Hi! I'm a drawing of Catherine. She does most of the writing here, including this blurb. (Does this count as writing in the third person?) Catherine believes that websites don't really run on technology, they run on emotions. If you agree, then she wants to help you rock it out and be awesome online.
The lovely Irina Jordan just asked me on Twitter: How do you come up with ideas for your 5 minute blog: working with clients; smth you came across, etc.? Thx.
Great question! Hard question. Now I have to actually figure out where my ideas come from!
A few main sources:
1. Stuff I wish I knew five years ago when starting my first website.
2. Talking to people on forums and Twitter, especially when they talk about what they’re stuck on.
3. Our lovely commenters have suggested ideas.
4. And they’ve emailed us with ideas too.
5. Sometimes I have a theme: Twitter, usability, copywriting, and I write a few missions in the theme.
6. Whatever I need to do and haven’t done yet.
7. Something mentioned by my coaching clients.
8. When I’ve seen it done badly on another website.
9. Or really well.
10. I stare and stare at a blank patch of wall until inspiration strikes. Or I wander off and drink some Diet Coke.
Where do your ideas come from? Tell us in the comments!
Ideas pester me. I can't rid of them fast enough.
I have Ze Frank's attitude: Ideas are like brain crack, don't want to be addicted to no brain crack. Get 'em out there!
At what stage do you filter out the sub-par ideas? Write and delete?
I'm trying very hard to do two things:
1. Limit ideas to those I'm capable of executing on quickly,
2. Learn how to execute faster. Example: I really need to spend a month digging into Rails. Badly.
Ideas I can't execute on, forget about them.
I won't even write them down anymore. I have notebooks full I never read.
This is all evolving.