Signed and Released: Side Projects Are So Good
Common thinking in the photography industry is to always have a side project going in addition to your main job. Work, even photography work, is tough. You've got to have a personal project going to keep you sane.
Turns out having a side project can lead to some really good work too. Just ask Google about their 20% rule.
After a long time of not following this sage advice, I am now fortunate enough to announce two.
The Vancouver Project
A good friend of mine, Andrew Burton, and I have been talking for a couple of months about the rise of DSLRs with video capability and what it the implications for sports photographers.
Andrew had the foresight to see that this new technology would come to head in the very near future – namely the coming winter Olympics in Vancouver. Exploring thought, we also realized that this Olympics would be the first since the rise of the real-time web, live video broadcasting from cell phones, Google Wave, and, and, and.
Our realization lead to a plan of action which we're calling The Vancouver Project. Stop by and check us out.
Shameless plug: if you're in a position to help by spreading the word to the right people we'd love to hear from you.
Linked Photographer
In other news, I'm writing a book.
That is a very weird sentence for me to write. I write posts, tweets, cutlines… not books. But, apparently, that's happening :)
An excellent friend of mine, and phenomenal fashion photographer, Lindsay Adler, approached a few months ago saying that she was looking into writing a book, would I be interested in co-authoring?
Today, I signed the contract. We'll be writing a book that's got the tentative title Linked Photographer. It will be part treaties, part howto, and part reference on how photographers can use social media for business. It's a bit more than a for-dummies book, but
We'll be launching linkedphotog.com soon, so stay tuned!
BATTLE | What We Need, Is a Plan
I’ve challenged myself to battle the management at my school’s newspaper The Daily Orange with a new ‘new media’ topic every week. BATTLE look at the struggle of a college paper trying to evolve to succeed on the Internet.
My battle this week stems from a series of emails exchanged between myself, the IT staff, and the Business Director that originally stemmed from the ad department securing online sponsorship for a weekly print feature: Thirsy Thursday — a beer (mmh… beer) reviewing column.
The effort has devolved into a struggle to get the new IT staff up to speed, launch a new blog for Thirsty Thursday, and even redoing parts of the main website. My suggestions on that front were:
- decisions about web design by non-web designers is usually a poor choice.
- unilateral decisions about the structure of an editorial site by business staff is not a good move
- I'd strongly suggest that many of our design issues are centered around college publisher inadequacies.
The Way Forward
This whole process lead me to realize that what the DO needs more than anything else, is a planned approach to the Internet, which until this point, has been haphazard at best. We have no plan for forward growth, and that means that we're likely going to continue to be frustrated with each other and with our own efforts. At this point there are plenty of other colleges out there that have easily surpassed our own efforts to both make money online and leverage it as a platform.
