We have big plans for Bam Creative over the next six months, hence my lack of posting recently, however I can now announce that as of tomorrow, Myles Eftos, previously a brilliant freelancer under the name Madpilot Productions, is joining us as Development Team Leader.

No doubt he’ll mention it over on his blog as well. Now we just need to all get used to having a Miles and a Myles in the same office. Does that make Bam Creative two miles long?

In other news, my wife Meredith has launched her own blog. For someone who hasn’t touched html for a few years, she has done a great job. If you’re looking for reading material on jewellery, parenting, recipes and more, check out www.orthehighway.com.

Lastly, the big annual Australian web conference is on again, September 26 – 29 in Sydney. Previously named Web Essentials (see previous posts, 1, 2 & 3), the new conference is called Web Directions, and two of the four original organisers, Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp, are pulling out a great line up of speakers and some really interesting topics. The conference is pre-empted with two days of workshops, in an all star lineup.

Make sure you get along, support local initiatives and network with the web industry. I’ll be there, along with most of the West Coast Bloggers, so it’d be good to see you. Maybe this time, I’ll get the chance to introduce Molly to local beers, as was discussed and commented at last years conference.

Image: Gate ironwork from an abandoned hospital.

Following on from my 39 hints when looking for work, I’ve learnt what works both as an employee and employer when it comes down to traits and habits of great employees. Here’s some of them;

1. Be a great communicator – communicate well to fellow staff, management, clients and everyone around you.
2. Understand other roles – take the time to have a good but basic understanding of every role that affects you – management, fellow team members and the person in the corner that no-one talks to.
3. Work hard – and I don’t just mean long hours. Prioritise, plan and above all, don’t watch the clock. If you arrive 1 minute before the office opens, and leave one minute after, then you are sending a message that you don’t care about your job.
4. Dress well – it doesn’t matter if your colleagues don’t wash for days, and think it’s OK to wear torn t shirts, stand out from the pack by dressing like a professional.
5. Have an opinion – nothing is more infuriating than someone that just agrees with you, all of the time. You have an opinion – share it. Just realise that others may disagree, and that’s fine.
6. Ask questions – if you don’t understand a task, or are not sure about what client X is asking for, it’s worse to guess than it is to be human and ask.
7. Ask for reviews – if you don’t regularly have a performance review from your manager, ask for one. At worst, you’ll know what you are doing wrong, at best they’ll appreciate you want to improve.
8. Offer to help co-workers – if you’ve got 10 minutes spare, instead of surfing the web aimlessly or sneaking away to hide in the storeroom, ask a colleague if there’s a 5 minute task you can do for them.
9. Learn and up skill constantly – some education may be the employers responsibility, but if you aren’t spending a few hours a week or fortnight trying to better yourself, in your own time, watch out if you ever need to find that next job – you may have been left behind.
10. Don’t get drunk at office parties – it’s fine to have a few drinks, but getting smashed is only going to embarrass yourself.
11. Walk in the bosses shoes – think about what your boss needs from you, and do your best to fulfil their wishes. Understand what your role is, and how it fits in the bigger picture. If you don’t know, ask.
12. Don’t resign with a weeks notice. try your best to give ample time for your employer to find someone to replace you.
13. Understand your boss and their bosses (if any) are human too – we all make mistakes, we’re even greater if we accept responsibility for them.
14. Have goals and careers expectations – otherwise, ten years will pass, and you’ll still be stuck doing what you did 10 years ago.
15. Remember to take breaks – downtime is as important as ‘up time’. Take off for the weekend, or arrange a few days holiday and renovate the house. You’ll come back so much more refreshed.
16. Don’t get involved in office politics. Leave that for the water cooler idiots. Don’t speak ill of a fellow employee or manager, as it will no doubt get back to them.
17. Have an issue with someone on your team? Speak to them about it – much of the time, people are not even aware that they may be upsetting or annoying you, and a well worded (and calm!) message to them, face to face, can work wonders.
18. Learn even more. Educating and up skilling yourself on weekends and week nights is the only way your next position will be even better, and you’ll be safe in your current job. This is doubly so for those who work in the web or in ICT.

The 18 tips above come from years as an employee and more recent years as an employer. It’s an interesting thing seeing life from both sides of the fence, but I believe that prior to being an employer, I still followed all of the above. I never got into office politics, I always asked for job feedback, and I don’t think I ever worked a job (in retail, business services and other professions), where I didn’t work at least an extra hour a day for free.

Image: Did someone say CMYK or RGB? Buildings in Singapore.

In a basic form, there are three main ingredients you need before starting a business (this includes hiring an entire team or becoming a freelancer).

Time, Money and Personality.

I believe to start a successful business, you may not need lots of one or two of these elements (also dependant on the industry you are entering), but you certainly need a good total between all three. Let me explain in more detail.

Time
Without time, you not only are going to be struggling just arranging your business name, company structure, suppliers and stationery, logo, etc, but you are also going to have no actual time to do the work you’re able to bill. Don’t forget in the early days, it’s likely to be you doing sales, service, support and administration, as well as accounting, dealing with suppliers, etc.

Unless you’ve been planning for a while, you could also have a second part time job or other commitments you need to shuffle around too.

Money
You may not need a lot of it, depending on your situation, but you’ll certainly need some. A standard PC with copies of your most important software (Design, Development, Office & Accounting) will cost you around $5,500. Then, you need a phone, desk, perhaps an office and just all the business and company registrations alone can set you back hundreds if not thousands.

Get quotes for absolutely everything you think you will need, and then double it, just to be safe. There’s plenty of items you wont consider until you are up and running, and then you’ll need them ASAP.

Personality
This is a very important element, possibly the most important. You may have all the time and money in the world, but if you don’t have the right personality, then you’re never going to make it.

You need leadership, motivation, salesmanship and above all, skills. You need to be able to read a profit and loss statement, you need patience and you need to strive to be the very best you can. You need great interpersonal skills, you need to be able to focus on the task at hand, and you need to be able to motivate those around you.

Good project and time management traits are also very important. There’s a number of online quizzes such as this one which will help you determine if you’re cut out to be your own boss.

Before jumping into business, you need to learn lots (if you don’t already know it) and you need to have the service or product offering in your mind figured out. Visit a library or Google and read everything you possibly can about starting a business – many blogs or guides may seem to be irrelevant to you, but you’ll find that even if you are opening a retail store, and the book you’re reading is about a business service, there’s still plenty of gold in what others have learnt.

I’ll write some more about this soon – meanwhile, start considering if you’re the right personality type to start your own business, start saving all the money you can, and consider how you are going to manage your time.

Image: MRT station in Singapore.