iAdd version 1.3 Live In AppStore

After only 5 days of waiting, iAdd version 1.3 is live in AppStore. As I already wrote, this version features a complete redesign of the iPad version and a lot of small usability improvements, as well as numerous bug fixes. If you don’t know what iAdd is, I will briefly tell you that it’s my iOS implementation of my own Assess – Decide – Do framework. If you want to know more about the framework, feel free to visit its (brand new) homepage at Assess-Decide-Do. And if you want to know more about iAdd, the app, of course, there’s a site for that too, iAdd.

They say an image is worth a thousand words, so, as I planned to write a few thousands words blog post today, I will only share a few screenshots.

Oh, and one more thing: the book that started all is now available on Kindle. That means you can read it on your iPhone, on your iPad, on your Mac, or even on your Android powered device. In short, pretty much everywhere. And, to make things even spicier, the Kindle version is only 9.99 USD, compared with the regular price of 27 USD. Here’s a screenshot of what the ebook looks like on my iPad, using the Kindle app for iPad.

You can get the Kindle version of Natural Productivity: Assess, Decide, Do for your Kindle by clicking here.

iAdd Lite Available On The App Store

As of today, iAdd Lite, the free version of my productivity iPhone / iPad app, iAdd, is available worldwide in the AppStore. Here’s a quick iTunes link for the impatient:

iAdd Lite

iAdd Lite has all the features of the regular iAdd, including syncing with Dropbox. The only limitation is that you can have a maximum of 5 items in each realm. For instance, in Assess you can have, at any given time, a maximum of 5 tasks, 5 projects, 5 ideas and 5 events. Items which are containing items, like ideas or projects, are following the same pattern: they can have a maximum of 5 subtasks / details. Also, Collections can hold maximum 5 items (regardless of their type, being them tasks, projects, ideas or events) per single collection.

Managing Rejection

There is a very interesting situation related to this version of iAdd. I don’t know why, but this took way longer to be approved than any other versions I had so far. First of all, it seems that I got some pretty nasty reviewers because they rejected my app based on some ultra-orthodox user guide principles. Which, to my surprise, weren’t applied to the regular version. I guess it’s just luck. Or bad luck.

Also, I did have a number of crahses, some of them incredibly hard to spot, and very time consuming. So, to make a long story short, iAdd Lite was rejected 4 times before making it to the AppStore. The first submission was on November 9th 2010 (just one day before my birthday) but the app is live only now, on January 11th.

Being rejected is not a nice feeling. Having your app rejected is an order of magnitude lighter than in person rejection, but it’s still frustrating. It’s irritating to look in your inbox and see the infamous subject line coming from Apple: “Feedback regarding your application”. Usually, the expected subject line is: “Your application has changed state” and nothing else. Which means the app is processed for the AppStore.

But there is a very positive outcome of this rejection situation. The app is far more polished than it was initially. It was more thoroughly tested and it does contain fewer bugs than before. I dare saying that it contains fewer bugs than the commercial version of iAdd (but that will change pretty fast, as I have already ironed a bunch of them).

Now, if you just want to take the “Assess – Decide – Do” framework for a test-drive, you can go to iAdd Lite official page, where you will also find some additional resources. And remember, if you like it, you can buy the commercial version at any time, just with a touch of your finger.

Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity

More than a year ago, I was traveling to Thailand. It was my first trip to South-East Asia. I clearly remember the colors, the smells, the images and the overall excitement mixed with curiosity. I had an incredible time during that trip. I don’t know if it was the visual shock or the cultural difference, the jetlag or my raw food diet (at that time) fact is, at some point during that trip, I had a sort of a revelation. It came in the form of three words: Assess – Decide – Do.

During the trip, those words repeatedly came into my mind until I realized they were my unconscious response to a lot of questions. How do you get up in the morning? How do I get to that place I want to visit? How do I get to the airport? How do I manage to write the blog posts I planned to write on this trip? All those questions stacked up somewhere in a darker corner of my mind, until they got a sudden and unexpected response. Assess, Decide, Do. While my conscious mind was busy absorbing all the fresh experiences, my unconscious mind had to come up with an answer to all those questions.

During that trip, I started to follow that short sequence of activities more and more, hour after hour, each and every day. I started to calm down and assess what I want to do, then decide if, when and where I want to do that, and then do it. I practically started to slice up my reaction to outside stimuli following this pattern. First assess, then decide, then do. Somehow, it seemed to work. The events were flowing down easily, I was focusing exactly on what I wanted to focus, while still maintaining a high degree of awareness. As I told you, I still remember the colors, the smells and even the noises.

After I got home, I put those words apart. There were things that needed to be done, bills to pay, meetings to attend to and so on. But somehow, the words kept popping out in my head. And somehow, I started to apply that sequence to other parts of my life. I started with work. In a matter of days, I started to experience a smooth flow and a surprising increase in my productivity. I said surprising because I’m not a lazy person. And then tried to apply it in my personal life. And then in my relationships. The more I practiced it, the better I became at. Eventually, I took this to a whole new and bigger level. After a few months of trials and errors, I was sure that I was into something really good. And by lack of any other name, I named this a “life management framework”.

What’s This Ebook About?

After I realized that I finally discovered something, I started to write about it. There were a few articles on the blog, all of them very well received. I started to incorporate feedback from my readers in it and also started to share these ideas with my friends. Basically, everybody who was exposed to the ideas seemed to “click” with the approach. At some point, when all the structure of the framework was clear, I started to build an app for it. Exactly, an iPhone app. There must be an app for everything, right?

During the app building process, I applied the same framework rules: I assessed, I decided than I did what seemed to be necessary to move the app forward. It took me roughly 30 days to build that app, without any prior knowledge of Objective C. It took me roughly 30 days to build that app, without any prior knowledge of Objective C. (No, this was not a mistake, I deliberately wrote that twice. Just to get it right.)

Now, the app is in the AppStore for more than 2 months, the latest version syncs your data with Dropbox, there is also an iPad version and so on. It may look like I started a business on this idea and to a certain degree, that’s right. But this perception of business will have to stop at the level of employees, though, because I don’t have any. I did everything by myself. Everything. The app, the blog, the promotion. Everything. Oh, and in the process, I had to handle the reconnection with my 13 year old son, I had to take care of my 4 year old daughter and also manage the separation details from my ex-wife. Just in case you’re thinking I had nothing else to do than to write on the blog, on the ebook or write Objective C code.

And still, every morning when I look in the mirror I see a healthy man, doing what he loves to do and enjoying a life of balance and fulfillment. This is what this ebook is about.

Let’s Get Practical Here

Now, if you made it till here, you must need some real life data, not some motivational stories. You’re right. I have what you need.

The ebook is structured in 3 levels: the conceptual one, the practical exercises and the tutorial for the iPhone/iPad app.

You start by learning from a very high perspective what Assess, Decide, Do means, how your being is acting on each realm and how you can identify your life imbalances using only the 3 aforementioned realms This will sound more like what I write on my blog on a regular basis. Many chapters are sharing large parts with the articles already published.

Then, in the second part, you take the framework to a real life ride. You start to apply it to relationships, to personal crisis management or to strategies for dealing with interruptions. This is the practical stuff. Once you have the concepts clear, you start to apply them to various areas of your day to day life.

And finally, in the 3rd part, you actually see, screenshot by screenshot, how to use iAdd for iPhone. This is the “tutorial” part of the ebook. I felt like a practical section was not enough. I needed something very “in your face”. Step by step. That’s what the third part is.

That’s it. This is the ebook.

I said it before, I will say it again: I suck at writing long, boring and deceiving sales pages. I simply can’t afford to insult your intelligence with all kind of cheap incentives, when I know that you know better than me if you need this ebook.

What Others Are Saying About It

As you may already know, the ebook was on pre-order for 48 hours on my blog. Since I wanted to have some feed-back, I kindly asked some of the people who read it to give me some impressions. These are real people, with real blogs and real lives. And, to my surprise (well, not quite ) they gave me feedback for both the ebook and the app.

Ian Peatey – QuantumLearning.pl

You will like the book if you:

• want to know how Dragos is so damn productive
• want a method to help you get productive yourself
• want to know how Dragos is so damn laid back AND productive at the same time.

You will be wasting your money if you:

• hate Dragos and wish him to live in poverty for the rest of his days
• are perfectly content with both your productivity and level of laid-back-ness.

Lyman Reed – LymanReed.com (iTunes feedback)

iAdd is an excellent app if you want to get out of the “add things to a list and then cross them off” world of productivity. It incorporates much from the GTD world (such as Contexts), but really shines in the area where GTD leaves off – where we assess what’s important to us and make decisions based on what we want to do.

The app is based on Dragos Roua’s Assess-Decide-Do framework – without an understanding of this framework, it could easily be mistaken for just another to do list with what seem like some extra useless steps. I strongly suggest that the user takes the time to learn the framework (links are in the app) to get the most from it.

It’s now my go-to iPhone app for productivity, especially when it comes to using the Assess realm for idea collection. It may even have convinced me that purchasing an iPad would be worth it – unless of course Dragos is planning on creating a version for Windows.  Or even better, a Google Chrome extension (hint, hint…)

Eric – EdenJournal.com

Assess Decide Do is a revolutionary way of approaching Life Management.  It’s more than managing productivity, it’s a framework to underlie day to day decision management.  Assess Decide Do clearly organizes the pre-decision, the decision, and the post decision (or doing.)   Decision making can be a challenge, but Dragos makes it easier by creating a process that allows for all the information gathering to happen first, and then the decision follows a simple go/no-go format.  I have struggled with many forms of organization, and I despise task lists.  Assess Decide Do is a great alternative to the task list, and is really a much more comprehensive solution to organize my life.  It really is a Life Management Framework.

Ruben Berenguel MostlyMaths.net

When I read about the ADD framework in Dragos’ blog, or about the iADD application, I wasn’t impressed. Maybe it was not the correct time, or I just didn’t get it at the moment. Then, I was offered to review the ebook, and reading chapter 3 opened my eyes. I definitely needed to buy that app: it was my workflow. Said and done, I bought it a few hours ago and can’t stop thinking about how much attention to usefulness Dragos put in it. If you have found other to-do apps useless, this is for you.

Pat Flynn – SmartPassiveIncome.com (iTunes feedback)

I agree with one of the other commenters. This really helps take the GTD mindset to a whole new productivity level. Understanding which tasks are most important to us is key, and I’m really glad I have an app to help me with this now, because I often lose my way throughout the day. Thank you!

***

The ebook is only 27 USD and you can buy it by clicking here.

I do hope it will give you at least a fraction of the benefits I had from creating it.

Mariner Promo Code – August Edition

It’s that time of the month again, meaning 1st. And every month, every 1st, I give you the special, unique and exclusive mariner promo code which will give you an instant 20% discount on any Mariner products. Many of you are long time readers of my blog so I’ll just jump to the promo code first, and then get to the details. So, here you are, the mariner promo code valid for the month of August 2010 is

space

With this code, you should go to the Mariner eStore, stuff your shopping cart with lots of goodies and then enter the code in the designated field. Hit “update shopping cart”, and voila, all the products will magically have their prices cut with 20%.

While I was writing this I couldn’t stop thinking that this may be the longest promotion in the history of web. I mean in 3 months we’ll be making 2 years since I’m running this monthly promotion on my blog. From what I know, a few thousands of people used this promotion successfully to buy quality Mac products from Mariner and for that, folks, I’m grateful. I really am.

Just a few days ago i was writing about how to make money blogging, with a big emphasis on online reputation. This promotion is the best example of how you can run an honest blog and still make a decent amount of money while making everybody happy: the vendor (in this case a software producer), the readers (you, the ones that are making my day, each day) and me, the blogger.

One of the products that I still use on a regular basis is MacJournal, by Mariner. I use this as a core of my blogging setup, I use it to write my ebooks and I use it to create short templates for habit change. Quite versatile this product, right? Well, go read the posts in which I describe all these fancy stories about blogging and implementing new habits and if you like them, feel free to buy MacJournal. You can even drop me a line here if you did. You know, just to make my day . As you always do, anyway!

Now, just in case you didn’t read it from the first time, here’s the mariner promo code for the month of August 2010.

space

Happy shopping!

Mariner Promo Code – July Edition

It’s the time of the month, meaning the first day. During the first day of the month we’re releasing the corresponding Mariner Promo Code. For those of you who are here for the first time, let me tell you what this promo code is. Almost two years ago I started a promotion with Mariner, one of the oldest and most respected Apple software producers, using a special promo code each month. That promo code should be used in their estore and by using it you get an instant 20% discount for ANY software in the estore.

For those of you eager to get started, here’s the July 2010 Mariner Promo Code:

rocket

Now, let’s talk a little bit about the “why” and “how” of this promotion.

First, the “why”. I did this because I decided to completely rewrite my monetization “scripts”. I mean, I’ve been doing online business for more than 10 years and I know that advertising enough is not a sustainable way to make money form a blog. So, I created and implemented this affiliate promotion in order to support my blog. It’s that simple. Now, the interesting part is that I’m not doing this blindly, picking up affiliate deals randomly and adding them to my blog, hoping that someone will click on the link, buy and make me rich. Nope. It doesn’t work like this.

I’m advertising only products I’m using. Products that I’m satisfied with. And I’m not using only Mariner, although I have a long history of success with Mariner products. Just go ahead an read those posts (which proved to be one of the most popular blog posts too):

• Power Blogging With MacJournal, GTD Style
• How To Write An Ebook Using MacJournal
• How To Create A Habit In 15 Days

As for other products I’m using (and actively promoting), you can have a look at Scribe SEO (used to enhance my SEO factor on this very post too, by the way ) and Lumosity (they produce a very interesting series of brain games).

Right now. just a little bit about the “how”: all you have to do is to go Mariner eStore and add this promo code in the designated field. You’ll see all the prices updated with the discount. And just in case you missed the promo code for the first time, here it is again:

rocket

Happy shopping!

Mariner Promo Code – February Edition

I wish I could make this post the shorter post on DragosRoua.com, but I’m afraid this honor will go to my last one, about how to be a great blogger, with only 17 words. Nevertheless, I’ll keep it as short as I can. So, the Mariner Promo Code for this February 2010, a promo code which will give you an instant 20% discount on all Mariner software, is:

starboard

These monthly codes are part of another year long promotion and I’m really happy I was able to set it up with Mariner. You won’t find them anywhere on the Internet, they are exclusive to my blog . Feel free to come up here monthly (or, alternatively, you can subscribe by RSS) to get your mariner promo code for the designated month.

I find this to be a very honest way not only to make money blogging but also to promote quality products. Affiliate marketing is a very crowded world and you have to find ways to stay on top AND to keep your credibility. Promoting only what you use and appreciate would be one of the easiest way to  stay put in this world. As a matter of fact, I have to tell you that I’m using these products for more than 2 years now. One of tehm, MacJournal, being the cornerstone of my blogging activities, with a custom GTD blogging setup. But there are many other products available in Mariner eStore and I kindly invite you to visit it and make your own impression. Every product has a trial version and I’m happy to tell you that this promo code works even on bundles.

So, I don’t know what you’re doing here anymore, you should be at the Mariner eStore, buying whatever you think you’ll need: MacJournal, MacGourmet DeLuxe, Paperless, StoryMill, Write or Calc. The discount works on family packages too. Just so you remember, here’s the code again:

starboard

Happy shopping

Brand Your Captcha – Introducing AdCaptcher

Every once in a while I stumble upon some interesting online project. Being for so long in this market as an entrepreneur certainly makes it easier. One of the most interesting projects I saw in the last few months is called AdCaptcher. And, if you’re a regular commenter on this blog you may already used it.

Brand Your Captcha?

If you tried to post a comment on my form you saw that captcha you had to fill in before the comment gets approved. So far, nothing spectacular, a lot of blogs are using captcha on the comment forms to avoid spam. What’s different here is that if I use AdCaptcher, I can control my own captcha text. Exactly. The words used by me were: ’a better life’, and I’m sure you wondered how can a simple captcha serve a piece of text so in sync with the blog theme. Well, it wasn’t by hazard, that I can tell you. A bit confused? Ok, let’s take it step by step.

Here’s how AdCaptcher works in just a few simple sentences.

If you have a blog, you go register at AdCaptcher (this is an invite link, it will expire after 200 logins, so you’d better hurry). Once you have an account, you can submit your site. After you submit your site, you can add an image. That image would be the one used for captcha. The text in that image would be the text your users have to fill in order to be validated. Don’t worry, the admin interface is pretty simple.

After you set up your blog and you add your image, you can start a campaign. Your freshly created captcha will start to be displayed on other blogs and that would be what AdCaptcher call a campaign. You can buy more impressions or just use a standard exchange rate. There’s more to be explained about campaigns, but to be honest, this is not the best place for that, you’d better go there and see for yourself. Everything is neatly put into packages and suitable sized for your blog traffic (packages are based on a number of impressions).

After you set up your blog, your image and your campaign, you gotta download a little wordpress plugin to make it all work. There is a link at the AdCaptcher site for it. This plugin will make the connection between your setup at the AdCaptcher servers and your comment form in your blog. Once you activate the plugin, ta-daaa: you have a tiny little captcha just above the comment text area.

Advantages

First of all, it’s the spam control. I learned a little bit about the technology used by AdCaptcher and I can tell you it’s pretty solid. I won’t go into detail because, usually, you don’t make spam fighting technologies public. There’s a pretty solid reason for that: a spammer may read and learn.

Second, you get to brand your captcha with your own text, helping your users having a better experience. I remember that at least 2 of my commenters were positively impressed by the words I choose for my captcha and believe me, I consider this to be a pretty positive outcome of this little piece of technology.

Third, you promote your blog by having your captchas delivered on other blogs and that’s a pretty interesting advantage. If you run a blog you know how difficult is to attract new readers. And having your own captcha inserted in the hottest point of a blog, the commenter form, could be an incentive for them to click and see what’s all about.

AdCaptcher is still in private beta but it’s working. I used for a few weeks on my blog and it didn’t made any major blunders. Of course, there’s a lot of work to be done, but I think it’s a pretty interesting concept. If only because nobody thought so far to build such a complex application just in order to brand a captcha.

As for my affiliation with AdCaptcher, there isn’t any. I’m not affiliated with them in any ways, I just think this is a pretty cool idea.

So, if you want to try it for yourself, just click on this link to get an invite. Remember, it will expire after 200 uses, so you’d better be fast.

January Mariner Promo Code

It’s the first month of a new year. First of all, happy new yer everybody, may you enjoy a better, happier and more prosperous 2010. I really hope 2009 was a great year for you, much better than 2008 and, for what it takes, much worse than 2010, if you know what I mean .

But enough with that, let’s get to business. I’m going to start it by giving you the first Mariner promo code for this year, a promo code which will give you an instant 20% discount on all Mariner software.

ship

My long term readers already know about my partnership with Mariner Software. One of the most visited articles in my blog is one about using MacJoournal as a power blogging setup, GTD style. This post proved to be so popular that it even made it in my Blogging101 Workshop and I have to tell you that it was very well received by the workshop attendees.

I’m starting another year long promotion and I’m happy to do it. Feel free to come up here monthly (or, alternatively, you can subscribe by RSS) to get your mariner promo code for the designated month. I wanted to make this promotion as easy as possible, and based on the feed-back I got from some of my lucky buyers (and from the number of orders, to be completely honest) it’s going pretty well as it is.

Now it’s up to you to decide what are your needs and what piece of software you’re findin appropriate for it. If you’re a blogger, MacJournal would definitely fit the requirements but if you’re just a regular person and like to cook every once in a while, than MacGourmet DeLuxe might be the choice.

So, I don’t know what you’re doing here anymore, you should be at the Mariner eStore, buying whatever you think you’ll need: MacJournal, MacGourmet DeLuxe, Paperless, StoryMill, Write or Calc. The discount works on family packages too. Just so you remember, here’s the code again:

ship

Happy shopping

Being on Board at Launch48

The other day I was invited to an event called Launch48. It’s an online market event, aiming at pushing young entrepreneurs to launch a complete web application in 48 hours. I was invited to be part of the board. Little I knew about anything “launch48 related” until I made it there, I admit. Had no idea what a “board” means in this context, nor what exactly did I had to do.

I’m not going to give you any details about the technical part, but I do think there’s a lot to talk about the implications of the event at the personal development level.

The Set Up

So, just to be clear: the goal of the event was to launch a complete, functional web app in less than 48 hours. Young entrepreneurs had a 1 minute time frame in which they pitched their ideas. After an evaluation period (a few hours), a jury picked 3 ideas. Once that step completed, the initiators also picked their own teams to implement their idea. From this moment on, everything was under the time pressure.

Every few hours the project managers had board meetings, along with people from their team that they considered relevant for the actual stage of the project. In between, they met mentors who volonteered to help. Each mentor had some unique expertise: programming, marketing, business strategy.

At the end of the first day, the teams had to present an application in a so-called “alpha” stage. A workable proof of concept. At the end of the second day, they must came with a functional “beta”, which means: everything described must work, but bugs are acceptable. During these two days they also had to came up with a lot of related documents: business plans, marketing plans, competition analysis and so on.

The Board

The board members (yours truly included) had to “whip” the project managers, follow the progress, ensure the team is on the right track and even provide answers to critical questions. To be honest, I didn’t feel very comfortable playing this role, I never was the “whip” guy, but I did my best to fit in. As a member of the board I was also designated to host the final presentation. In the third day, all three teams presented their apps to a very picky audience (the event was integrated in NetCamp, one of the largest Internet related events in Romania, and not only). My role was to ensure their presentations will run smoothly and in the alloted time frame.

The Happy End

At the end of this marathon, everybody was happy (again, yours truly included). The apps were functioning, the business model was understandable and some teams even had the time to make a little buzz on Twitter or Facebook. It was a complete success.

Ok, now, what I learned from this event?

1. Working under Pressure Is Not Necessarily a Bad Thing

Looking at how those ad-hoc teams managed to communicate, to share tasks, roles and deal with impending difficulties was enlightening. Many of the team members didn’t know each other before. And yet, they managed to create a functioning unit and deliver a final product. In some way, looking at those teams was like looking at a whole year of an entire company’s life, only fast forward: new people, new ideas, coding, marketing plans, communication, failure, starting over. I will repeat myself, but this whole process was really enlightening.

2. When You Really Believe In Your Dream, Nothing Is Impossible

The project managers were also the “idea” guys. Out of several other ideas presented they have been lucky enough to be picked and to be provided with the resources they need. They were able to make their dream come true. In a kind of “sand-box” way, but still. Well, this is what we usually call “luck”. At some points in our life, we do receive all the resources we need for our goals, out of the blue. The lesson: when this is happening, push all the buttons, do whatever you can to make it happening. Don’t quit and be on top of it. In the end, it will really happen.

3. Focus On What Is Really Important

I will need a book to write down all those magnificent ideas ventured by the people involved, from the board members, to mentors, project managers, idea guys or just simple team members. But the time was too short to implement all of them. If they will implement every single strategy, monetization or technical idea, they wouldn’t have finish it in several months. The team leaders heavily exercised their choice muscles. And, again, this is what we do in real life too: we may have a gazillion ideas but if we don’t focus on something achievable and start doing it, we’ll end up with nothing but a bunch of useless, shiny ideas.

4. Discipline Pays Off

They couldn’t achieve something functional without discipline. No team was functioning at 100% and I really don’t think they could, under the circumstances. But all the people made a lot of effort to integrate and leave away distractions and interferences. Some of the team members didn’t even sleep the night before the presentation. Huge effort pays off. Always. Maybe you’re not always in such a fortunate condition to work uninterrupted for 48 hours and, admittedly, the whole event was more of an exercise, a show off, but still, the result is unchallengeable: discipline really pays off.

I want to congratulate all the people I have interacted with and express my honest admiration. It’s not by chance that I offered to each team leader a wild card to my mentorship program. Technical expertise apart, they were all winners and they proved they can stretch way beyond their limits. Also, I would very much want to thank for the invitation to Cristi Manafu, the organizer of this edition of Launch48 in Romania.

Managing Online Projects in 5 Easy Steps

You have clients, deadlines and tons of work to do. You have to deliver results and stay on top of your lists. You have to be productive. Otherwise you’re out of the game. And being out of the game is not fun.

I had an online business for more than 10 years and I pretty much know all the thrills of it. It’s engaging, passionate and filled with action. You don’t have time to get bored. Unless you step out of the game. Which, as I already said, it’s not fun.

Over the years, I created, implemented and launched more than 25 online projects. Each with its own budget, promotion, human resources and logistic. Some of them had 2-3 years projections and even more. Some of them become market leaders, some of them dropped dead after a few months. And despite their success or failure I enjoyed doing them all.

In today’s post I’ll share the process I used to make all those projects alive. It got refined over the years, adding something here, cutting something from there. It aims to be simple enough to be applied to a niche blog, but sustainable enough for the next huge social network hit. Which is exactly what you’re working on right now, of course.

Online Projects In 5 Easy Steps

Every online project would answer to only 5 questions, and those are:

1. what is it?
2. who’s going to use it?
3. how does it look?
4. what does it do?
5. how can I do it?

Each question has its own role and specific implementation techniques. I told you, it’s not complicated. Let’s take them one at a time:

1. What Is It?

This is the cornerstone of your project. It has to be contained within only one sentence. For instance: google is a search engine. DMOZ is a link directory. Mashable is a social media blog.  You got the idea. Keeping it in only one sentence prevents you from starting mutant projects, with overlapping or even opposite functionalities. Usually, the first answer that pops into your head is the correct one, although you can get some improvements if you brainstorm it a little.

From my experience, if the root of your project is not clearly defined, you will have serious troubles later on. Too many times, on a technological, geeky rush, we tend to skip this step and go straight into implementation details. As fun as it may be for some of us, the development part is only the 5th part of this set of questions. Skipping the first 4 points will be like dining out naked: you can be sure you’ll make a huge impression, but you cannot be sure it will be the desired one.

2. Who’s Going To Use It?

The second question is about the beneficiary: who’s going to actually use your product? This is what I call “role playing project management”. Oh, this is the most entertaining question of all, that I can tell you. Impersonating other people is always fun. Trying to actually picture the portrait of a standard user for your project is enlightening. In a mirroring way, finding the fundamental traits of an ideal customer will reveal parts of your project you didn’t even know you had.

Another interesting segment of this step is to identify at least 3 consumer characteristics of your ideal user, regardless of your project. It’s a very fun exercise. For instance, how often does he goes to the movies? Or what kind of car does he drive? What tooth paste does he use? Does he use toothpaste at all? You may think right now: what’s the link between the toothpaste of an imaginary character and my online project? Well, if you can’t imagine the user of your project, chances are he doesn’t really exist.

3. How Does It Look?

This deals with the actual support of your project. An online project is not only a web site. It can spread unto other protocols, like email, or mobile. Most of the time, your online project will have at least web and email as its basic information support, but with the latest deployment in the mobile industry, including iPhone, you will have to include mobile as standard pretty soon.

Also at this level, you start to identify the type of messages you are going to use. It could be text, images, animations, video or audio. This step is mandatory and it will have an important impact in the final step. Many project managers call this “provisioning”, I used to call it “how does it look”. This stage will also be responsible with the logical structure of your project: home page, content pages and the relationship between them. You’re wireframing. And while you’re wireframing, it’s pretty smart to start designing your own SEO strategy before adding content to your product. Identify target keywords and hot content areas.

4. What Does It Do?

Slowly, we’re getting there.The 4th question deals with the flesh of your project. If wireframing means constructing bones, now you’re adding some flesh and blood. In this stage you’re defining your features list. Starting from the simple ones, like “I want a link bar at the top, containing these links” up to something like “this workflow will enhance user experience and make him stick with our product”. Or something in between.

I often found that in this stage of a project you can create some very basic unit tests. Don’t freak out, it’s nothing complicated, just a list of desired actions and expected results. If you create an ecommerce site, one of your desired activities in your estore could be “putting products in the shopping basket’‘. And the expected result would look like ”updating database with new values and showing this on to the user“. It can get complicated, of course, but this approach it’s a gold mine especially if you switch teams a lot.

5. How Can I Do It?

And it’s only in the final stage that we’re actually doing it. And we don’t even start with doing it, we start with planning it. Yeap, so far we didn’t have any plan at all. It’s time to create milestones, chose our technologies, start coding and get on with the launch. This is by far the most exciting stage of an online project and many entrepreneurs are starting directly here. Now you understand why we had to chose around question no 3 the types of messages we will use. Because based on those choices we are choosing technologies right now.

From this stage ahead, you can leverage everything you learned about planing, coding and launching. This is pretty much what you do every day, only you can do it now without constantly asking if you’re doing the right thing. You already decided this. You already answered every question which could potentially become a leak in your planing. And that’s refreshing.

One more thing: after you finally launch the project, getting back to the question number 1 ”What is it?“ would be really interesting. You may have some surprises

***

This project management flow was part of a presentation I did a while ago at a local tech event. If you’re interested, you can download the mind map used for the presentation (a screenshot of it is just below this paragraph) Managing online projects in 5 easy steps (1599) - 146.54 KB. Also, feel free to ask any questions about this strategy in comments.

Exclusive 25% Discount for any Mariner Software

December brings in gifts. As of today, until the end of the month, you’ll have an exclusive 25% discount for any Mariner Software. In order to trigger this discount, you’ll have to add a special promo code to the Mariner shopping cart. Here’s the code:

boat

My long term readers already know about my partnership with Mariner Software. One of the most visited articles in my blog is one about using MacJoournal as a power blogging setup, GTD style. This post proved to be so popular that it even made it in my Blogging101 Workshop and I have to tell you that it was very well received by the workshop attendees.

Apparently, I’m reaching a milestone here: one year of monthly promo codes for good, stable and useful mac software. It’s been a very good year for me, and judging from the number of generated sales, it’s been a good year for many of my readers. If you didn’t realize it by now, I will receive a commission on each sale, so you can keep that in mind if you decide to buy.

In fact, affiliate marketing, as in honest, open and transparent affiliate marketing, was one of the most successful revenue sources in my first year of  blogging. I am always happy to review and recommend products that I find useful and valuable. I find it a very good way to make money blogging because you can chose your products and you can test them before you recommend them.

So, I don’t know what you’re doing here anymore, you should be at the Mariner eStore, buying whatever you think you’ll need: MacJournal, MacGourmet DeLuxe, Paperless, StoryMill, Write or Calc. The discount works on family packages too. Just so you remember, here’s the code again:

boat

Happy shopping