A slight change of format for this week’s Unfinished Business . Laura Kalbag wanted to know our experiences of working with our partners—she’s just started working with hers—so she emailed Sue some questions. I hadn’t heard her answers until Laura read them on the show, but I think that makes for interesting listening. I’ll publish Sue’s full answers on Stuff and Nonsense later on in the week. Thanks to our sponsors this week, they were Gather Content and Forge . As always, you can support Unfin...
Jun 09, 2014•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 72
Ashley Baxter is back on Unfinished Business this week and we start the show by talking about why she started a podcast with some other fella . We discuss how businesses should be authentic on Twitter and if a brand can justifiably spend 45 days planning a tweet about cheese. (Mmmm, cheese.) We round off this week by talking about how working with other people can affect your fitness and diet and why working from from home might be the best thing for some people. And let’s not forget Ashley Baxt...
May 31, 2014•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 71
Illustrator Josh Cleland joins me for episode 70 of Unfinished Business this week. We discuss about how I’m struggling with an idea for the next version of the Stuff and Nonsense header and I baffle Josh by talking about vintage British adverts, including the PG Tips chimps and Cadbury Smash’s famous Martians.
May 25, 2014•54 min•Ep. 70
On Unfinished Business this week , I’m joined by designer and artist, the one and only Brendan Dawes . Bren and I talk about data inspired art and his Cinema Redux pieces. As we can never get together and not discuss films, so we talk about the greatest westerns of all time, the True Grit remake and Django Unchained. Plus, being ‘men of a certain age’ we reminisce about childrens TV from the seventies and why the writers of The Banana Splits must have taken a lot of drugs. We have two excellent ...
May 17, 2014•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 69
On Unfinished Business this week , and with us both fresh from the Net Awards, Laura Kalbag and I talk about our experiences there. I explain why I don’t feel at home in the web design industry as it is today and how its conversations no longer reflect my interests in design. After last week’s ‘giant’ misunderstanding about speaker fees, we also talk about the responsibilities that speakers have to themselves, to an audience and to an event and the people who’ve organised it. It’s a lively discu...
May 11, 2014•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 68
On this week’s (early) episode of Unfinished Business , Ashley Baxter ’s back to talk about her brand new business, Insurance By Jack . We talk about why she started the business and some of the challenges she’s already faced. No ‘Ashley’ episode would be complete without her “Baxter’s Scottish Slang Word of the Week.” What is it? You’ll just have to listen to the show to find oot. Oor sponsors this week are the fantastic Ghostlab and Logical Elements’ PHP For Web Designers course . Get £100 off...
May 02, 2014•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 67
Dan Davies is back on Unfinished Business this week to talk about what he’s learned in the five months since he switched from front-end development to user-experience design. We discuss how his agency is improving communication between designers and developers, his interview series about workflow and more and how he was once replaced by a fibreglass rhino. We have two excellent sponsors this week, Perch and a new sponsor Hover , the best place to buy and manage your domain names. Get 10% off you...
Apr 27, 2014•54 min•Ep. 66
This week on Unfinished Business I’m joined again by Elliott Kember to talk about Speedos, fitness tackers and—one day before Nike announced they’ve stopped making hardware— my Nike Fuelband. We discuss Cennydd Bowles’ Letter to a Junior Designer and if there are differences between designing a website and designing a digital product. I ask if designing with data is just an excuse for not having enough confidence in an idea and suggest that banging on about ‘empathy’ deserves a punch in the face...
Apr 20, 2014•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 65
On this week’s Unfinished Business I’m joined by not one, but two guests to keep me out of trouble, Laura Kalbag and marathon runner Rachel Andrew . We talk about the fallout from last week’s news that publisher Five Simple Steps has closed, what this means for other niche publishers and for the authors who write for them. We talk about how the abrupt announcement of the closure could’ve been handled better and the lessons we might learn to help us in the future. Finally, we break down how advan...
Apr 13, 2014•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 64
Special guest Jeffrey Zeldman joins me on Unfinished Business this week to talk about how important is it today for designers to be able to tell stories and sell ideas to clients. We talk about whether designers need ‘empathy’ or strength of character and conviction in their ideas, whether the web needs ‘account menpeople and what it feels like when people you’ve mentored go their own way. It’s a packed show and as we both love advertising and Mad Men, we end by talking about my Don Draper deper...
Apr 05, 2014•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 63
New regular Ashley Baxter joins me on this week’s packed Unfinished Business to talk about eating well and staying fit, my goal to lose 14lbs and why my competition with Paul Boag is spurring me on. We also talk about how happy I am that Stuff and Nonsense has been shortlisted for Agency Of The Year at the Net Awards . Last, but not least, there’s Ashley’s Scottish slang word of the week. I’m also over the moon to learn that Unfinished Business has been shortlisted for Podcast Of The Year. When ...
Mar 31, 2014•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 62
On this week’s Unfinished Business , Laura Kalbag and I talk about the business of speaking at conferences, why it’s essential to be paid to speak and the importance of contracts that cover the paying of expenses, who owns the content of a talk and what conferences can do with that content after the event. This week’s amazing sponsors are the Scotch On The Rocks conference and Macrabbit’s Espresso . Get 10% off your copy of my favourite code editor using the offer code unfinished ....
Mar 23, 2014•56 min•Ep. 61
Illustrator Josh Cleland is back for this, the sixtieth episode of Unfinished Business . We talk about Milton Keynes Geek Night, losing my voice and what can go wrong if you suck too many Strepsils. (Spoiler: diarrhea.) We discuss how we’re both trying to achieve a better work/life balance and what’s been driving us to work all the time. I’d like to thank this week’s sponsors, Shopify and Logical Elements . Get 50% off their April PHP For Web Designers online course when you use the offer code u...
Mar 16, 2014•53 min•Ep. 60
Despite possibly the worst Skype connection in history, I chatted with Ashley Baxter on Unfinished Business this week about her semi-professional photography business. We talked about the photo walk and workshop that she recently organised in her home city of Glasgow and why conference organisers should host more photography workshops at their events. Aye. And let’s not forget Oor Wullie. This week’s sponsors are the The Web Is conference that’s happening in Cardiff on 30/31st October 2014. Use ...
Mar 09, 2014•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 59
Laura Kalback, Kalbang, Kalbung, Cowabunga! Kalbag is back on Unfinished Business this week and we talk about her troubles at her bank and how changing your name once you’ve built an online persona might be a challenge. We follow up on our previous conversation about business ethics, then discuss how much time is reasonable to spend on researching requirements to provide a client estimate. This week’s sponsors are the Scotch On The Rocks conference that’s happening in the beautiful Scottish capi...
Feb 23, 2014•59 min•Ep. 58
This week on Unfinished Business , Elliott Kember and I talk about how Director Lottie Dexter introduced the Year Of Code initiative and most importantly the message we think it sends about our industry and what we do. Thanks to our sponsors Logical Elements —get 50% off ‘PHP for Web Designers’ when you use the offercode unfinished when you book your place—and Shopify ....
Feb 17, 2014•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 57
This week, Josh Cleland is back on Unfinished Business . We talk about updates on our various piracy issues and whether it’s necessary to add copyright notices or watermarks to our work. We also discuss why people at large put a low value on creative work. Thanks to our sponsors this week, GatherContent , Forge and the Dot York conference. Get 20% off your GatherContent subscription for life, and 50% off Forge for two months when you use the offer code unfinished ....
Feb 09, 2014•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 56
This week on ‘Net Awards Podcast Of The Year’ nominated Unfinished Business , Liz Elcoate , from some other podcast, joins me to talk about why it’s acceptable to admit when we’ve availability and to ask people for work. We talk more about having flexibility in our rates and why it’s reasonable to quote different rates to different people. We also touch on whether web designers should charge ‘rush rates’ and why working for free can be good for the soul. Speaking of the Net Awards, did I mention...
Feb 02, 2014•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 55
Laura Kalbag is back on Unfinished Business this week to talk about how far in advance we book client projects and what we you do if a client wants more work done, but we’ve other work booked for the next few months? We discuss upping our day rates and how Laura’s client suggested she charge more. No Unfinished Business would be complete without talk of pirates and smugglers and the Milton Keynes Geek Night All Dayer conference which took place last week. Thanks to our sponsors for this episode,...
Jan 26, 2014•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 54
It’s a good one this week. I’m joined again by Elliott Kember to talk about whether being acquired is just a poncy way of saying that you’re taking a job at a big company. We discuss Google buying a nest thermostatNest Labs for $3.2billion when they could’ve got one for a hundred quid at B&Q and why some people have reacted very negatively to the deal. Best of all, we start and end this episode with a song that sounds absolutely nothing at all like Purple Rain. You don’t get singing like tha...
Jan 19, 2014•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 53
This week on Unfinished Business , I’m in a relaxed mood as I’m joined by Josh Cleland to talk about how we filter enquires from potential clients through our websites and emails. We also try really, really hard not to talk about moviesfilms. Thanks to our sponsors this week, Hammer For Mac and GatherContent . Listen to this episode for a very, very special offer from GatherContent....
Jan 12, 2014•58 min•Ep. 52
For the first Unfinished Business of 2014 I’m joined by my really good friend Dan Davies to talk about film marathons, what we’d hoard for the apocalypse and Dan’s totally unrelated career change from front-end developer to UX designer. This episode is sponsored by Ghostlab and Perch . We love them both. Please support the show by visiting them....
Jan 05, 2014•48 min•Ep. 51
For this, the fiftieth episode of Unfinished Business , I’m joined by regular guest Laura Kalbag . We talk about ethical statements and whether we, and the companies that people work for, should set out what they will and won’t work on our websites. I would like to say an enormous thank-you to Anna Debenham for helping me get started with this podcast. To all our guests and sponsors for making the show possible and to you, our listeners for being lovely people. I’d like to wish you all a very ha...
Dec 22, 2013•51 min•Ep. 50
The wonderfully generous Sean Johnson joins me twice on Unfinished Business this week to first answer a listener’s question about competitive payment terms, then to talk about our downs and ups of 2013. This episode is part of a whole week of Christmas crossover podcasts including The Freelance Web, Beyond Ink, The Back To Front Show and Boagworld. I want to say a huge thank-you to Perch who’ve not only sponsored the show this week but have made it possible for us to record Unfinished Business a...
Dec 16, 2013•51 min•Ep. 49
Illustrator Josh Cleland is back on Unfinished Business this week to talk about his work on the new Stuff and Nonsense go, go, go, rillas header , the difficulties of designing our own branding and how we can make visits to our sites more memorable by improving the design of pages we often forget. Nominate Unfinished Business for the Net Awards 2014 One way you can say thanks for the time we take making our podcast every week is to nominate Unfinished Business for Podcast Of The Year at the Net ...
Dec 09, 2013•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 48
This week on Unfinished Business , I’m joined by Elliott Kember . We talk about listening to feedback and the differences between client feedback on design projects and customer feedback about apps. Then I amuse Elliott with my new found adoration for LINGs CARS and that I think Ling is a marketing genius. Thanks to our sponsor this week WebCode —Spend your time drawing, not writing code....
Dec 01, 2013•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 47
In this week’s extra length special episode of Unfinished Business , Jon Hicks and I talk exclusively about Doctor Who, so there isn’t a single piece of business advice anywhere in the show — not that there’s usually much. In particular we talk about the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary episode, so if you haven’t seen that yet — spoilers! Before that we talk about ‘An Adventure In Space And Time’, the story of the First Doctor William Hartnell and ‘The Night Of The Doctor’ mini episode that set the s...
Nov 24, 2013•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 46
This week on Unfinished Business , I’m joined by James Young to talk about his recent, first conference presensations and why confidence in front of people is as important as a designer’s skills with Photoshop. We discuss his knives business and how a side business can improve the work we do on the web and give us more varied content to talk and write about. Thanks to our sponsor this week GatherContent —helping people who build websites work with their clients to plan, organise and collaborate ...
Nov 18, 2013•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 45
On this week’s Unfinished Business , regular co-host Laura Kalbag and I talked candidly about hosting workshops and whether they make commercial sense and how we make money from them. Laura asked me about choosing Stuff and Nonsense for our business name and we talked about how people can make the best, first impression when you write to us. (Sorry for Laura’s audio quality. We’ll try to do better next time.) Thanks to our sponsor, Blush , beautiful letterpress printing of cards, stationery and ...
Nov 11, 2013•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 44
This week on Unfinished Business , I’m joined by CSS hero Harry Roberts to talk about being typecast (literally,) going Keynote commando and Harry’s first week on the dole. We talk about how people can improve the way they think about sending and dealing with email and why we’re both obsessed with the backends of vans. This episode is sponsored by the new Device Lab from Vanamco and by Smashing Magazine’s workshops including my CSS3 For Responsive Web Design workshop and Harry Roberts’ Planning ...
Nov 04, 2013•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 43
