Informational Geometry

Lately I've been freelancing a lot which has been great. I love the flexibility and control I have over my own time. I'm so busy, however it's hard to just manage that time. But my biggest worry is negotiating the right rate. In order to figure out the right rate I asked several friends & colleagues for their insight. It's interesting to compare what they said: Susan pointed me to this article which offers a calculation of freelance rates based on what you would be making if you were getting a salary. According to this I should be making between $90-120/hour. Calculating Your Freelance Rates - Part 1 A friend spoke more about Stock options. Since I work with a lot of start-up companies this is relevant. They are always trying to figure out creative ways to pay employees which I find does NOT work especially if you have overhead. He says, "...They should be indifferent between paying you in cash versus stock- perhaps they are trying to "get a deal" fr...

OK. This teenage girl in Canada has some how described my torment about digital communication. Sigh. Well, I suppose I have more baggage and history than she does. Enjoy.

This week, whilst crashing at Fran's in Baltimore I'm super busy. Would you believe I have a ton of freelance? It feels GREAT to finally be free from an office, truly independent, and best of all not paying rent . Hooray! I'm sooooo busy I probably wont be posting any more this week. OK maybe some Radar posts see the nifty picture window on the side. Next week it's my first foray back up to New York City where I'll be talking to some peeps and scouting out new work.

The New York Times published an excellent special section yesterday dedicated to museums exhibits. If you missed it, this article The Choice Shows Around the Country , highlights some of the most interesting exhibits. Now if only there was a list like this for international art shows and events, festivals, workshops, and more. Hmmmm

TFPM # 1 - June Taylor

I always felt like so much more could be done in interaction design than what we're doing now. I always feel like corporations are really too cheap to invest in the design research to get to place of real innovation in software product design. There was a fantastic article in this weekend's NYT about new interaction models... Coming Soon: Nothing Between You and Your Machine ...“The old paradigm is breaking down,” said Paul Mercer, senior director of software at Palm Inc. “It used to be that you needed to be a visionary and technologist like Michelangelo, but we’re turning that corner.” INDEED, the more powerful graphics-oriented software has spilled over into the creation of palettes for a new generation of software-oriented artists. One new programming language, Processing, is an extension of Sun ’s Java designed specifically for students, artists, designers, researchers and hobbyists who are interested in programming images, animations and interactions. It has been used ext...

So I just moved back to the east coast after living in San Francisco for 13 years. (SF is great but I got sick of the cold fog, the greed, and the overpriced rents) For the first time in years my email inbox is quiet. You'd think I'd be happy about that, but I miss the attention. I think I'm now receiving more spam mail than friend mail. Sigh. While I'm waiting for my stuff to complete it's trip east, I'm left with my trusty old powerbook, and nothing much to do but get organized. First the email. Fortunately I switched to web based email a couple years ago, which makes things simpler. Like a tyranical queen of the digital domain I deleted EVERYTHING out of the Yahoo! mail account. Who needs Yahoo? Apparently Microsoft! Next, I tackled my gmail problem, slashing archived mail like a Bazilian Rainforest. For christ sake why am I so open??!! Next comes the pandoras box of bookmarks. Over the years I've saved sets of bookmarks, from many different work computer...

Studioroom has relocated to the East Coast. We are temporarily set up in the Washington DC area while we update the website and explore opportunities. Since we slashed our expenses to a tenth of what we were paying in San Francisco, we can afford to travel to you! Please don't hesitate to contact us for any of your interaction design and user experience design needs. design@studioroom.com