Posts about Podcasts

This week, while Anna’s away, I talk to (Alex’s friend) Brad Frost about iOS7, dropping pretzels and chocolate Hobnobs. (Spoiler: Brad had no idea what they are.) In between we talk about speaking and contributing and what you gain by giving away information freely.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about me being robbed of my iPhone in Geneva and the implications, both personal and business of what happened. We talk about the importance of ensuring that insurance is up-to-date (spoiler: mine wasn’t) and how to secure your iOS devices and Mac in case of theft.

If you’re an ‘everyday’ web designer or developer — instead of one who’s perhaps made of plastic or maybe carved out of soap — we think you’ll love this week’s episode of Unfinished Business.

Anna and I talk about being nominated for awards and being made into action figures and how that’s made us feel. We discuss whether it’s acceptable to make you or your company look bigger than you really are and whether sites such as Agencies Rated can really help freelancers.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, award winning Anna Debenham and I talk about our worst business mistakes and disasters, what went wrong on the worst client projects and what we learned from them. I also wants to know why Albanians steal my soap, plus there are confessions galore about shampoo and Taylor Swift.

In this week’s episode, Anna and I talk about secrecy, about what we can say about the business we do and what we can’t. We talk about non-disclosure agreements and why it’s important for everyone to sign one, plus why I wrote and published my plain speaking Three Wise Monkeys NDA. I gets all emotional about Alex’s twenty-first birthday and can’t quite believe that Anna’s never heard of Blackpool illuminations.

While Anna’s away in Amsterdam, I talk with designer Laura Kalbag about Star Trek Into Darkness, how we name our wifi networks and whether location really affects our businesses. We discuss about how to find good sub-contractors and the differences between working for clients direct or via third-parties.

In this week’s episode of the nation’s favourite creative business podcast, I tell bad Dad jokes and Anna doesn’t laugh. We answer listeners’ questions about charging expenses and project assets to clients and when it’s appropriate to charge for ‘learning’ time. We talk about making the transition from a steady job to running a new business and why it’s important never to burn bridges, and how to compete with bargain basement website designers.

On this week’s Unfinished Business, I mentioned how I ask our clients to name our projects’ shared Dropbox folder so that we don’t end up with dozens of folders called ‘redesign’ or ‘stuff-and-nonsense.’ It turns out I needn’t worry as Dropbox lets you move or rename any folder without breaking sharing.

You can rename or move your shared folders just like you would any other folder on your hard drive or via the website. Even if you rename it, the folder will still remain shared. However, changing the name of the shared folder or its location will not change its name or location in the Dropbox of other members.

I did not know that. Thanks to listener Steven for writing to let me know.

This week on Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about biscuits and business software. Anna explains how she uses FreeAgent to keep track of her finances and berates me for not trying it. We talk about back-up software and how Stuff and Nonsense use Dropbox to collaborate with clients during projects. I run through my favourite design tools including Gridset and Typecast and no discussion about software would be complete without bemoaning how Adobe are abandoning Fireworks.

In this week’s sillier than normal episode of Unfinished Business Anna and I exchange notes on our workplaces and the tools we use, from hardware to software. I get distracted by Mutton Bustin’ (but honestly, who wouldn’t?)

This week on Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about my trip Tokyo and Hiroshima. I explain why I think everyone should visit Hiroshima at least once and Anna opens her presents with loud rustling. We answer listener questions about weekly working, pricing and invoicing and then discuss whether it&8217;s a good idea to work while on holiday.

While I was in Japan, Anna chatted with her “big brother,” Ryan Taylor. They discussed working from home, apprenticeships, front-end portfolios, and working with a hybrid designer/developer.

Two shows in one week. Aren’t you the lucky one? While I’m in Japan for two weeks, Anna’s joined by Ashley Baxter, who took over her father’s insurance business at eighteen. They talk about starting young, learning new skills, determination, vision and overcoming fear.

While Anna is en vacance en France, in this week’s episode of Unfinished Business I’m joined by guest co-host, designer Laura Kalbag to talk about mentoring students and how to give them, and other newcomers, valuable commercial project experience. Laura also talks about how best to ask for, and deal with, client feedback while I remember Mickey, the world’s cleverest chimpanzee.

Following my visit to the University of Ulster in Belfast, in this week’s; Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about how hard it is to keep up with new technologies and techniques and how to decide what aspects of web design and development to learn next.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about Anna’s new limited company, why she needed to set up a company and how she went about doing it. Andy moans about not understanding GitHub (again) and why developer tools often make him feel stupid. After hours, they talk about an episode of Anna’s favourite cartoon, Adventure Time.

(I’d like to apologise for the scratchy audio in this week’s episode. It was entirely my fault. It’s a still a great show this week and I hope the audio quality does’t spoil it too much.)

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about the benefits Stuff and Nonsense gained when we ditched daily rates and fixed project pricing and switched to estimating, working and billing in weekly patterns. I explain how agile methods can benefit designers and clients, even though I don’t really know the difference between agile and scrum. After hours, we talk about our movie of the week, Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 2.

This episode is sponsored by Typecast; quickly style type in the browser and check for readability, rendering and beauty as you work.

Two of Five Simple Steps’ business related books: Web App Success and Managing Web Projects. Use the offer code UNFINISHEDBIZ30 for 30% off for an additional week.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I discuss our experiences of working from home (or living at work), and some of the techniques that help us block out distractions. We also debate the most important issue of how to make the perfect cup of tea (and knock the top of an egg.) After hours, we talk about Kill Bill Volume 1.

This episode is sponsored by Typecast; quickly style type in the browser and check for readability, rendering and beauty as you work and Beyond Tellerrand a conference and workshop event for the web community. Beyond Tellerrand is happening May 27th to the 29th in Düsseldorf in Germany. Use the offer code unfinished1 for 10% off the standard price.

(That’s “horse meat free” not “free horse meat”.) In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I follow up last week’s episode with listener questions about the professional (and unprofessional) ways to handle business disputes. We also discuss how best to say goodbye to a client and cue up a few movies to watch and talk about ‘after hours’ in the coming weeks.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about how to get work and how we both found our first clients. Anna gets annoyed about revenge sites and I tell, for the first time, how I lost my business and restarted Stuff and Nonsense from nothing again in 2006.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and special guest co-host Rachel Andrew — web developer and Director of edgeofmyseat.com — the company that makes Perch CMS. They answer listener questions about working with clients, customers, insurance, work/life balance and subcontracting.

I want to say a huge thank-you to Rachel for stepping in, how much I enjoyed this week’s episode as a listener and to the fabulous Anna who just gets better and better each week.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about our experiences when we’ve lost out on business and not got a dream job, doing a bad pitch (I have done plenty of those), learning from those mistakes and how not to take it personally when a client moves on.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and I talk about deposits and down-payments, getting paid regularly and what you can do if the unthinkable happens and you have to fight for your money.

In this new episode of Unfinished Business, the often taboo subject of how to decide what to charge for what you do. Getting the balance between too cheap and too pricey can be tricky, so Andy and Anna share their experiences — including Andy’s infamous ‘double your rate Fridays’ — and how to handle uncomfortable conversations about money.