If you stop dreaming, it's time to die.

- Shannon Hoon

Cafes Are Not Just About Exhorbitantly Priced Coffee

3 minute read

Have you ever found yourself trying to work on something for hours and still ended up with nothing at all? Sometimes, the best way to actually get work done is to just walk away from it and have a change of scenery. Let’s admit it, there will always be times when you’d want to just get away from the cubicle dungeons and I’ve found that one of the best places to seek refuge on would be the nearest cafe.

Why coffeeshops just work.

it’s not so much about the expensive coffee but how it makes itself conducive for work. A cafe is a good balance between a prude office environment and your home that’s too comfortable for real work to get done. It can be surprising what you can accomplish in just 30 minutes to an hour. As I said above, while coffeeshops are technically more distracting than the confines of offices, the change in environment is what we’re really after. Simply put, it’s peace among strangers.

But for me, it can’t be just any coffeeshop. I still do have my preferences as far as choosing which coffeeshop to lay a nest on. Here are some tips you might want to consider in your own pilgrimage.

  1. First, leave your AC charger behind.

    While current laptops’ battery performance have greatly improved, somehow, without it, you’ll be “encouraged” to get your stuff done right away and get back to the office soonest. Besides, you won’t be staying there the whole day, or will you?

  2. Do, however, leave with a fully-charged mobile phone.

    This needs no explanation. If Houston needs you back, they need to be able to reach you even if you’re behind the moon.

  3. Get a good pair of headphones.

    While cafes usually feature relaxing house or chill-out music, sometimes, it’s just not enough to drown out the noise the other customers make, although sometimes the whitenoise is something that turns me into an energizer bunny. Music with words in it can really grab attention so stay away from it, unless it’s in a language you cannot understand, process, or sing along to. As soon as you can establish your OWN world, the sooner you can get to work, or at the least, catch up on your reading/research.

  4. Choose a dead hour so you can have the place to yourself.

    That means several minutes after lunch or after office hours is a no-no. I find that one of the most ideal windows to go there is in the early morning and in the mid-afternoon. Perfect for coffee! Weekends are great too as most people will just be lazily hanging out recovering from a hangover the previous night.

  5. Find a cafe on a not-so-busy street.

    The passing of vehicles and the noise they make can be very distracting. I’m also more particular for cafes with roadside parking in front of it. The sooner I get my coffee after getting off the car, the better. Be mindful of parking schedules though or else you may find yourself chasing after tow trucks. So, no, I’m not going to drive into mall parking and walk hundreds of meters just to get to a coffeeshop. That’d be a total time-waster.

  6. Stay away from cafes with groups of friends in it.

    if you really want some peace and quiet, you’d want to be with loners people who are busy themselves. A cafe frequented by serious post-grad students is best. Those with high school and college students tend to be noisier. Let’s see you go through that chatter and I’m sure you’ll be heading back to the office in less than 10 minutes.

  7. Stay off the grid.

    WiFI and 3G is a near-must and very reliable but sometimes, it’s good to be just offline. The less distractions you have, the better.

  8. Keep your NDA in mind always.

    You don’t want to be broadcasting your killer idea on public. So to be sure everything’s safe from prying eyes, adjust the size of your screen font so it can be less readable by that guy sneaking a peek over your shoulder.

  9. Stay focused.

    Lastly, I would suggest that before you leave your office, plan well what needs to be done so your new-found freedom is not wasted. Forget multitasking. Just concentrate on just one task and get it over with. The objective is to get to work. And when i say work, it’s not about FB’ing or chatting with friends on YM. :)

Are you a coffeeshop junkie or are considering taking your work there? How did your experience go? Can you say it’s for you or would you still rather be elsewhere? And is the price of designer coffee really worth it? Of course, not, unless the time used to sip it was used really wisely.

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I’ve read them at least once and there are some that I’d pick up and browse through over and over. There are a couple which I’ve never finished and at least one that I’ve never even attempted to read.

I’ve had these books in a book case which I’ve tried to keep neat and dust-free. I liked looking at this book case because, somehow, it’s like a shrine to my journey to who I am now. It reminded me of who I was, what I’ve learned, and how I evolved as a person.

I loved how my friends reacted to what they saw in this book case. Some were amused. Some appreciated me more. Some got disappointed. It would be the most interesting piece of furniture that I owned, next to my mattress, of course.

With beer in hand, I’d look at it as a trophy case and smile, and relish all the memories. But lately, I started asking myself what the point really is.. what the point is in having all these books that nobody else is reading anymore.

It’s when I realized that these books have got to go. I’ve benefitted a lot from them but they must now be passed on, because books that are not in the hands of whom needs them most are useless books.

Do You Really Need A Smartphone?

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Sometimes I just don’t get it with people’s obsession with the latest electronic devices (smartphones, tablets, etc) when the one they’re holding is a perfectly useful one.

Your smartphone, for one, is now more than just a phone and the things that you can do with it and what your phone can “become” will surprise you with the more than half a million apps available for it.

But the question is, have you actually made good use of the last shiny thing you bought just a few months ago? Or are you still using it like the good old Nokia 5110?

If you’re not exploiting it as you should, maybe all you need after all is just a simple phone.

Would You Be Your Own Customer?

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We’ve seen this scene many times. A company makes a product or does a service and sells it to a customer for bucks, moving on to the next customer, and forgetting about the last. Who cares whether our customers are happy? Who cares as long as we’ve made a sale right? Sadly, this is a scenario that is more of a rule than an exception.

Nobody comes up with a perfect product of service, sure. But the least we can do is to be open about how exactly our customers are doing with regard to their experience so we can tweak our product better. They paid for it anyway. It’s a chance to show that it’s not all about just the sale but that we truly care. Seth Godin suggests that it could very simply start with one small but brave move by asking your customers, “How’d it work out?”

If you refuse to listen, if you refuse to better yourself, if you refuse to even consider whether your product is really relevant or not, if you refuse to acknowledge that your business is about the customer’s delight in the first place, then, what differentiates you from con artists? What differentiates you from businesses who rely on breakage and slippage?

Marketing and selling a product is just a first step (some say it should be the later). Delivering a delightful product and a service that leaves your customers breathless is another.

So, are you someone who would pay gladly for your own company’s product and still be happy with the post-sales experience? Would you care about YOUR own experience? If YOU won’t be your own customer, then it’s time for some introspection.

Why Go iOS-Only As A Developer

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When friends and colleagues learned I was going to focus more on iOS development, they quickly asked whether I was going to do Android as well. The quick answer to that was a clear No simply because I don’t have the resources to allocate on a platform where my chances of making a sale as an independent developer is very slim.

Sure, I might consider if it were commissioned work or if the outcome would be life-changing for even a few. But since I’d rather be building my own product and sell it myself than take client work at this point, I must start with putting food on the table first.

So instead of focusing on telling people why I’d rather not do Android, I’d rather tell people why I believe iOS is a better platform to work on, especially, if you’re an independent developer.

Ever since the launch of the App Store, I saw how it could change the apps landscape, both as a user and as a developer. I saw how users could actually do more with their phones (it’s now more than just a phone) and I saw how it could enable developers regardless whether you’re working solo or in a bigger team. I like how it gets rid of the middleman big-ass corporation and how it gives developers a chance to grow.

If you’re considering a platform in which to sell your apps on, you should first consider the best platform that can provide the best user experience. And most of the time, the best would be the simplest. This is where Apple shines obviously and it’s not necessarily about its users having more taste and more purchasing power but it’s about a platform that is able to provide for an experience you probably wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere.

As a user myself, I find that it’s important to have a very consistent experience across apps, and if some apps would violate that predictability, it’d be nice to know that some are actually able to do it quite nicely.

The quality of apps in the App Store is superior in so many ways because of that platform as a whole. One can always talk about hardware specs and how it trumps the competitor but it’s not about just the hardware, it’s about the consistency of the whole experience.

As a developer, I’ve never felt more special than how Apple is currently enabling developers. This is manifested with mostly clear documentation and the availability of great frameworks and tools. Even in this regard, Apple’s design-oriented work becomes more evident. Acknowledging that they should equip developers well for them to be able to come up with breath-taking apps is very important.

Surely, Android is in more hands now compared to iOS but the number of manufacturers and devices out there is making it difficult for developers (worse for indies) to even catch up with writing and testing code for each. I simply find it unsustainable and let’s not even talk about the often delayed deployment of OS updates to older devices.

In the end, as much as I want to do Android as well, it just means I can’t please everyone, but I need to start somewhere.