Project Managing Yourself
With a little bit of graphic design assistance from Justin, and the authentication and upload from a couple of developers, I completed a small project yesterday. Netgenetix updated an online customer management system used by travel agencies for a company called Pro File Client. My project was making software demos to make learning the system easier for its users. There are three demos, one for an agent level login, one for an admin level login, and one for sales and marketing purposes. Over the span of about two weeks I managed to re-write the scripts, learn to use Adobe Captivate, code the new html pages (from an old template though, so not difficult), create pretty buttons for the videos, record all the audio and put it all together for upload. I was so hoping for a lauch on the deadline before noon. Unfortunately due to other projects being launched and other daily distractions I was unable to have it uploaded until nearly 5:30pm at the end of the day. This means all the QA things I noticed which couldn’t have been tested until it was live will have to wait until Monday to be fixed.
Despite the annoyance and frustration this project brought me, I actually probably had the most fun working on it than I have in the past few months on other projects. I learned so many things working on this one project alone as well. From simple coding tricks and some design tips to dealing with difficult audio. I can’t even begin to list all the techniques I tried to make the audio for these demos usable. Everything from making home-made sponges for overtop of the mic to making full on tents around myself to keep the sound confined and adding blankets and material to absorb the sound in an extremely boomy and echo-ey conference room. I spent hours trying to make the audio usable for these demos.
Considering the majority of this project was done myself it was also an experience in project managing myself. I’ve never really done any freelance projects and building your own website doesn’t really have much of a deadline unless you want it to. In order to make this deadline I pulled my first all nighter since college – and it actually wasn’t too bad – I managed to stay awake and still be productive at work the next day. People say to me, “why? why are you doing extra work you don’t get paid for?”. And the answer is, because I want to. I guess I’m exceptionally dedicated and caring when it comes to work than most people – but I’m not about to let a project go out past deadline or looking like crap if I can help it – especially if its a project I did all myself. It’s about the pride in the work and the reputation you get from it. I want people to look back on it thinking “Rebekah did an amazing job on that project” not look back on it thinking “We can do this project well as long as Rebekah isn’t involved”. It’s about pride and dignity, dedication, and the feeling it brings you when it’s done.
As for those demos, well, two of them are password protected but you can see the sales demo if you want. However I’ll warn you its probably pretty boring – its a software demo. 
Those of you who want to provide tips or criticism feel free to do so.
Thanks!
Rebekah
