In an excellent interview by BigThink.com, Jason Fried of 37Signals discusses the value of being self-funded vs being funded by venture capital, why ad supported software works for Google but not others, the culture of ‘interruptions’ in the workplace, advice on developing a product or service, and the irrational fear of security in cloud based products and services.

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Sydney Design 2010
14th International Design Festival
31 July – 15 August

Sydney Design 2010 is seeking expressions of interest from organisations, groups, individuals and businesses engaged in design and the creative industries to be part of the 2010 festival program. Sydney Design invites submissions across a range of programs including exhibitions, workshops, talks, forums or symposiums, industry events, installations, interventions, digital projects, children’s programs, markets and competitions.

To submit an event or project, complete the Expression of interest form and return to Nicole Bearman
by Friday 26 February 2010.

Links

http://www.sydneydesign.com.au/sd09/leading-story/be-part-of-the-sydney-design-festival-program/

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1. Sublime Video – An HTML 5 vide player

Sublime Video is a HTML5 Video Player. The beauty of HTML video players is that users can play videos without the need of plugins like Flash, which are sluggish and often cause a browser to crash. It has Full-window mode with nice zoom-in/out transitions. There are more advanced controls on a draggable pane. Sublime Video will be soon released for free (at least for non-commercial use).

Sublime Video Player Screen Capture

After a few minutes using the player in Safri 4.0.3 (according to the website it requires 4.0.4) the experience was not perfect. The demo video they have took about 30 seconds to start playing before freezing the web browser. Once the video was playing, after switching from full screen back to window mode, I lost the play controls. The video quality is great, but the functionality is still a little rough for older browser versions. Of course it is to be expected since it is one of the first HTML 5 players out there and very few people have the latest version of their browser.

Requirements: Safari 4.0.4+, Google Chrome 4.0+, IE with Chrome Frame

Demo: http://jilion.com/sublime/video

License: License Free

2. SimpleDiagrams

SimpleDiagrams is an Adobe AIR desktop application for diagramming. It’s a simple tool for creating basic illustrations that one might typically create on a whiteboard. There’s a free version, which lets you use built in stencil libraries and export to PNG. The paid version gets rid of upgrade reminders, allows you to export to Basecamp, import libraries, and install on multiple machines.

SimpleDiagrams

Requirements: Adobe Air plugin

Demo: http://www.simplediagrams.com/home

License: License Free, Paid Upgrade

3.  Ecommerce plugin for Wordpress: GetShopped

GetShopped is a free WordPress plugin for adding e-commerce capabilities into WordPress. It is a very easy-to-setup plugin which can work with any standards compliant WordPress theme (and WordPress MU).

GetShopped Wordpress Plugin

The plugin offers a flexible pricing structure for products with features like:

• flexible coupon/discount pricing rules
• product specific sales
• quantity discounts
• free shipping options
• multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts
• and supports multiple payment providers like Google Checkout, Paypal & Payment Express.

GetShopped makes it possible to complete the shopping process quickly with a one-page-checkout & optionally, guest checkouts is supported. It is easy to manage orders with the help of a powerful admin interface, print invoices, packing slips & more.

Requirements: WordPress

Website: http://getshopped.org/

Demo: http://getshopped.org/showcase/

4. 25 User Experience Videos That Are Worth Your Time

Smashing Magazine have published a collection of videos covering the wonderful topic of “User Experience” titled 25 User Experience Videos That Are Worth Your Time. Notable personalities include:

• Jesse James Garett
• Nick Finck
• Don Norman
• Jeffrey Veen
• Leah Buley of Adaptive Path
• Peter Merholz
• Robert Fabricant
• Luke Wroblewsky

That’s it for this week. If you try out any of the resources discussed here, we would love to hear about it in the comments.

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1. Jason Fried On Self Funded vs Funded, Ad Supported Products and More In an excellent interview by BigThink.com, Jason Fried of 37Signals...

Internet Business Ideas Introduction

The Design Quotes “Internet Business Ideas” is an ongoing regular series of articles highlighting untapped niche internet business ideas. We believe the internet is a great place to start a business and to help budding entrepreneurs, we bring you this series. Included is an overview of the business idea and a step by step plan on how to get started.

If you are interested in this idea, please let us know in the comments and feel free to request a design quote from our designers to help get you started.

You can also subsribe to our Internet Business Ideas RSS feed.

Overview

One of the easiest internet business ideas to get up and running with is to become a Virtual Assistant. A virtual assistant is someone who offers remote administrative support to other businesses.

Skills Needed

• Desktop Publishing: You will need to have at least an intermediate knowledge of wordprocessing and spreadsheet usage.
• Writing Skills: You will need to be able to write clearly and concisely. Much of this will be used writing emails.
• Customer Service: It is likely that you will need to make and receive phone calls on behalf of the business that employs you.

Equipment Needed

• A computer: You don’t need an especially powerful computer, since most of the work you performed will be wordprocessing and emailing.
• Internet connection: This is a no brainer. You will need to send files back and forth to your clients as well as regular emailing.
• VOIP phone: This can be software or hardware. We recommend using Skype since the initial outlay is much lower.

Best Practice Guidelines

To be a successful virtual assistant (VA), you will need to be highly independent. Most of the people hiring you are hiring you because they do not have the time to complete the tasks themselves. As such, it is very common for them to provide you with only basic instructions. It’s imporant to understand that this does not mean that the work you submit to them should also be basic. It should be thorough, detailed and clear. For example, a client might ask you to “provide a list of all flower shops in Melbourne”. Firstly, ask as many questions as you can before starting. In this example useful questions to ask would be:

• Do you want the list in a spreadsheet or a word document?
• What information needs to be collected? I am thinking that Business Name, Address, City, Website URL, Email Address and Phone Number would be useful. Is there anything else that needs to be collected?
• When do you need to work completed by?

Top 10 Tasks Required by Virtual Assistants

Research: Research is a broad area and can include anything from collecting mailing addresses to finding the latest trendy technology topics. Research definitely requires strong analytics skills.

Data Entry: This usually requires you to source a certain type of information and store it in a standardised format.

Transcription: Listen to recorded audio/video and type everything said.

Writing and Editing: You may be required to write/edit short articles, letters or even press releases.

Customer Service and Sales: Receiving and making phone calls to business contacts and customers.

Step by Step Plan

1. Set up a personal profile / portfolio website. This website promotes you personally and should include a CV and a history of any related work. We recommend using a free service called Magnetize: http://magntize.com/. This nifty site gives you a free online business card which you can use to link to all of your online profiles such as Twitter, Facebook and any online marketplaces you use to source work like oDesk.
2. Register yourself on at least one online job marketplace like oDesk. Create a profile and list your skills and experiences. oDesk is a hub that connects providers with jobs. They also handle all of the billing which is very handy.
3. Get yourself an invoicing system so you can bill clients you acquire outside of oDesk. We highly recommend using Freshbooks. Freshbooks is free to register and has the most professional and easy to use interface we have seen which is important from your client’s perspective.
4. Register an account with PayPal so you can accept payments electronically. Freshbooks and PayPal integrate nicely together. When you invoice your clients with Freshbooks, they will be able to pay with their credit card or PayPal account.
5. Download and register a free Skype account. If your clients needs to you to accept calls, you can buy a dedicated local phone number in the client’s place of business.
6. Finally, once you have had a few clients set up a dedicate website of your own and expand the business by hiring your own virtual assistants. Of course we recommend using Design Quotes to find the best web designer to build a professional website.

If you are considering starting a virtual assistant business, let us know in the comments. Feel free to link to your magntize and oDesk profiles.

Resources Mentioned

1. Design Quotes
2. oDesk
3. PayPal
4. Skype
5. Magntize

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In an effort to help designers better understand how each lead is priced, we have adjusted the layout of some information in the available leads section of the designer’s area. Currently there are 5 factors that determine the price of a lead, which is also outlined in the FAQ.

1) Number of copies: The more copies available for each lead, the cheaper it is since there is more competition.

2) Budget: Budgets that are above “Good” increase the price of the lead.

3) Project stage: If the customer is only researching design prices, the lead price is discounted.

4) Work frequency: If the work is recurring, then the lead price is increased.

5) Discounts: Leads that are old and not yet expired will be discounted by 50%

Each factor listed above has now been moved to the top of the page and sectioned off to indicate their importance. Here is one such example:

Lead Price Factors

This should help designers make good decisions about lead purchases. We have also noticed that from time to time there are projects with a low budget, but which are still a high price. This happens when the customer requests only 3 quotes, the minimum budget is already low and they enter a budget that is double the minimum, but is still quite low. This is because we did not include budget levels as a factor for pricing, only the magnitude above the minimum budget. As such, we will be adding an additional factor that will make low budget leads cheaper.

If you have any ideas for additional factors that should affect the lead price, we would love to hear about it in the comments section.

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