Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Beyond.

Wow I can’t believe  in just a little while it will be Christmas! I’m wondering why I’m still working this late. :p

So the year is almost over, and with that comes great reflection. It’s time to see what I accomplished, my mistakes and weak points, and what’s to come for next year. I really enjoyed getting to read about Promise Tangeman’s idea for self reflection, along with the 36 goals of 365 project from BrittCroft. Very inspirational and definitely something to look forward to the upcoming year. I’m not one to get overly excited about new years eve or even setup “resolutions” but I do strive to improve myself and my business.

Unfortunately at the time it’s still really only me doing everything at H2, but next year I will be merging into La Lune  and working with someone that can help me push the design business in a new direction to consolidate well…everything. Here’s just a few of some important things from 2011.

Accomplishments

I’d say over the 2011 year I accomplished quite a bit, I worked with Pro Photo for months beta testing Pro Photo 4 which finally went to launch a few months ago, what an undertaking and definitely something I’m excited to continue to do! Not only that but I launched the new H2 site which was also being done in tandem with P4 to launch in the same week. I’m kinda disappointed that I have to see the design go, as the merger will have something completely new and fresh and I’m hoping to nail down the design so there won’t be much more switching from here on out. Have I mentioned it’s not a good thing for designers or photographers to keep changing branding and site designs? Because it’s not. :p I worked hard to release new templates in the months since P4 has released and continue to release them on a regular basis, I’m excited to be able to ramp that production up for next year. I also launched over 40 custom blog designs for clients this year, a huge undertaking, though I was overbooked am proud to have done so much. :)

Weak Points and Evaluation

I’ve been in the Pro Photo design business for over 2 years now, you would think I would be able to figure this all out, but unfortunately unlike photography it’s taking me longer to figure out the ins and outs of client work, which is completely different than photography clients. Plus I could be doing this until the day I die and still keep learning on how to improve and do it all better. :) I ran a photography business for 6 years until this year when health issues forcibly made me give it up just recently. There’s some good and bad to that, shooting weddings every month and doing custom designs I was overbooked and overworked on didn’t help either business in the long run. Regardless of having to quit and didn’t want to, I’m glad I’m being pushed into a direction that I’m supposed to be going and I’m happy to be moving on. :) Some of the things I learned…I way WAY overbooked myself, which is why I’m still not taking any custom blogs. I overbooked myself for months, I’ve since caught up but at this point I’m not taking anyone new to take a break. This area needs some more reflection to get figured out before moving back into it like I was before.

I also took clients that wasn’t a good fit for me or my business in the long run, on that note I think it’s super interesting to go back through my old clients sites and see where everyone is at (this will be a later topic for a post.) One HUGE thing that I have to mention…maybe email communication isn’t the best route for me or my clients any more. I knowingly am really nit picky and ocd about certain aspects of design, and I can’t always communicate what I’m needing in the design without sometimes coming off wrong when I type even though the tone my email may sound isn’t what I’m thinking it sounds like or would say in a negative tone if I was talking about it over the phone instead. I see Skype or Google Hangouts with the awesome screen sharing features being a major addition to my work flow for 2012. :)  Last but not least…I did not take one iota of a vacation in over 12 months, I have not a single time to step back away from everything long enough to feel refreshed at all. I haven’t been able to do that since after I started H2 really. This is my own fault and will make this another huge priority to do at least bi-monthly.

For the Future 

One thing about self-reflection is that it’s great to see that you can make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, and continue to thrive and push to be better, and no matter what happens and no matter how long you do it you’ll always learn something new. :) I have a very large to do list which during the year I’m going to hope that you all, hold me accountable for. The final list will be in a later post, but some of them include working on better communication for clients, getting back to doing more custom design work, taking more vacation time, sleeping more (I need this so much!), consolidating websites, posting on a regular basis again, and slimming down the social networking to an acceptable level. I’ve been so blessed and thankful for all the great clients and friends I’ve met this year and I’m super excited to see what 2012 holds for me and hopefully our growing team!

I truly hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Matt-