How to eat an elephant?

I have a love hate relationship with my garden. I hate to commit to working on it. It seems like such a big feat that I have to talk myself into it. We have 10 acres and while the gardens are well established that is a lot of work, especially in the beginning of the season. But the love part of it comes shortly after my gloves are on and I am digging in the dirt, pulling up weeds, slowly but surely making progress. Today I was in the garden, not having crossed the line from hate to love yet when a thought crossed my mind. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Each weed was a bite of that elephant.

I have been working in the technology field for 20 years now and most of that time was creating one of a kind custom database applications for customers that couldn't get their needs met with off-the-shelf software. I started my database career with my dad and he had The 10 Rules for Database Development. One the 10 rules was this same question, How to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I find myself uttering this frequently these days. I have an incredibly full plate. This is a blessing and not a complaint as it sometimes sounds like when someone asks how I am and I then say "busy." Well... I am busy. Busy good. But busy to the point of being overwhelmed. Busy to the point of thinking about blowing off this amazingly beautiful day from gardening to work at my desk inside.

I am now grateful for the decision I made to dig in the dirt. While being momentarily overwhelmed at where to start digging in the yard one of the ten rules came to mind and put my anxiety at ease. Continuing to dig in the dirt, slowly seeing progress I was able to maybe more importanly put my work anxiety at ease. I am now tackling my 3 page to do list "one bite at a time."

Are you busy to point of being overwhelmed? Take a deep, cleansing breath and approach your list like eating that elephant.

Inspiration

What inspires you? It is different for each and every one of us. These days I am inspired by extended daylight and stunning green lawns... and the following:

Spring/Growth/Green/Pink/Pale Yellow
Talent
Creativity
Entrepreneurship
Passion
Nature
Novel Ideas
Collaboration
Personality (of my clients)
Genius
Apple (yes, the company)
Personal Strength
Dedication
Perseverance
Community

I am sure there is more but above is what drives me daily. What is your inspiration list?

Clients Converging

 

I feel lucky in that I LOVE my clients.  I get to work with talented, driven, and focused entrepreneurs.  Maybe it is that shared entrepreneurial spirit and experience that makes me fond of them.  We all work hard toward making our businesses known, respected, and trusted.  Every day is a challenge.  Every day is new.  Every sale is exciting.  Every product or service delivery is rewarding.

It is especially interesting and fun for me when my clients get together and do something together.  That is happening, and has been happening with two of my favorites, All Aboard Trolley & Limousine Co. and Meandering Maine. 

All Aboard is Jim Gamage’s baby – a full service transportation company with vehicles that are “like no other.”  I guarantee it.  You will not find vehicles like these anywhere else.  They are great for weddings, proms, birthdays, special events, airport trips, sporting events, and more.  Wouldn’t you want to travel in luxury with the responsibility and safety in someone else’s hands?  And in All Aboard’’s hands you can trust.  Jim is a blast to work with, so motivated, so creative, full of great ideas, hard working, a friend, and a great person to know.

And then there is Meandering Maine.  MM has a special place in my heart, not only for a business but for the person that owns/operates it, Rachael Umstead.  She is a special someone with a great vision.  MM is a wonderful business that  brings the specialness of Maine to all those people that love Maine, want to love Maine, or think they should visit Maine (and then they will love it for sure).  Even though I provide web and design services to Rachael she often inspires me and drives me to be better in my business. 

Now Rachael and Jim are working together.  First All Aboard became one of the first Meandering Maine members.  Now Meandering Maine is “producing” this incredible wedding at French’s Point in September and All Aboard will be the transportation sponsor for the event.  It is a great fit.  And I am so thrilled to know them, their businesses, and to see them collaborate on cool events that will do well for both of their businesses. 

Strategy vs Tactic

Are you running your business with a strategy in mind or following a bunch of to dos that really come down to tactics? We often face every day doing what we must do to get the job done. To do that we often operate tactfully, completing tasks that get us through the day. A strategy makes us more thoughtful as to the who, what, where, when and why; often dictating the tactics to make the strategy successful.

I like to work with clients on their strategy. The most important thing to understand is who you want to be and what you want to accomplish with your business. From there you can assign the how you do it, when you do it, and why you do it.

If you are confused about Strategy vs. Tactics let Little Harbor Technology know. We will gladly help you lay out a plan that accomplishes all of your goals and in the right order. LHT offers business solutions with a particular emphasis on website, graphic design, database design, and social media planning. With the right strategy we can make you more profitable and work less hard.

What is in a Color

Color and like or love of color is so subjective. But we can agree that certain color works for websites and certain colors don't. I am on a color path for a client that has a "cool" logo (in terms of color) but wants a warm color palette for the website. So in doing a little research I came across the following from a website: http://www.pepfx.com/

Food for thought...

red - strength, boldness, excitement, determination, desire, courage

orange - enthusiasm, cheerfulness, affordability, stimulation, creativity
yellow - attention-grabbing, comfort, liveliness, intellect, happiness, energy
green - durability, reliability, safety, honesty, optimism, harmony, freshness
blue - depth, stability, professionalism, loyalty, reliability, honor, trust
purple - power,nobility, luxury, mystery, royalty, elegance, magic
gray- conservatism, traditionalism, intelligence, seriousness
brown - endurance, relaxing, confident, casual, reassuring, earthy
black - elegance, sophistication, formality, strength, mystery
white - cleanliness, purity, newness, virginity, peace, innocence, simplicity

Be Open to Something New

I have had, knock on wood, a lot on my plate lately. Work is bustling, opportunity keeps knocking, new clients coming to the table, existing clients asking for more. I feel very fortunate for these opportunities. But I had a social opportunity that I was looking forward to but didn't really have the energy. The thought of staying home in PJs, eating a home cooked meal, snuggling next to my husband on the couch was all good. And... the party was people I knew (and didn't), not people my husband new. But surprisingly he nudged me and said we should go. A complete role reversal, the homebody wanting to go out and the social butterfly wanting to stay put.

So after a beautiful day, 62 degrees, sunshine, shorts, t-shirt, gardening, raking etc we got cleaned up, hit the road and went to the party. It was a post St. Patty's Day fete, all the beer you can imagine. Immediately walking in I saw who I was expecting there but then others I wasn't. All in all Dan and I had a great time talking with different people, learning about house rennovations, energy audits, business opportunities, life with 2 month old babies, and more. We even through natural conversation talked about Crate to Plate, how we were approaching it, our new yet to be released press release, and more. And while new business connections were made I think more importantly new friends were made or aquaintances were strengthened.

I am glad Dan encouraged me to go out. I had a great time and look forward to opportunities like this again, including keeping an open mind to go out when the easy thing to do is stay in.

Dad's iPhone App

Most of you know I am working on an iPhone app. It is related to Maine and I have a really great feeling that you will see my iPhone app advertised in an Apple app commercial or on the back of the Sunday NY Times. This isn't pie in the sky optimism but a gut feeling on how cool I believe this app to be.

I work on it in my spare time (ha!), getting help from an amazing designer (Jessica Keteyian) and an amazing researcher (Lee Heffner). Oh... the initial idea came from my husband (Dan Cosby). He managed to dream up something that isn't actually one of the 160,000 apps already.

But while I have put my app on the back burner for paying client work my dad, with the help of a talented young Italian programmer has submitted his app to Apple and been accepted. It is called textStream. It is a "cute" app that allows you put a stream of text across your screen, playing with color, speed, flash, etc. The exercise for dad was to get something submitted and accepted, not to write the best app in the world. He submitted the app on Monday and it was up and available on iTunes on Wednesday. For you iPhone or iPod users please go download textStream. It is free. Try it out.

Between this movement on the app front for my dad, and a recent chat at the Maine Women's Network that received a lot of interest and encouragement in the app, I have a renewed interest and sense of "urgency" to get my app up. Look for updates here. I do have a deadline of 3/31. That is 20 days away. Not sure I will make it, but I sure am going to try.