scrumpy jack

Lessons I’ve Learned from Steve’s Apple

1. Be personal
2. Create a few beautiful, usable products
3. Make sure ‘it just works’
4. Be prepared, and don’t be afraid, to change your mind
5. Don’t stick doggedly to a piece of tech just because you’ve invested heavily in it - if it’s not right, it’s not right, so get rid
6. Create a complete customer experience
7. Don’t compete; innovate
8. Don’t be afraid to charge a premium
9. Regular release cycles
10. Stoke the fires of rumour…
11. But be cautious with the media
12. Don’t just give people what they want or even what they think they need
13. Build a great brand image
14. Only make things worthy of your brand

I drafted this brief post a couple of weeks ago, originally entitled “Lessons Apple Has Taught Me”. Felt like it needed finishing off and changing a little in light of recent events.

With Flipstorm I’m going to keep all of these in mind!

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I just read an amazing blog post by Jon Tangerine. Although I don’t class myself as a web designer, his modest self-affirmation has made me contemplate my own journey into and through this fascinating industry.

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How to Learn Programming →

I know for many of you who see these posts from my blog, you probably have little or no understanding of my geeky ways. If you are intrigued by the thought of writing computer code though, give this awesome new website a try.

It’s free to use and is very simple. Lessons are quick and fairly straight-forward. The language you’ll be using is called Javascript - the language of the web.

I hope this piques your interest :)

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Things I’ve Learned From Forrst

I love the Forrst community. Overall, it’s a very positive and helpful place to share ideas and problems. The responses are mostly well-thought-out. Add to this the fact that it’s curated by a bunch of diligent chaps makes it a really cool place to hang out.

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“Learning should never end.”

Some thoughts I’ve been having recently have been crystallised by this post by Peter Chang I found on HN. It ties in really nicely with what I something I’ve been wanting to write for a while…

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If you don’t know, get a book!

I’m watching last week’s The Big Web Show. Andy McMillan talks about Build and conferences in general. I really enjoy attending conferences and I’m looking forward to attending many more, hopefully with a couple of people I work really closely with.

Andy raises a great point that I just had to reiterate. If you’re lacking in any knowledge about topics covered at a conference… perhaps it’s not the place for you to learn.

He makes the contrast that it’s probably better to view conferences as a place to be inspired and fired up for better things when you get back. I would actually argue that it could fire you up to learn, but that’s some expensive motivation to just encourage you to do something you should already be doing.

So for Andy, as he put it, it’s better for him to get a book and practice and learn from that first.

I just wanted to reiterate this to a few students and graduates I’ve been in contact with recently:

If you want to get into the web industry, you need to know your stuff. There are very few opportunities open to people who don’t know what they’re doing.

So grab some books on the topics you’re interested (HTML, CSS, Javascript, a programming language), spend a few late nights practising and come back knowing the basics. Once you’ve got that you’ll be much easier to work with.

Remember that knowledge can always be built on. And consider the possibility of part-time unpaid work in exchange for hands-on experience and mentoring.

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