It’s crunch time for anyone that wants to submit their new small business for Design Hope! Come May 22, that’s all she wrote!
Be sure to tell any and every new small business owner you know that they could possible get a free website package worth $15,000!
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It’s official! Mr. Dan Denny (aka webdesignfanboy) is putting together the Front-End Design Conference, a single day event with a focus on content, presentation and behavior.
I keep hearing this word. Relevant. It seems to be everywhere. It hasn’t yet reached the obnoxious level of say, “extreme,” but it is popping up all over the place. People are suddenly, and desperately trying to be relevant.
Keep ReadingThere is a very definite line between the drive for excellence and the desire to nit pick something to death. Excellence has the good common sense to recognize itself. Nit picking knows only picking. Doesn’t matter what it picks as long as there is picking.
I like to call this Nit Harvesting.
Keep ReadingBut let’s face it, picking nits is fun! At least for the person picking them, because it sounds like they know what they are talking about!
The world has changed since I’ve entered the ranks of the employed. You used to be able to show up somewhere, work hard and advance in that business. That is no longer the norm. What now? How are people getting ahead?
I don’t claim to have definitive answers, but I can tell you where there is amazing opportunity for growth. Coding.
That’s pretty generic I know but that is sort of the point. Almost everything that is technologically exciting has some sort of code attached to it. Twitter, Facebook? Code built. iPhone apps? Them too. From Javascript to Ruby on Rails, the businesses of the world need coders.
Keep ReadingDesign Hope is ramping up pretty quickly, and we’re excited to announce quite a few huge partnerships. This has grown from an idea I had laying in bed the other night to an internationally supported endeavor from some of the top names in the design business. I am truly blown away by the generosity of all these companies and excited to share them with you. Check it out!
ExpressionEngine is the only CMS we use, period. It’s incredibly flexible and powerful while using a syntax that even I can understand. We’ve tried everything else, and nothing comes close! In addition to providing an EE license, EllisLab has also offered a Forum Module and Multiple Site Manager Expansion if you need it. That’s potentially $500 worth of software for free!
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So we’ve been thinking a lot about how the economy is affecting businesses and individuals. What I find truly inspiring is hearing stories of really brave people giving up all that is safe, embracing the unknown and starting a new business in the face of an economic downturn. We know what it’s like to start a business from scratch, but I wonder if we would have the balls to do it in these uncertain times. The more I think about these people who are risking all they have in search of creating something revolutionary and forging a better life for themselves and their families, the more I want to help them out.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to design and build one lucky new business’ website for FREE. Yep, for free. Not only that, but we’re going to put the whole design process up on this blog as we go and get feedback from the community.
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I got a most surprising email in my inbox the other day; a request for an interview! Wait, someone wants to interview us? I have to say, we’re pretty flattered that anyone would actually ask us questions and then post them to their own blog. I mean, you never know what we’re going to say! But hey, PixelApnea looks to be the first one to take the plunge, and hopefully in the process is building up some solid content in the land of web design. Actually they have lots of good content; I just hope we didn’t soil it 
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Since Feedburner was acquired, we had to move our account over to Google and our feed URL had to change slightly. Supposedly the old link will continue to work indefinitely, but if you like to be on the bleeding edge, the new one is http://feeds2.feedburner.com/47m .
We probably don’t say it enough, but thank you so much for reading! We’re always amazed by your thoughtful insights and willingness to give back to the community. Keep it up!
Keep ReadingHello and welcome to a new segment on the 47m blog! Annoying: a place where we get to vent about things that really tick us off. I think it will be very therapeutic for everyone!
Today’s topic is “people that don’t get back to us.” We get quite a few job requests that come through our site and I’d say about 30% of them never respond back to us. I don’t understand why. I mean they contacted us first! We’ve just shot them an email back to setup a time to talk. What’s the deal? Is it that hard to hit the reply button? At least tell me if you’re not interested anymore so I can take you off my list of people to keep responding to. All the checking and rechecking is quite a time waster.
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We’re happy to report that Web Designer Wall has listed our site in the Current Web Design Trends for 2009! Looks like we’re under the “multi-column layout” section. We’re honored to be among the company of the others chosen; every single one is just amazing. If you haven’t already, go check out Nick La’s amazing resource site for web designers.
Ever wanted to find friends based on the books they love? Then Bookmesh is the place for you. We’re incredibly excited to announce that it’s finally ready for some beta testers, and you’re invited.
Raise your hand if you can’t believe it’s almost 2009 already. Yep I’ve got mine up! It’s amazing how fast time flies when you’re having fun. The last year has definitely been an interesting one, and we’re looking forward to this next year with great expectation and excitement. I can honestly say that God has blessed us with the best jobs and families in the world. What more can a guy ask for?
I thought about writing some sort of “resolution” or goals post for the new year, but instead I think sometimes it’s good to reflect on what you’ve done. You might even amaze yourself. Looking back over all of our projects this past year, I was surprised at just how much we’d done with a small two man shop. Apparently we’ve been busy 
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For those of you who just recently found us, here’s a quick recap of our favorite projects this past year. Hope you enjoy!
No surprise this was one of our favorites. It came together very quickly and got a ton of attention from Smashing Magazine, Web Designer Wall, Collide Magazine and Godbit. Links: Portfolio | Live Site
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It’s been one crazy year here at 47m, and we’re doing our best to go out with a bang! It may come as a surprise to you, but we do more than design cool websites. We also make the rock and roll. And we finally have some of the rock and roll to share with you. Now between the two of us, I’m not the engineer so I’ll leave the gory technical details to Nate, but I can honestly say it sounds pretty awesome. The two of us wrote and recorded everything, not to mention playing almost every instrument on the album. Needless to say it’s taken a while. Like 5 years. And that’s another story entirely. But it’s finally done!
So in the spirit of Christmas, we would like to give you one of these songs and let you listen to a few others. We sincerely hope you love it.
Keep ReadingWe’re coming up on our second year of calling 47m our full time job so I thought I’d share some things we’ve learned along the way. I’m attempting to shorten my Top 10 lists…not by number but by content. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a Top 10 list now would it? So without further ado, the slimmer Top 10!
Ten years ago you needed a detailed business plan and a hefty loan from a bank to start a business. But web based businesses have changed everything. You don’t need a office or a fancy new desk. You don’t need a company car. You really don’t need much of anything except a computer and some software. I’m happy to say that we slogged it out for two years working full time jobs and doing 47m on the side until we built up enough cash inflow to make it our day jobs. Not only does it make you more responsible, but in this economy debt is like poison. Get rid of it now!
Keep ReadingI went to Food City to buy some groceries today, tried to slip through the self-checkout because I was in a hurry and guess what they don’t accept there? Their own gift cards. Seriously? So I have to cancel my order and walk 5 steps to a register with a person behind it. And then guess what? I use the exact same credit card processing machine and the cashier never touches my card!
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So the other day my wife and I spent the afternoon at Dollywood. We had just finished a roller coaster when I saw this huge machine, that had this huge claw, that housed these sweet little care bears looking at the claw in terror (particularly the yellow bears). I had never seen such a huge claw game in all my life.
It was no surprise to see it though because it seems that “Super Sized” is the cool thing to do now days. Just go to any fast food joint and order a combo and they will hand what used to be a 32 oz extra large cup to you as your combo drink. Now there is nothing wrong with wanting a little bang for your buck, especially if you really really dig mountain dew. There comes a point though where “SUPER SIZE” does not necessarily equal Kick Awesome. So what’s a designer to do in this age of jumbo everything?
Keep ReadingEfficiency. The word that strikes fear in the heart of designers everywhere. Somehow along the way to becoming our artsy selves, we’ve managed to throw all structure out the window. “We’re above that sort of thing; we’re creatives!” we say.
It’s ok, we’ve all been there. I know it started with good intentions: we knew if we had a little more time or a change of scenery, it could make the difference between something good and something amazing. But then somehow it turned into an excuse to take longer to finish things. And an excuse to take longer breaks more often. And before you know it, we’re taking twice as long to finish projects, but they’re not anymore awesome than before. What happened!?
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It is my great pleasure to introduce to our good friend Troy McNeil. Troy is our is our web ninja in training and his kung-fu is excellent. He may look like a mild mannered scooter enthusiast, but lurking under that calm exterior is the heart of a code warrior! He’s stealthy too. He has already been at work on some of our projects and you didn’t even know! But that time is past, today we welcome Troy to our blog. He’ll be posting his thoughts on, well, whatever he wants because he’s really funny. Plus, he can give you an insider’s view of the inner workings of FortySeven Media.
Keep ReadingWant even more 47m? Well now you can have us!….no wait that’s weird. What I mean is we’re officially on Twitter and Flickr now so you can follow us or check out our portfolio elsewhere.
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