2010 – What's Next, Sam?

Here are highlights from my year. Enjoy!

Full Disclosure: This page contains links to affiliates, products I've created, and companies I'm invested in.

Overview

I recently finished a great book, ‘The Art of Non-Conformity’, by Chris Guillebeau of AONC.com. I read enthusiastically about personal growth. This book boils down many concepts about self-actualization and independence into a short easily digestible read. Reading Chris’s blog I was impressed with his thorough annual review process. He takes a look at what worked and what didn’t work in the past year and sets goals for the future.

Inspired, I did the same. Here is my personal annual review.

Highlights

8 new countries. 38 lifetime (I think)
Attained non-US-resident status
Reached advanced proficiency in Spanish
Fully employed all year; 2 great, engaging software projects. One game, one business-app.

More…

Spanish Language – Vastly improved. Now Advanced. I’m done with classes for now. What a great ride! I feel I must work a 1-3 month contract-job in a Spanish-speaking office as a next step. Or choose a new language (Portuguese) and start again.
Cooking Classes – Appeared in article in the Rio Times Newspaper about it
Pro Soccer Match – At the world famous Maracana Futbol Stadium in Rio
1st First-class flight – Rio to Buenos Aires. Amazing! Not worth the $, but defintely worth the frequent flyer miles
Scuba Diving– Two more certifications and many great dives
Kite Surfing – Completed 4 day course in Aruba. I’m new but already love it.
Best apartments; Copacabana, Rio De Janiero, Brasil and El Laguito, Cartagena, Colombia
Favorite new city: Rio.
Favorite new country: Brasil.
Work – Full employed every month of the year. Three total clients.
Great work/life balance. Average billable hours – 30 per week. With networking, learning, and socializing, I averaged about 50 hours on computer per week.

Title

Itinerary
- USA – Holidays with the family.
- Brazil – January 14thMaceio – Spoke at Adobe Flash Conference – FlashCampBrasil.com.br
  - Recife – Met local web developers
  - Praia Da Pipa – Fantastic surf town
  - Rio – Fell in love with this dynamic, diverse, amazing city.
  - Buzios – Beaches
  - Sao Paulo – Big city where ‘all business gets done’
- Argentina – In Transit 24 hours
  - Amazing memories.
- Chile – In Transit
- Ecuador – April 13th
  - Quito – Reconnected with a great college friend, hosted 3 friends and 3 family members who visited. Studied Spanish
  - Galapagos Islands – Experienced a great natural wonder of the world.
- Colombia – July 13th
  - Cartagena – Lived in a fantastic apartment, Scuba’d met many locals, LOVE that colonial city-center. Hosted a friend and colleague for a 10 day visit.
  - Santa Marta (Rodadero & Taganga)
- Panama – September 1^st
  - Panama City – Visited local IT companies. Surprising this ‘Miami of Central America’ doesn’t have much opportunities within my field.
  - West-Coast Beaches
- USA – September 13^th
  - Attend Sister’s Wedding & Visit family
- Panama – September 22^nd
  - Toured Panama Canal
  - Bocas Del Toro – Another “Disneyland for Gringos”. Like being at a university party (where everyone is minoring in Spanish).
  - San Blas Islands – Wow! Picture-perfect beaches.
  - Scuba Rescue Certification
  - Studied Spanish
- USA – November 8^th
  - Visit a new client in Philadelphia
- Venezuela – November 15^th
  - Margarita Island – An island with a its own pro-baseball team. Go Braves!
  - Canaima – Toured Angel Falls – Natural World Wonder
- Aruba – December 5^th
  - Nitrox Scuba Certification
  - Join a friends family vacation. Fantastic.
  - Kite Surfing Certification
- Curacao – In Transit
- Bonaire – December 23^rd
  - World-class scuba
  - Christmas
  - New Years
Completed on Bucket List
- Bilingual
- Kite Surfing
- Tallest waterfall in the world

Gallery

Title

Books

Title

What went well this year?

Travel – Covered much of ground, getting to know my surroundings. Good pace.
Learning: Spanish, scuba, reading.
Fun – I really had fun. I met some amazing new friends and reconnected with old friends too.
While living an non-traditional, non-conformist life, I thrived, not just survived. I improved my hourly rate, maintained health (and US health insurance), maxed out retirement savings, saved properly for taxes.

What did not go well this year?

Contract Negotiations – I fell into less than favorable terms. I didn’t get ‘burnt’, just crispy.
Budgeting – Spent too much. Particularly on accommodations.
Goal Setting – I didn’t set enough formal, measurable goals. I really want to for the future. So I will.

What went… ‘huh’?

I’ve had a lot to think about. Writing about my life, living a life ripe for introspection and constant evaluation has been a great growing experience and a bit tedious as well. I feel somewhat self-experimented.

Travel vs Sedentary life – Is this a good vs bad discussion? Not sure.
“I wish I could do that.” #1 thing I hear from people as they learn about how I live. Really anyone can live a more self-actualized path. Anyone reading this at least. I’m inspired by this comment though, and think of it as a call to action to help others improve their lives however they want to improve ’em.
#2 thing I hear… “Don’t You Get Lonely?”. I do. Feeling that whole issue out as well. I also get, “When is it going to end?” – No idea, but I’m not sure ‘it’ has to ‘end’.

Title

Adobe – I wrote a 5-article series for Adobe EDGE on Flash Gaming.
I’m contracted as a salesman on behalf of a South American Flex application development company. They look for software development clients in North America (my territory) and Europe. I’m more interested in creating solutions than selling solutions, but am very excited about continued opportunities here.
I created a team of contract-developers and led development on a Engineering Adobe AIR desktop application for 10 months.
I created a multiplayer gaming API for a social network.
I gained expertise in new technologies. Robotlegs, PushButtonEngine, and Adobe AIR. The first two will continue to be core services I offer.

Ideal Client

Over the past few years I’ve refined what I look for in a potential client project and what I look for in a potential client to create a winning engagement. Here are thoughts;

Payment Type: Hourly helps control risk and is preferred in most circumstances, especially for first-time clients.
Accounting: Upfront partial payment is ideal. Especially for first time clients. Good sign of faith and this also greases the slow wheels of accounting in many companies.
Billable hours: 20-50 per week, avg. Shoot for 30. Clients expect 40.
Industry: I like both applications and games. They are complimentary processes and skillsets, which I enjoy.
Independence: I prefer to use the technologies I want (Robot Legs & Flex 4 for apps, Flash 10 & PBL for games)
Flexibility in schedule
Risk: I liked ‘owning’ the whole project and subcontracting to designers / developers. Perhaps being on another’s team too would be cool. However, working hourly reduces stress and is a better way to offer my best without compromises and bikering that comes from Client’s questioning ‘Why isn’t my new request covered under our existing flat-rate contract?’
Learning is important to me on each project (self-learning in most cases – but I’m open to work with others who can teach me)

Building Expertise

Adding new expertise to your professional repertoire is good for business. Brings more opportunities and being ‘the expert’ in anything welcomes new opportunities. Truly being the guru is not my goal, open, honest competence is. Being an early adopter in creating proven, effective solutions helps to maintain a competitive edge.

With RMC I offer 4 services. The services are all related to Adobe Flash Platform. Within that, I specialize in the Robotlegs framework for applications and the PushButtonEngine framework for games. Specializing is not easy and in the last 18 months, I added these two specialties. I see a pattern in my approach. First I learn about technology. This requires that I am well networked and well-read on novel things in my field. I read my blogs through google each workday for just about 15 minutes. When I’m interested I make time to do some experiments for my own use and demos for public consumption which I post on my blog. This requires good time management (as it’s unpaid work and striking while the iron is hot is best, no delays to learning it). When I have vetted the new technology as well-aligned with my business, personally interesting, and technically effective, and marketable as well I cross-compare to other solutions before deciding to focus on it.

Becoming an expert in something that is truly helpful, but that no one wants, is counterproductive of course. Sometimes this requires patience to wait and see how the community embraces or rejects a new way of thinking. Then I like to offload the cost of learning to others. This is not always possible, but in the case of my two specialties, I pitched to clients who write paying articles about how to use each. I researched, learned, and refined my workflows WHILE writing an article on them. I used to struggle with perfection, but now I’m comfortable starting a project using tools I don’t fully know yet. I only need to feel confident what I want to do is possible. This frees me to try more new things and again, offload the cost of learning onto a client’s dime. Then I evangelize the technology in the community. Now that I’m invested in the framework, helping its popularity is in my political interest. Hopefully, I’ve played my cards write and my praise is well-received. This process helps me expand the value of what I can offer (specialization) and the way in which I find work (promotion).

What's Next, Sam?

Stay tuned for more!