Taking My Shirt Off for Software, Oprah on Twitter, Punked on Website Gigs?

Today I recieved a t-shirt from my sponsor!  Find out why I’m taking it off
Oprah stepped into Twitter today.  Thoughts from Twitter folks
Is your client driving you insane on a website project?

Update 4/19/2009

Zendesk has responded with several tweets and a blog post acknowleding the need for t-shirts that fit women.  Michael Hansen of Zendesk says the following:

Announcements

• Contrats to @s0l_uk for being selected as an AskAdria.com chat moderator!
• The rules of participation - Warn, kick, then boot
• Contest will only be once a month on the first Monday vs every Monday
• Grab bag Friday is the day when you bring up the topics you want to talk about!  I pull stuff from my email, chats and Twitter I’ve received in the last week and we say good bye to the work week together!

Grab Bag Friday Topics

• Taking my shirt off for software
• Oprah on Twitter
• Switching  laundry detergent after 14 years
• Getting punked by your website clients

Taking My Shirt Off For Software

• Software companies spend millions of dollars on marketing
• They give out t-shirts at conferences, as prizes and to say thank you
• Web 2.0 companies, make shirts for women please!
• My measurements are 33-28-36

There are women out there who would proudly wear your t-shirts for commercial software, open source software, hardware products, cloud computing and social networking sites.

You can find women in technology at the following places (please suggest your favorites):

• BlogHer
• LinuxChix
• JoomlaChix
• Ubuntu Women
• She’s Geeky
• Women In Technology
• Women Who Tech

Image Slideshow of Technology T-Shirts

 

 

photo album created using Flickr’s slideshow feature

T-shirt from Zendesk

Description: Green with Buddah logo on front, company name and logo on the back.  Nice quality t-shirt.  Very soft material.  Thick cotton fabric.
Size: men’s medium
How I got it: gift from my sponsor April 2009
How it fits: I would not wear this shirt on-site to see a client or attend a technology meeting / Barcamp. It’s so big I feel like a little kid in a grownup’s shirt.
Could they offer women’s shirts? Yes, GMTee,  does offer women’s shirts

T-shirt from Geeksquad

Description: White shirt.  Stiff cotton fabric.  Small neck.  Square.
Size: men’s small
How I got it:employee of Geeksquad in 1999
How it fits:Really obvious it’s a guy’s tshirt.

T-shirt from Newegg

Description: Orange shirt with the NewEgg logo.  I cut off the arms and the neck.  The neck was really small and felt uncomfortable.  Stiff cotton fabric.
Size: men’s medium
How I got it:gift from Newegg in 2007
How it fits:Felt like yuckville.  Almost like wearing a cardboard t-shirt.

T-shirt with Microsoft

Description: Blue button down shirts. 
Size: First is a men’s small.  Second is a woman’s medium.
How I got it:purchased from 2 ebay sellers in 2006
How it fits:I feel like a little kid wearing a grownup’s shirt.  Would not wear to on-site to see a client, technical user group meetings like Barcamp.

T-shirt from Think Geek

Description: Grey fabric t-shirt with blue lettering<geek> </geek>.  Very comfortable cotton fabric.  Fits well.  Durable.  Looks good. 
Size: women’s medium
How I got it: purchased in 2005
How it fits: I feel proud wearing this shirt.  I get compliments on it.  I feel it fits me.  I have worn this on site to see clients and to technical user group meetings.
Get your own girl geek t-shirt at ThinkGeek

Tank Top from Google (not in AskAdria.com show)

Description: Light blue tank top with the Google logo on the front.  Medium quality fabric. 
Size: women’s medium
How I got it: purchased in 2002
How it fits: I felt proud wearing this tank top.  Last time I checked, Google didn’t have any more tanks but they did carry women’s shirts.

What does it take to make a shirt fit a woman?  Fabric that hugs our curves.  Spandex is a popular material, blended with cotton to make t-shirts for women.  Button down shirts that are more formal also use spandex plus a tailoring method know as “darting”.

Who is Zendesk?  First and foremost, they are a clould computing company that offers a hosted helpdesk and ticketing solution. 

Second, they are in the cloud. Cloud computing is also known as SASS (Software As a Service Subscription).  I use their product and you can see it in action here http://support.adennetworks.com.  In fact, Twitter uses them too!  Check out Twitter’s help section which runs on Zendesk http://help.twitter.com. 

Third , they are my sponsor here at AskAdria.com.  This means that I was taking a “risk” by doing a public critique of them not having shirts for women.  I like testing the waters!  Plus, I felt that Zendesk would be receptive becuase of their whole energy/aura.  I only take awesome sponsors who run awesome companies!  Thanks Zendesk for rocking on the internet!

Oprah on Twitter

Talked about how I enjoyed Oprah Winfrey Presents ”The Color Purple” the musical
She’s having Aston Kutcher on her show to talk about Twitter

Folks on Twitter discussing Oprah on Twitter the #herebeforeoprah hashtag
“Us” vs “Them” mentality instead of welcoming new Twitter followers

Did blog post at ButYoureAGirl.comcapturing Twitterstream of opinions
Cross promotion of Twitter between real life and your “virtual” life
Twitter is powerful.  Twesival raised $250,000 to build wells for clean water

Switching Laundry Detergent After 14 Years

Used Tide since I was 17 years old
Bought people friendly laundry detergent made by 7th Generation
Worried about scent and performance…A winner!!!!!
Better for the environment
Good value

Getting Punked by Your Website Clients

 Let’s help Lee with this question he submitted by email:

Dear Adria,

I need some advice on people skills…

 

I have a web design problem that involves a person. I am a web developer, and I have been struggling to find work in Michigan, where it is hard to find any kind of job (I’m in Texas now). I do server-side programming, database programming, etc, but I also enjoy design work. Last year I did not have any work online, nothing recent anyway, and employers were always asking me if they could see my work. I had designs, but they were on private sites (password protected), so I could not show anyone what I could do. So I asked a “friend” who owns a yoga studio if I could redesign his web site, which he designed himself. His site really sucked and he has no talent for web design, plus he is in love with Frontpage. If anyone needed a do-over, it was him.

 

So anyway, I designed the whole layout and CSS from scratch using good design practices. It was nice! When I finished, he changed the password on the server and defaced the web site, placing a big ugly yellow and red sign at the top of the home page. I hollered and pleaded with him to remove it because it clashed horribly with my color scheme and it looked like dog#!&. He refused to remove it. I begged him for weeks to remove it but he would not budge. Now, I have this yoga studio gig on my resume and I did this pro bono, too, but this guy is making me look bad. People think that it was my idea to have this big ugly sign on the home page. I don’t know what his deal is, he thinks that he is a good designer and he edits the page using Frontpage. I have asked him, in no uncertain terms, to stop using Frontpage because it is garbage. He still uses it. He has no concept of HTML, CSS, debugging, margins, or any other basic practices. Also, he edits the page directly on the server, not saving anything on his hard drive. So anytime he makes a boo-boo it stays on the server for the world to see. He refuses to change his ways.

 

I have tried to discuss these issues politely, to no avail. He has edited the home page again and it looks like dog#!&. Potential employers will see that and think that I did it. I just sent him an angry letter and I told him exactly what I think about his lack of skills. Do you have any advice about dealing with turkeys like this? I am about to go postal on this yoga guy!

 

Regards,

Lee

 

What can Lee do?

First Lee, take a breath and realize that you cannot control other folks.  <breath in…breath out>.

Take screenshots of websites rather than linking to the real sites.  This way, it doesn’t matter what the person does to their website after you are done with it.  Another thing you can do is create “mock” websites to build up your portfolio; you become your own client.

Establish the ground rules of the work before hand.  Get it in writing. It can be a simple one page document describing the work you will do, the number of hours you will work on the website, your rate, and some terms regarding comunication, updates and approvals.

Don’t do 100% barters or “pro bono” work if you financially can’t afford it.  If you are looking to get work for your portfolio, explain this to potential web clients and tell them you will be providing them a discount vs “doing all of the work for free”.

Work with someone a few times before you do a barter.  I suggest a barter percentage of 20% – 50% so the barter value is realized yet there is still a payment exchanging hands.  Pro bono should be done for organizations that would benefit from it AND who can display they will put your generous donation to work.  That includes being easy to work with.

Going forward, you may want to consider offering training when “designing websites”.  The yoga guy may only know about Frontpage.  Discussing your workflow process for updates to the site should be done before any work starts.

Lee, lastly, you may want to consider not putting a portfolio of website design on your site if that is not your primary focus.  The first thing you listed in your email as server-side programming.  Find out ways to illustrate that service offering to clients.  A blog is a great website platform for that.

From the Chat

Where is the Ustream bot?  It’s supposed to arrive after 2 or more people are in chat. 
What do you think of “Ghost Tweeting”?
Does your dog Bluey Twitter?
Twittering at work
Google Calendar is great for tracking bets you make with people
Irrational fear of scarcity concerning virtual resources like Twitter Fail Whale
Do you know of free SQL server resources?
Websites are still being developed dont’ do anything (not web 2.0)
The difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpres.org
WordPress Developer’s Toolbox
How is your rat doing?  Justice is dying… (My rats are Common and Justice)
Why grooming your animals is important.  cute parody site: Compare the Meercat

Resources

Book – “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, Example of Korean Air plane crashes
Link – Pilot lands plan in the Hudson River
“You know you are doing the right job when you lose track of time” – Adria Richards
Free Business Mentor at Score.org
Book – “Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability“