk, sure; but not as comfortable as he wanted. This phrase is a threat. It doesn’t look one but it is, especially if you turn your back like David Caruso does. It gets even worse if he wants to talk to you in the meeting room.

If the subject is important, then you probably want to engage me:

• Reach out a smile and a chance for the both of you to figure the solution out.
• Listen to who you’re talking.
• Be honest with the both of you.
• Don’t explode. If you are, then probably you’ve reached the path of no return. Say you’re sorry, return to the basics and learn from the experience.

Psicologia não exige curso superior

Se achas que não consegues ser psicólogo, então precisas mesmo de vir!

Um bom amigo é um psicólogo; um bom homem da web também é (leia-se “deve ser”) um psicólogo. As variáveis aqui são o prisma e a aplicação da ciência. Vou falar de como psicologia afecta as nossas decisões, bem como as dos nossos clientes e de como podemos contornar os tão afamados entraves e desatinos.

Paixão é a força motriz

Não é o dinheiro que nos motiva (pelo menos não só). A verdadeira força que nos orienta a atingir resultados e ter motivação é paixão. Os teus pais sempre te disseram: Faz aquilo que gostas. ou Quem corre por gosto, não cansa.

Ruby on Rails para concretizar

Até hoje ainda não encontrei ferramenta mais completa e linguagem mais simples do que Rails e Ruby, respectivamente. O padrão MVC aproxima o negócio do cliente ao software que quer implementar. O REST permite que os objetos de negócio sejam manipulados de forma simples e uniforme. Existem tantas outras coisas que fazem do Rails a ferramenta de elite.

Se quiserem saber mais, venham! Estou a pensar em apresentar algo mais interativo; algo como envolver a audiência de um certo modo, portanto acho que vai ser bastante engraçado!

Uma vez estive numa entrevista de emprego e o empregador gostou de mim. Na despedida, apertamos a mão e ele diz-me: Um abraço!.

Take the briefing and tear it up in half!

You heard me! Excuse yourself to him and just rip it apart. Let the client watch (you might wanna tell him that the experience of working with you would be quite different).

What the hell! Are you serious?

Yes! Ask yourself: what would you feel if you started reading a pile of rubbish? What would you feel about reading dozens of pages that might not even be what the client really wants in the end? Well, you can start on the right foot and reset the entire system.

Tearing the briefing up in front of the client will force a chemical reaction inside his body. It is the perfect time for you to teach him your method: the method of emotion.

The method of emotion

Building experiences is what I want to do because it envolves passion and emotion from other people. Good emotions, that is. Bad emotions are supposed to be secondary and/or should help realize which emotions are the good ones. In the end, you should be glad for having fulfilled a client’s need.

Businesses are run by people; they are the materialization of the emotion that drives their creators to actually do it. Nothing more satisfying for a client than knowing he is being heard, not read. So why not start listening to his heart instead of both looking to a computer screen and/or a briefing? Let them explain to you the emotion they want to feel when they use what you’re about to create.

Briefings, paper, a screen, all of these limit our creativity. If you can reduce the load, do it from the very beginning.

Obviously you don’t need to tear his papers

If you’re scared of what his reaction might be, you can always pretend it. Get some bad paper the size of the brief, tear it up in front of the client, experience the feeling and then explain it was an exercise to test both yours and your client’s creativity.

REWORK is by far the best book I’ve read in my whole life. Even though I read very few books, this one shattered my doubts about wanting to make my own business away. After reading this book — if you must know, I read it in under 24 hours —, I feel happier about myself, i feel more confident and I also feel more relaxed. My potential as a business owner is as big as everyone else’s, including Jason’s and David’s, the very authors of the book. Thanks to them, my maturity towards achieving the future I dream of grows bigger by the day.

What’s inside the book anyway?

In a nutshell, Jason and David share the top experiences of their life as part of 37signals. The book’s slogan is “Change the way you work forever”. No wonder.  They write in a straightforward, conversational style so you can feel comfortable while reading. It’s divided into two to four page chapters so you won’t get lost in the material. The content they share is that simple: no fancy crap, no jargon — as they mention —, just pure juice. The book will change your fucking mind.

What next? Are you just stopping there, José?

No way I’m stopping now! I am considering reading it one more time, except this time I will write my own notes and publish them in a PDF for free.

After that, I’m considering reading:

• Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are you indispensable?, it’s said to be a great book.
• Tony Robbins‘ Awaken the Giant Within. I’ve attended one of his conferences and he’s totally awesome!

Is there any other book you’d recommend? There’s this one called Web Form Design on Rosenfeld Media that’s drawing my attention because of my skillset in UI/UX. Other than that, I’m open to suggestions!

Whether your website sells products / services or is just a blog with content that’s supposed to be read and not just scanned, what you write should provoke certain feelings that makes the reader want to stick around or maybe be compelled to buy something from it, if that’s the case.

How should you write then?

The gold rule applies here like a glove. Ask yourself as a regular consumer (not as the seller):

• What and how would you like to see the content in your website?
• What would you like to read to be compelled to move forward?
• What kind of speech would trigger you to act?

These are only three of the many questions you can ask yourself. If the text you’re considering doesn’t really convince you then you ought to try again.

The gold answer: Stick to real content

If your product is good, you won’t need to wrap it with shiny and colorful paper. You just need to point out the facts. Show it how good it really is and nothing more than that.

Unfortunately that’s common practice in Portugal. People mistakenly think that juggling with adverbs and adjectives makes content better and more compelling. Well, they couldn’t be more wrong. Those times are over. Now that the .com explosion is gone, filling our content with sand isn’t just unnecessary but also has the reverse effect; instead of attracting people, it repels them.

Today we don’t waste time around the web. It’s all about the juice, why waste money and time if you can just convince your audience with naked truth and facts?

Doing what you like is one thing we take for granted most of the time. At least for us designers. We get to be creative most of the time, we enjoy throwing that creativity into a sheet of paper or a Photoshop file, we let our wizardry blossom through our fingers into a screen. It’s just that good.

Well, it might just not be enough…

Even though we enjoy doing what we like (aledgely), we project that happiness for the short term. Take me, for example. Every now and then, I tend to dislike having to work on the same thing everyday, having to fix bugs and take free bullshit from some guy that won’t read what’s in their face. But hey… I absolutely love my job.

Love your job = Do the good stuff + Do the nasty stuff × Love you have for good stuff

Sounds like crap, huh? Well, that’s the way it should be. I love my job because I do the good stuff and the bad stuff, and in the end of doing the bad stuff I say: I got things done, hurray! Now I can do good stuff again!. In a nutshell, live everything with passion. You will be able to say I’ve accomplished a lot lately after a while. Why? Not just because you did the good stuff, but mostly because you felt you evolved from the bad stuff you’ve been through.

Bad experiences are good. They make you bigger on the inside. That’s one of the best feelings in the world. I used to curse everyone that brought me bad experiences but now? Thank you guys for where I am now.

You know what’s even better?

Along with time, you will master the art of letting the same old crap go away and face new and enticing crap.

You can’t just wish a load of crap forever

[more content is missing due to my previous blog crash. I will try and get the rest of it when I find it possible.]

Estrutura

O Word suporta estilos. Melhor que isso, já tem alguns predefinidos para se usar de imediato. Se quiser, pode mudar a formatação ao seu gosto, mas mude o estritamente necessário e mude o estilo, não o texto em si! Assim, assegura que todo o texto é uniforme e assegura a estrutura semântica do seu documento. Quando tiver de utilizar o documento entre plataformas diferentes (entre Word e Openoffice, por exemplo), o número de casualidades diminui drasticamente.

Conteúdo gerado

Generated content

Uma das vantagens de usar os estilos de que falei é o conteúdo gerado ser feito de forma automática e simples. Apenas indique os parâmetros necessários e a aplicação gera automaticamente o conteúdo. Melhor que gerá-lo é actualizá-lo com apenas um clique — botão direito do rato em cima do conteúdo e pedir para o actualizar. Mai nada!

Algumas regras

1. Não separe os parágrafos com <Enter>’s a mais. Defina no seu estilo que quer uma margem inferior e dê-lhe um valor mais generoso.
2. Faça das listas a coisa mais simples possível. Não arraste os manípulos para trás e para a frente, vai acabar por desuniformizar a sua estrutura e depois é mais difícil tornar a endireitar.
3. Tabelas super simples. Pode escolher as formatações automáticas sem qualquer problema. Se quiser criar um estilo único, use um estilo para tabelas e use-o sempre. Dêem também espaço suficiente nas células das tabelas.
4. Não usem WordArt nem molduras de página. Por favor.
5. Mantenham margens de página acima dos 2,5cm para ser mais fácil de ler.
6. Se tiverem um uso consistente e relativamente uniforme do Word, considerem criar templates, com os estilos já todos definidos. Assim não precisam mais de se preocupar com a formatação de cada vez que criam um documento novo.

Percam algum tempo a conhecer as ferramentas que usam, elas são simples, apenas precisam de procurar. Para aqueles mais ávidos e dispostos a levar o conceito de preparação de documentos mais ao extremo, dêem-se ao trabalho de usar LaTeX. Eu uso-o e vale mesmo a pena.

Mantenham este conjunto de guias e orientações mais rico, comentem. Contribuam para a melhor produtividade do nosso Portugal.

Today a client said to me:

You’ve been eating too much cheese, eh José?

He actually thought he was my only project – even if he was, I am not supposed to know everything, since he didn’t know how to approach me in the first place and didn’t write the specs of what he wanted well enough.

Clients, this is the truth. We as freelancers are providing a service for you. Say specifically what service it is you want us to do, don’t just fire an idea away. If you only have an idea, get it written down. Here’s a couple guidelines for you when approaching us.

1. If you can, personally reach us to discuss the idea open and friendly.
2. Be nice to us. We deserve good work experience too.
3. Always accomplish what we ask and let us do our job well.
4. Be ready to do whatever it takes. Remember, you’re paying for the job.
5. Let us reach you as nicely as we would like you to reach us. The worst thing it can happen in such a relationship is to get chills whenever your name shows up on the screen. Word of experience.
6. Pay us. If you feel paying it all in a bunch is too much in your mind, set reasonable milestones.
7. Golden rule: if you want to hire us again, make sure we want to be hired by you again as well; we can always say no.

It sure sounds like I’m pushing too much on you but I’m not. It’s all a matter of love and motivation. After all, if you want us to do a good job, we need to feel we’re doing a good job for a good person, so spoil us! Yea, spoil us. Make us feel good and enjoying the work we’re doing, we’ll feel like “Hey, this client deserves a treat!”, rather than “This guy is getting on my nerves, let me just take care of the business so I don’t see his face anymore…”. Smile when you’re talking to us, praise us when you see progress.

I had a client, Paul Kay, who deserved a special award because he praised and kept motivating me so much he made me want to do his site smooth and silky, and fast too! I did his website in a week, for the very first time in my life. We ended up friends and he told he would love to refer me to other people because of the way he made me feel, not actually the other way around.

PS: Freelancers, we should do the same thing, of course! We should praise our client for what he does and motivate him to be on track with our requests the whole time. Love is reciprocal.

This post is more like an introspection to my progress throughout 2007/2008, regarding web design, development and self development. It has been by far the year that I have learned the most. It has been the year where I have put myself to test the most. It has been the year where I’ve finally met the USA, their culture, their “different” food. There were just so many things that happened! I can’t even remember them all.

This was the last year (until further notice) on my degree.

• I experienced the challenge of being a leader of a pseudo-company. It’s a wonderful experience yet tough if you don’t know how to do it correctly or if you go soft. I met wonderful people, grew on open-source and developed my standardismo during that time.
• In 2008, I had a two month training in one of the biggest banks in Portugal. My first true work experience… boy, was that hard. Faced a bad boss, worked with awful .NET Framework 1.1, coded in Visual Basic and commuted between home, work and college.
• In July, I went to the USA, met lovely people and a lousy house. Won my first true job and my first true money. Learned a lot on web design, web tools and frameworks, productivity, self development and subsistance… everything that turns you into an adult. It really felt like I’ve taken lots of hormones to grow up faster. Try and picture it

It’s September now and I feel wonderful. I know a lot more people, a lot more of my skills, a lot more of how my future should change from now. Well… I know it’ll change a lot!

Thanks for everyone that’s helped me to become a better person, a better designer, a better developer, a better friend. I’m not going to name everybody because I have people I learned from … for what I should do and what I shouldn’t.

I believe this year to come will bring me a lot of knowledge, experience and income so I can fulfill my dreams. Wish me luck!

I got in the plain Saturday, July 19th 2008, 9h30am. Everything was still an exciting mistery. Arrived at Newark, New Jersey at 3pm. Jim Starace picked me up to show me the town of Hauppauge, New York. He showed me my office, my home and some parts of town. For two days we drove to various spots like some stores for me to get some stuff to eat, sleep and fill the house. It was an interesting weekend, we could actually chat a little and hang out so me and Jim could get along as friends and colleagues at work.

Monday came. Jim picked me from the hotel on our way to start my first day of work. A wonderful day that was. I met the boss, Keith, a wonderful guy indeed. Everyone at Agency Access is just lovely! I started my role as the in-house PHP developer in order to start the project I applied to. The whole day went just great. I had the perfect work day. I wish these days could exist where I live.

Then another major event came upon: my moving in. When I first saw the house and said to me: “I won’t be staying here too long, I can tell…”. The house «looked» kinda nice but it was only that. The house smelled funny and it had no lights in the living room nor the bedroom. The floor was carpeted – I am not used to it – and the couch was dirty. I would get a new couch cover and the problem would be settled. I was so excited with all the adventure that I didn’t even think about that whole mess. I just wanted to experience all of it; unfortunately it turned out the other way around.

The first night at the place was … peaceful. Until… the landlord turned the TV out loud till after bed time. I had the whole bedroom lit up by the moonlight so I just couldn’t get no sleep because of these two incidents. I managed to get some sleep.

Next day I wake up with pain in my back from the lousy night I had. I get up, I have breakfast and go to work. A lovely 20 minute walk in the midst of the trees that fill New York’s suburbs. The whole work day was very pleasant and productive. I was actually enjoying working there very much, no doubt on that.

When I came home, I felt this deep voidness inside. I was looking at my still unpacked case, my dirty couch, my TV set and decided to chill out a little bit. I laid on the couch with my laptop trying to chat with my friends at Portugal. A nice time that was. When all of them were off I decided to get something to eat. I had previously got those add-water meals so I could easily start off with something rather than milk & cereals. So I put turn the oven on and it didn’t last 5 minutes until the fire alarm went off…! I had to turn it off so the house wouldn’t go nuts because of that. So milk & cereals it was for dinner.

I tried to listen to some of my music to see if I could relax but the moment I turned the music on I felt like I wanted to dance it with some girl. Guess what? There were no girls! Turn it off so I won’t be crying. What could I possibly do at that time (it was like 9pm) ? Nothing but go to bed. And so I did. What happened? Landlord’s TV out loud. Moonlight. I was trembling for so much disaster. I started crying in despair. That’s where I found I was having no peace. The next morning I got the tickets and went back home.

Life lesson: never face something that unknown. I lost a lot of money on this adventure and I must get them back no matter what. If you are reading this and want to do something alike this, be careful! I learned a lot in this week concerning risk taking, investing and inner joy, peace and happiness.

I appreciate everyone’s help and support. But there are three people I want to thank with kind attention: Jim Starace, for all the incomparable support during this week, my deepest thank you goes to you; my mother because she is my mother and there is no one like her, period; Tony Chester, leader of the OnWired team that first offered me a job but it didn’t work. However, his concern has always meant a lot to me. My regards to you, Tony.

From the day I joined a company based on Microsoft, my technological values grew and became rock solid. But I’m feeling sort of a whirlwind deep inside the social, emotional and psychological values as well.

I see my country falling apart because of all the speculation on oil fuel. I see a blind society that doesn’t want to evolve and reacts harshly over technological evolution and over change. I see the government spending a lot, I see the people rioting for everything, I see heavy taxes, I see professional disappointment and I see myself in a reckless anxiety, fearing for my professional success and my happiness. I don’t want to live in Portugal because I strongly feel I wouldn’t be happy here. I want a place where I can live without such feelings of fear, no reliability and lack of vision.

I need a place to express my joy for life, work, friends, love and most of all, freedom. I need a place where I can grow as a designer and as a developer. I need scones. I need my own home, my own salary.

I am changing inside. I am becoming a whole different person; a person who needs to be independent and have his own story to tell. I am feeling a different energy. After all, I’m becoming an adult at full speed and I’m having a different kind of needs from the ones I had when a teenager. Yet, my strongest desire is to be free and tremendously happy and make other people feel free and happy as well.

I feel better already

I have (re)discovered that not everyone is meant to be a leader. The worst thing I have concluded is that the actual leaders shouldn’t be leaders at all because they just don’t know how to lead people the right way.

1. Bad leaders don’t actually consider people as such: they call them “resources”. Honestly I don’t feel like I’m an object. What is more unmotivating than being treated as something, not someone?
2. Bad leaders don’t care of what you think, they just want to see the job done. I’m not against wanting the job done but I believe we deserve to feel good while doing our work. Work is not supposed to be a sacrifice, it’s supposed to be a joyful way to serve people.
3. Bad leaders don’t teach, they criticize and even when they do they do it wrong. Try and think of God or who/whatever serves you as a perfect example of a loving teacher. I’m sure much of the disappointments would fade away.
4. Bad leaders think they know all and think we can do all. That’s a huge difference between realizing someone’s potential is good and showing trust on her work.

There would be a lot more bad attitudes I could point out, you can simply imagine one bad boss you’ve had (or you still do) and all the bad things they did to you.

I want to assure you my will is to release society from wrong principles of professionalism and misconceptions of professional etiquette. If someone says you should not be yourself at work then something is definitely wrong. Of course you can actually be doing something wrong; in that case, I advice you to look over yourself and get over some big faults of yours. But if you strongly believe you are a nice person and if you realize your social life is quite rewarding then fear not and stand up for your valiant principles of innocence and truth.

I stand up for a pleasant way of working and for better leadership.