[? music ?] [Become a Better Designer with Side Projects] [Tim Smith] [Blend Conference 2013] 0:00 [Tim Smith] Welcome everybody to this session. Thank you so much for coming. 0:04 I hope it's enjoyable for you. 0:09 I'm going to be talking about becoming a better designer with side projects. 0:12 Now—let me tell you something— 0:16 the title says designer, but really side projects can help you with anything— 0:18 with anything that you want to accomplish, whether it be being a better designer, 0:24 whether it be being a better developer, illustrator— 0:28 Hell, if you want to be a carpenter, a side project is probably good for that, too. 0:31 So we're going to talk about that, but before we actually get into it 0:35 let me introduce myself. 0:39 My name is Tim—oh geez. 0:41 And I'm a designer. I'm a front-end developer. 0:44 I say that I'm a broadcaster as well because I have a couple of shows, 0:47 and I also identify as a coffee addict. 0:52 And I think—I don't know—a lot of us identify as coffee addicts. 0:55 You know? [laughing] There we go right there. 0:59 You can find me on ttimsmith.com 1:02 or on Twitter as ttimsmith. 1:04 If that's what you're into. 1:06 I write on ttsmith.com—sometimes it's interesting. 1:09 So I have a couple of side projects. 1:13 First one is "The East Wing." 1:16 "The East Wing" is a weekly show that talks to designers, developers, and entrepreneurs. 1:18 We talk about their story, how they got started, 1:24 what they're doing, what they're going to do next. 1:27 And it's pretty interesting—I mean for me. 1:29 I've been doing the show for about a year now, 1:32 and we've had—we've had just a range of great guests—great guests. 1:35 I also do a site called "Tim Likes to Teach." 1:41 "Tim Likes to Teach" is a way to learn web design, front end development, 1:46 and other type of geekery that you'd want to learn. 1:52 Right now I have 2 courses up there. 1:54 One of them teaching how to create an art-directed blog, 1:56 the other one teaching you how to create a podcast website with WordPress. 1:59 I have 2 courses in the pipeline right now. 2:02 One on Jekyll and another one just on basic html and CSS. 2:05 I find that there needs to be something that just teaches you the basics. 2:09 And mostly I want to do it for my father. 2:14 He's been trying to learn html and CSS for a long time, 2:18 but there's just no easy way to just do that. 2:20 And he's not into reading books, and neither am I. 2:24 So [laughing] and I'm—right now we can talk about this later in the talk, 2:27 but right now I'm looking at how I can expand "Tim Likes to Teach" 2:34 because I feel like there's a disconnect because you have sites 2:38 that are currently very successful at doing videos, right? 2:42 Code School, you have Treehouse, you have RailsCasts, 2:46 you have Ruby off Rails, and all of these are video screencasts, 2:49 but there still seems to be a disconnect between the person that's learning 2:54 and the teacher. 2:57 And how do these 2 things connect, right? 3:00 Because traditional education had a teacher—a professor 3:03 that you could go to, you could ask questions and say, 3:07 "Hey, look I need help." 3:10 And that's what I want to do with "Tim Likes to Teach." 3:12 Kind of have like code reviews so that you learn and you're guided by somebody. 3:14 I do a show called "Bytesize." 3:18 "Bytesize" is a weekly update on tech, design, and development. 3:22 Usually shows are like 4 to 5 minutes. 3:28 And it's if you're really busy, you don't know what's been going on in the news. 3:31 That's what "Bytesize" is for. It's byte-sized, literally. 3:36 I do another show called, Babblenut." 3:40 And I do this with Paul Armstrong. 3:45 He's a really awesome guy—way more intelligent than I could aspire to be. 3:46 We talk about life. 3:52 Like one time we talked about being content and what does that mean? 3:55 It's a really good show if you care to listen. 3:59 And another side project—my goodness— 4:03 "The Intellectual Radio Program," 4:07 and that's the show I do for fun. 4:09 We get together. We talk about the news sometimes. 4:11 We talk—definitely—about "Game of Thrones." 4:14 So if you guys are into "Game of Thrones," I think you're going to like the show. 4:17 You know, the thing about "Game of Thrones" is that it's— 4:21 [audience laughing] 4:26 It's so complex—there we go. 4:30 It's real, and the thing is—like—all these characters are so complex 4:32 but I'll tell you there's only one that you can truly hate 4:38 throughout all 3 seasons, 4:42 and that's Joffrey. 4:44 [audience] Yes. 4:46 [Smith] Paul Armstrong, the one I mentioned before, 4:48 he said once he's the first kid that made him want to kill a kid. 4:50 Anyway—drama. 4:56 I have a lot of side projects, 5:01 but here's the key. 5:02 Each of them has a purpose. 5:04 And that's what we're going to talk about today. 5:06 So today's agenda: Why did I start these projects? 5:08 How have they helped me develop skills? 5:11 Why it's important for you to have a side project. 5:15 And if we have some time we'll do some trust falls. 5:18 [audience laughing] 5:24 Now—now give me a second here. 5:26 I want to just clarify that I stole this joke. 5:29 I know. It's a bummer. 5:33 You—many of you may know Dave Rupert. 5:36 He's an amazing speaker, 5:38 and I heard him say once at Front-End Conference that if they had time they would do trust falls, 5:40 and I was like, "I'm using that for a talk." 5:46 All right so let's talk about "The East Wing." 5:49 "The East Wing"—I started this because I felt like my learning had gone stale. 5:52 I was in a difficult point in my life 6:00 where not only my learning had gone stale, 6:04 but I felt my work sucked. 6:06 The work I was outputting and also the jobs that I had sucked. 6:09 And the reason for that was because I was in a job where 6:14 I was the only one that was on Twitter, 6:17 I was the only one with a Dribbble invite, 6:20 I was the only one actively participating within our community, 6:23 and to me that felt sucky. 6:28 I felt like, "We're a team of designers and we should all be a part of this." 6:30 And for me, "The East Wing" helped me with that 6:35 because every week I was able to talk to someone that I really admired. 6:38 And every week I get to do that. 6:44 I get to have a 45-minute conversation—sometimes a little longer— 6:46 with someone that I really admire. 6:49 Someone that their work really inspires me, 6:51 and their story really inspires me. 6:53 And that helps me in my day-to-day job because the truth is 6:55 not all of us get to have these big awesome projects. 6:59 Not all of us get to display on our portfolio that we worked with—you know—I don't know— 7:03 Coca Cola or whatever—these big, huge brands. 7:10 So how do you stay happy and how do you stay excited about the work that you're doing? 7:13 And that, for me, is staying involved in the community. 7:19 And that's what "The East Wing" did for me. 7:23 Let's talk about "Tim Likes to Teach." 7:25 "Tim Likes to Teach" was actually a lot simpler. 7:29 It was just—for me—a place where anybody can learn. 7:33 The truth is that "Tim Likes to Teach" is not a—it's not a unique idea by any stretch of the imagination. 7:37 Tutorial videos are a dime a dozen. 7:46 And if you were to search YouTube, I'm pretty sure you could find 7:50 videos on the topics that I touch on. 7:54 But the thing here was for me to do it 7:57 because I wanted to do it. 7:59 And I thought that anybody could learn. 8:01 It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what type of budget you're on, 8:03 it doesn't matter—anything, anything— 8:06 you can learn. 8:09 It's $8.99 a month if you want it. 8:10 And it sounded like a fun idea. 8:13 I—as you'll notice during this talk— 8:16 I love to talk. 8:20 And something that was also really nice about doing these videos 8:22 was that I learned a lot about my own workflow. 8:26 Like I could see how I worked, and it made me think, 8:29 "Man, I am totally wasting time there. 8:33 I need to do that differently." 8:36 And it really helped me with my own workflow. 8:38 Not to mention the money. 8:41 Now this is an inaccuracy 8:44 because [laughter] I haven't made that much money from the site. 8:48 But here's the nice thing, on a Sunday I'll be having brunch 8:52 a mimosa, and an order comes in 9:01 and someone subscribes, and I'm not doing anything, guys. 9:05 I'm having brunch, and I'm making a little side money. 9:09 That's really nice. 9:14 So let's talk about what I've learned. 9:16 First of all, content with lots of personality. 9:18 This is—this is one of the biggest things. 9:21 Because—like I said before—none of my ideas are original. 9:26 They're not. 9:29 Anybody can do them. 9:31 But what's different is me, 9:33 and that's what I try to bring to the side projects that I do. 9:37 I try to inject as much of myself into them. 9:39 Which means that when you interact with my podcasts, 9:44 or you interact with "Tim Likes to Teach," 9:47 you don't get just the website you interact with me. 9:49 You'll always talk with me, and I like having that personal connection with people. 9:53 And personally I think that that's what really makes an impact on people 9:59 especially with the way that technology is nowadays. 10:04 Personal connections are more important than ever 10:08 because there are things that are vanishing, basically. 10:12 I stalk my guests. 10:16 I do a lot of preparation for "The East Wing." 10:21 However, not like this. 10:24 This is not the type of stalker I am. 10:28 I don't know, it's creepy, though. We'll move on. 10:30 [all laughing] 10:34 The point is to have a genuine interest. 10:36 So what I do is I look them up, I read their blog, 10:41 I listen to other interviews that they've done, 10:45 sometimes I follow them on Twitter—a lot of times I'm already following them on Twitter. 10:48 And for me, what I do is that I look into what they're interested about, 10:54 and that's how I find questions to ask them. 10:59 Because the thing is, it is very difficult to have a 45-minute conversation 11:02 with someone whom you have no interest in whatsoever. 11:08 45 minutes are the longest minutes you'll ever feel in your life 11:12 if you don't have some type of preparation, 11:16 and having a genuine interest in my guests allows me to get interested into what they're interested in. 11:18 And the beauty is when you ask that question and you just feel them go off. 11:24 Like—they're like—their eyes open wide 11:28 and they're able to talk about something that is really, really 11:33