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So here I am, about to tell you what I plan on doing this year, despite the fact that I’m quite certain that nobody cares about what I plan on doing this year … except for the cops and I’m not supposed to be talking about that. No, this really has more to do with the cathartic process of sitting down and trying to figure out the who, what, when, where and why … particularly the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ where this blog are concerned.
Listing some of the highlights (possibly low-lights) that I hope to achieve this coming year seems like a good idea but I haven’t quite figure them out just yet. Primarily I would like to see the blog continue to evolve and hopefully connect me with possible clients. I haven’t ever hung my sign out there letting people know that I am in a position to be hired. Not every project I work on is high end, large, and/ or modern. Given the opportunity, I will help you pick out a front door for your house. Hopefully before the end of next week, I will make that a little more obvious here on the site.
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A big project I will be taking on – I think – is the first ever Life of an Architect Playhouse Design Competition. Frequent readers at LoaA know that I have been heavily involved with Dallas CASA, a charity here in town that has one of their largest outreach and fundraising events through the event ‘Parade of Playhouses’. The short version is that I would like to get some sponsorship money (actually donated to Dallas CASA so you can receive the tax benefits), host the competition here on my site, and actually build one (or more) of the playhouses that get submitted. This competition will be open to anyone in world who has the ability to design a playhouse. I’ll get into the details a little later this month but I am excited to try and pull this off – because everybody wins on this one.
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I have also taken on a collaborator of sorts. Starting this week, Scott Taylor, a good friend of mine, will become a fairly regular contributor to this site (read Scott’s inaugural post ‘Beards of an Architect‘). I have mentioned him before but he and I have been talking about ways to get him involved. Scott makes me laugh and is still incredibly idealistic about being an architect and as a result, I think he has an audience here. What we don’t know is whether or not he has some long term interest in participating. Let’s be honest, the pay on this site is terrible so you have to really want to do it. Writing these posts isn’t always easy but it gets better the more you do it (at least that’s what I’m telling him). We are going to start off slow so look for Scott about once every other week.
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Also planned for 2012 is guest writing … and a lot of it. From me. On other people’s site.
If you actually read those 3 sentences (were they even sentences?) in that last paragraph (was it even a paragraph?) you are probably wondering the same thing I am every time I get asked to contribute something to someone else’s site – Really?!? I can’t explain it either. Just because I have finally made peace with my terrible grammar and abhorrent writing skills doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. I have never held myself out and proclaimed that I was a good writer … I am more of a talker that types up what he is thinking … exactly how it is in my head, which is normally jumbled (but my words per minute typing skills have really improved over the last 2 years!). I am currently on the hook for 33 posts on other sites (whew!) so in addition to the 3 a week I crank out artfully and delightfully create here, 2012 will see me write at least 189 articles. Can you say “overexposure” and “running out of ideas”? See?(tapping the side of my head) that’s why I got Scott Taylor to help.
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I also expect to do some traveling this year. Last year, due to the my blog and the courtesy of other generous, I was able to go to Spain (courtesy of Tile of Spain) and England (courtesy of Modenus) and unfortunately had turned down several offers to other exciting destinations. Unfortunately, the people who sign my paycheck have this crazy rule about me showing up to work … so as a result, I have to take precious vacation time to attend these junkets which puts a serious damper on my ability to go on these trips.
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It’s also why I am going to focus on design process more this year. The “Why did we do that?” sort of posts, things that will hopefully be of benefit to all the non-architects who read this site. I generally get a lot of interest whenever I write about details, technique, products, etc. so I plan on doing more, and I hope to continue in the tradition that makes it easy for the non-professional to understand – after all, one of my goals here at Life of an Architect is to create some transparency to what I do as an architect, show the value of working with architects, and prove that working with me would be interesting if not outright fun.
I always enjoy hearing from the folks who read my site so I hope some new people will feel compelled to leave a comment this year. Based on this post, if you have any ideas about what you would like to see here (or not i.e. Bob in a Speedo), this would be a great time to get it of your chest.
