Go Media Podcast - Episode 18: What We're Thankful For in 2013

In this episode, Jeff, Bryan, and Bill get together to talk about what services, tools, apps, books, and philosophies we’re thankful for as designers, developers, and business owners in 2013.

Listen to the Podcast

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Sponsors of this Episode

This episode was brought to you by The Arsenal’s Cyber Monday deals taking place from November 29th to December 2nd. For more information on that, go to Arsenal.GoMedia.us and sign up for the Arsenal newsletter for an even better deal than what we’ll have on the site.

And, we’re also celebrating the 3rd year of On The Map CLE on Friday, December 6th, 2013 at the Go Media Studios. You can RSVP for the event on the Go Media Facebook page. OnTheMapCLE.com is a video series featuring the people and places that make Cleveland a creative, culturally rich, and inspiring place to live and work.

What We’re Thankful For in 2013

Where We’re Finding, Digesting, and Sharing Design Resources

BlkSmith Design Texture

Blksmith Texture Collection
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Dribbble – A design sharing and feedback social network suggested by AJ216 in the Live Chat
VectorScribe – Better corner manipulation in Illustrator
Feedly – The best replacement for Google Reader
Pocket – An easy way to save your reading for later.
Sidebar.io – A daily curated resource list
Buffer – Share information at will, but spreads your posting throughout the day so your followers aren’t bombarded with link after link.
IFTTT – Put the internet to work with you. Bryan uses it to email an article to him every time he saves a post for later in Feedly. Jeff uses it to collect and organize YouTube videos in Pocket when he wants to watch them later.
Audible – Audio books with a great app.
Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art – Suggested by @AngryCity in the Live Chat

How We’re Collaborating, Note Taking, Planning

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Dropbox – Easy File Backup, Online Access, and Sharing
Google Drive – We use Drive to share proposals, client edit notes, and collaborating on show notes and sales material.
DocsFlow – An add-on within Google Drive that connects a Google Doc with a InDesign file, allowing us to edit and collaborate on a proposal, and have it appear in a well-designed InDesign file.
Evernote – A cross-platform note-taking app suggested by @TheSeanRHughes in the live chat.
Outlook – Bill uses the built-in task list and calendars to track time spent on projects and what he needs to get done.
Google Keep and Calendar – Bryan does the same thing, but in Google’s ecosystem.
OmniFocus – Jeff’s task list of choice.
Prevue – A design critique app suggested by @AngryCity in the live chat.

How We Keep Focus As We Design, Write, And Make Things

Freedom – Jeff uses this to make sure he doesn’t get distracted while under a deadline. It shuts off his internet for a time period you set.
FocusBooster – A Pomodoro Technique app for Windows.
OMM Writer – A minimal writing app suggested by @AngryCity in the live chat.
750Words – Another distraction-free writing app suggested by @danieldehart
Google Docs – Where Bill, Bryan, and Jeff do a majority of their writing.
WordPress – Since a majority of our writing goes onto a blog or a website, we take advantage of WordPress’s built-in visual editor in full screen mode.

Where We’re Finding Inspiration In Everything We Do

Fizzle – Jeff has been reading their blog and listening to their podcast about business ideas and training.
Nathan Barry’s “Authority” – Jeff’s a big fan of his book: “Authority” and his honesty.
DeviantArt – It’s not talked about a lot, but we still go here for illustration inspiration.
Adventures in Design – Bryan loves the way they do their podcast and how they talk about their business and their struggles and successes as designers.
The Audacity to Podcast – A podcast and blog about podcasting.
TedTalk about QuadCopters – Bill really liked this talk and how people were using these small devices to do really big things.
WMC Fest Speaker Videos – WMC Fest 4 Speaker videos are finally being released.

Honorable Mentions

NotePad++ – The BEST code writing app on Windows, according to Bryan and the rest of the development team.
Brackets.io – Another code writing app suggested by Andrew in the live chat.
Google Chrome’s Developer Tools – Bryan loves designing in-browser like a boss.
Zurb Foundation – An advanced, responsive, front-end prototyping and development framework which works with Compass, Sass, and magic. Lots of wonderful magic.
IcoMoon – We don’t always use images for icons. We use fonts.
Optimizely – Simple A/B testing.
ClickyStats – Realtime stats to see how users are interacting with your content.
AddThis – Social sharing made easy with click tracking.
Google Hangouts – Not just for a friendly video call. We’ve recorded podcast interviews with it, we’ve streamed the podcast video to the live chat, and we’ve even trained clients how to use WordPress using it’s built-in screen sharing functionality.
Spotify – Unlimited playlists of music to get into the groove with.

Credits

Hosts: Jeff Finley and Bill Beachy Producer: Bryan Garvin Recorded at: Go Media

Sponsorship Opportunities

Interested in sponsoring the Go Media podcast, either episodically or exclusively? Well, hit us up at [email protected] if you are interested in advertising your business, project, event, or portfolio.

What Do You Think?

We want to hear what you think about the latest episode of our podcast and what topics you would like to see covered in upcoming episodes. Comment below with your suggestions.

Join Us Live

This episode was recorded live on November 21st, 2013 at gomediazine.com/live. Next recording will be announced in the near future.

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Go Media Podcast – Episode 18: What We’re Thankful For in 2013