SamChristie.me

a blog by sam christie. former home of "12 Months of Stuff"

Tag: Recap

I Did Not Build A Website This Month. Here’s Why.

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On June 6, 2015

In May

 Photo via http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/99-bugs-in-the-code.jpg featuring Grumpy Cat.

Photo via http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/99-bugs-in-the-code.jpg featuring Grumpy Cat.

Well, that wasn’t a total failure. I set out this month to build a blog in Ruby on Rails. I didn’t end up building the blog, but I did learn some Ruby and do some introductory projects. It was all going well and then it suddenly went off the Rails. Womp womp!

One second I had a test post and test comments, and the next I couldn’t even get a server started to see my progress live on the internet (that’s something you need to do with Rails—start a Rails server.)

In any case, I learned something. That’s going to become my motto I think :).

Halfway through yelling at my tutorials and help sites like Stack Overflow, lamenting the plight of the first-time Ruby developer, I had an epiphany:

This isn’t fun. I am not happy doing this. I am not enjoying this.

I started thinking of some of my other projects, and some of the pieces of them that I just don’t want to do. As you can see, the video updates have become scarce. That’s because I’d rather be doing stuff than editing, uploading, and managing video content. The idea of these update videos weigh me down and get in the way of getting stuff done. Of course in any profession or career or project, there are parts that are less shiny and perfect than others. But this is my own project. I get to make the rules! 🙂

With that in mind, I am issuing a 12 Months of Stuff Official Decree:

All future projects must directly contribute to my happiness.

I started these 12 projects to “get to where I want to be”, but I’m starting to find that destination is a bit nebulous. Sure I want to have my own internet content empire, who doesn’t? But if it makes me miserable, then there’s no point to it. I need to focus on the fun parts, and figure out how to outsource or get around the parts I don’t enjoy if necessary.

Enter the above decree. At least I’m learning things, right? “Inspect and adapt”, as they say. Stay tuned for June’s stuff announcement shortly. It’s going to be a good one.

In love & stuff,
Sam

April Recap: What I learned from 3 drum covers

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On May 8, 2015

In April

I’ve been lagging on this post. There’s something about procrastination that is exponential – the more I put off something, the more I want to put it off. More on that in a future post. 

For now let’s recap some stats:

I did 3 drum covers this month
“Bonfire” by Childish Gambino – 765 views
“Woo Boost” by Rusko – 44 views
“Knock Knock” by Mac Miller – 234 views

That’s over 1000 views in one month, which is exciting for me. Although to be honest, the goal of this project wasn’t to necessarily get views (He told himself as the Woo Boost video tanked).

The goal of this project was to play drums, film it, and discover some new best practices for cover videos. In that regard, this was a success. 

An Ideal Space to Create: Setting Up The Equipment

By far the most annoying part about recording anything for me, whether cover videos, non-cover videos, podcasts, or music, is the set up process. I’m in a one bedroom apartment. I don’t have a lot of space. I don’t have a constant mic set up where I can simply push a button and go. That’s on the wish list of course, but for now I’ve discovered that I need to identify road blocks as they happen and course-correct as quickly as possible. 

Identifying Roadblocks

For me, the prospect of connecting all my wires, setting up the camera, and testing the microphone levels is daunting. It’s the exact type of work that I hate doing, so in my mind I view it as a monster task. It turns out that these tiny pieces of the puzzle really only take 10-15 minutes of actual time. (Look for a video on this shortly.) Once I nailed that down, I forced myself to commit and block out enough time to set up, record, and break down. Yes, I still don’t enjoy setting all this up, but I figured out the quickest and best way to get it all done and got started on time, which minimized my time wasted. Now when I think of these annoyances and see a wall, I can visualize myself busting through the wall since I already found the quickest way to get it all done. 
 

Finding An Audience

It was important to me this month to find a core audience for these videos and focus on promoting to them directly. Letting all my friends and family know about my projects is nice, but if I ever want to turn this into a business somehow, I’m not going to market to people I already know. Hitting the ground running with a new project each month has proved challenging as far as finding an audience, but this month I found a comfortable match.

Banana suit in hand, to Reddit we go

The first song I had in mind for these videos was Woo Boost by Rusko. I own a banana suit, so I figured why not do the cover in the banana suit, put it up on Reddit, and see if I could get a viral hit. As the deadline for the first video approached, I realized I wasn’t comfortable enough with the song yet for that to be the first video. So I pulled out a sleeper favorite of mine, Bonfire by Childish Gambino, and put that up. 

I scouted r/donaldglover and r/coversongs for a bit before hand. I noticed a certain time frame during which the Donald Glover board became active, so I aimed for that and posted my video. Surprisingly, it took off on that board, with 46 upvotes and a handful of positive comments. I also ended up submitting it to r/rap.

I took similar approaches for Woo Boost and Knock Knock, and even submitted Knock Knock to the r/Flyers board. Some people got snarky since I posted a drum video to the hockey board, but most understood. (“So this is what missing the playoffs is like”) The Mac Miller subreddit isn’t nearly as active as Gambino’s, so I’m not surprised with the drop in view count. Honestly though, I had high hopes for the Woo Boost cover. I submitted that to EDM and cover song subreddits, and didn’t even eclipse 100 views. You’d think a fan base that is into having cake thrown at them would be into a banana suit drum cover, but apparently not. 

Key Takeaways

All in all, I’m happy with this month. I played some dope tunes, got a lot of good feedback from friends and strangers alike, and learned some things I can bring into my next project:

1. Identify and remove roadblocks as soon as possible

I can’t wait until week 4 to adapt since each project is only a month long. I need to find the pain points that keep me from doing the Stuff of the Month and remove them or adapt to them if I want to complete these projects on time and successfully. 

2. Finding an audience is key

I knew this going in, but I’ve struggled with it. If I could, I would devote much more time to this, but in the span of one month, I need to be more strategic. I plan, from here on out, to find the most suitable, viral, hungry people I can find for whatever content or creations I’m dreaming up, and get it into their hands/brains appropriately. It’s no surprise my most successful video this month was Bonfire, since Gambino’s subreddit is the most active and he has a dedicated niche of fans that follow everything he does. 

Lastly, thanks again for all the support. If you’ve been reading, listening, or watching what I’m doing, thanks. I appreciate your time and I hope I’m inspiring you to do the things you love. Put a pin in this, because I was aiming for 4 drum covers and only hit 3. Maybe I’ll have to release some “Bonus Stuff”…

In love and stuff,
Sam

March’s Truth Tee Wrap Up: I…failed?

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On April 7, 2015

In March

March. Stuff. Truth Tees. “Hand drawn t-shirts with meaning, with a % of the money given to charity”. All that sounds rad, right? Well, not enough people thought so. Chalk up the first “failure” in the 12MOS canon. 

As the end of March approached, I knew I had a long way to go. With two t-shirts sold, I needed 8 more to print so I kicked it into high gear. I took out Facebook ads, pinged bloggers, and tweaked the ads to get as many clicks as possible. But it wasn’t enough. I felt a little defeated, which explains the beginning-of-April hangover that will see me launching April’s project not on April Fool’s day (worst day of the year), but tomorrow instead.

A combination of work, personal, and extra-curricular hiccups lead me to trudge across the March finish line with my head down. But looking back, as I mentioned in my previous post, this may not be a failure at all.

Sure, I didn’t reach the goal I set for the project – “Sell enough t-shirts to print the Teespring campaign”. But 12 Months Of Stuff, at its core, is about doing stuff. And that, I did. So maybe this month wasn’t such a failure. 

I learned how to better manage a Facebook Ad Campaign on short notice. (Did I mention starting and finishing a project in 30 days is hard?)
I learned how to better market a Teespring campaign for optimum success.
I learned how to turn a scan of a drawing into a Photoshop file into an Illustrator file into a t-shirt. 
When I spin it that way, I got a lot done. 

“Comparison is the thief of joy” says Teddy Roosevelt, a quote I’ve heard before and have never been able to internalize. I’m constantly looking at super-successful people and comparing myself to them. “Why can’t I do that?” “What’s the real difference between me and them?” 

Then I listened to this episode of “Invisible Office Hours”, a podcast by Jason Zook and Paul Jarvis. In it, they explore how comparing yourself to others can sometimes be motivating, or hold you back. For me, it usually does the latter. After listening to this podcast, it finally clicked. Zook and Jarvis talk about what we all see—the results of hard work—as well as what it takes to get there—the process. When comparison is truly the thief of joy, we are comparing result to result. I didn’t print any t-shirts while sites like the Yetee and Threadless sell and print tons of shirts per day. But what about the process? How did they become so successful? I have no idea. 

But I realized, looking at my own process, I’m comfortable with where I’m at. The “result” of March’s tee campaign wasn’t just to sell shirts, it was to attempt to sell shirts. To do something. My process of weekly tasks, inspecting and adapting, and soaking up all of the knowledge I can gives me solace. A successful “12 Months of Stuff” isn’t twelve successful projects. It’s twelve attempts. Twelve times refining the process. Twelve chances to figure things out. Twelve blank slates to create whatever type of world I want. And so far, trusting in the process has been very fulfilling and worthwhile. So I’m going to keep it up and push on. The small psuedo-failures will be outweighed by the bigger picture. By the end of this year I’ll be closer to the person I want to be, even if it’s only twelve tiny steps closer.

Check back tomorrow for April’s stuff announcement. Thanks for the motivation, kind words of encouragement and support. 

In love & stuff,
Sam

Truth Tees Teespring campaign is almost over! + what I’ve done and learned

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On March 25, 2015

In March

There’s only a few days left in the Teespring campaign for March’s stuff.

Truth Tees are hand drawn designs on t-shirts, with meaning, with a % of the $ going to charity., and this tee design reads “Maybe your nightmares are afraid of you”. I designed this to help empower people with mental health issues to take control and get better one day at a time.  I’ve paired this tee with Erika’s Lighthouse – a charity out of Winnetka, IL that “educates communities about teen depression,  eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness and empower teens to take charge of their mental health.” With a little under 5 days to go, things aren’t looking so hot (which means it’s the perfect time for you to buy one!)

That said, I’m not giving up. It’s time to regroup a bit, look back at just how much I’ve done throughout this project, and some lessons learned.

Stuff I’ve done:
1. Designed the t-shirt
2. Launched the Teespring campaign
3. Reached out to bloggers about the campaign
4. Created Facebook ads for the campaign

And most importantly, here is what I’ve learned:
1. The more detailed your plan is, the better it’s gonna go…
Ad libbing aside, I’ve been doing 12 Months of Stuff for 3 months. It’s hard! Some of these projects are pretty involved, almost always more than I initially think. I know if I had 3-6 months to push this t-shirt campaign I would have hit the goal by now, but trying to break down a project into action items while also juggling life, a day job, and these updates has been tough. That said, I know if I get more detailed with my project plans I can hit the ground running and have a better chance at success.

2. Always ALWAYS have and keep a schedule.
When you block time for a task, there’s nothing to think about. You don’t get caught up in anything else, and it makes it easier to attack your to-do list when there’s a set time for everything. In straying from this, I find myself feeling like I have less time than I have, which leads to more stress, which leads to worse stuff overall. Not good! I noted how important this would be in month 2, and I mostly stuck to it then. I’ve trailed off on keeping a set schedule in this one and I think it’s time to get back on track for April’s stuff. 

3. Don’t be afraid to change on the fly!
Those Facebook ads I created plummeted performance-wise in the first day or so that they were running. I made a few tweaks and now the traffic is trending upward. It’s important to inspect & adapt and change once you realize something’s going wrong. It’s not that I didn’t anticipate the amount of work going into these monthly projects, but as I said before it’s pretty daunting to do something and do it well over 4 weeks. I’m making small tweaks where I can and going from there.

Regardless of how this campaign shakes out, I won’t consider this month a failure. The point of this year long journey is to do all of the things that I felt like I couldn’t do, or didn’t have time to do, and so far I am accomplishing that. I would love to have every project be fully polished and pristine, but the fact that I’m doing any of this stuff at all is success enough for me. I’m learning new things every week—things that are going to help me when I decide to expand on some of these monthly projects later

And there’s still time to hit the goal for this campaign! Buy your Truth Tee now at http://truthtees.net. Remember, 25% of the profits are going to Erika’s Lighthouse. Watch the video below for more info including some more on the stuff I’ve done and lessons learned.

In love & stuff,
Sam

February’s Stuff Recap! What I Did, and What I Learned

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On March 5, 2015

In February

Me, performing at the Spilled Milk Open Mic at the Corner House.

Me, performing at the Spilled Milk Open Mic at the Corner House.

Whoa! February flew by. They call it the shortest month for a reason! (Because it is…)
Let’s do a recap.

February’s project was releasing a split EP with my buddy Brian in A Day Without Love. We dubbed it the Young Professionals EP. The EP was recorded over Christmas break, so there wasn’t much to be done as far as mixing. This project was about promotion, building some buzz, and releasing music I’m proud of. And of course, I aimed to learn as much as possible along the way.

Week over week, here’s what I crossed off my to-do list:

Week 1
Posted announcement video
Began to gather blog contacts for outreach

Week 2
Posted a live video of an alternate version of “Kim”

Week 3
Posted a live video of a cover of A Day Without Love’s “Pity”
Wrote press release for the split
Sent press release/early review info to blogs

Week 4
Released the EP!
Posted lyric videos for every song on the split
Posted song meaning videos for every song on the split
Played an open mic 

That breaks down to 9 YouTube videos, 6 blog posts, 3 of my songs on iTunes, Spotify, and Bandcamp, and other digital services, 1 open mic, and a lot of hard work :). Overall, I’m pleased with my first month of stuff. I haven’t focused on music so exclusively for a long time, and it felt good to put some time into it. The response to the EP surpassed my expectations, particularly the feedback on a lot of my video content. There will be more musical months to come in this, the 12 Months of Stuff. But I have a feeling even after 2015 is done, I’ll still be working music into my daily routine, from songwriting to performing.

I learned a lot over this past month, and I’ll expand on that in depth recap on specific topics. But for now, my key takeaway from my first month of stuff is this: I have much more time than I think. There’s no doubt I lost sleep over some of these videos, posts, and parts of this EP. The week of release with six YouTube videos and an open mic was particularly challenging. So much so that as you may notice, I took a few days off from March’s project. But at the end of the day, I got it all done. I silenced the small voice in the back of my head that constantly chattered about running out of time. Looking towards future projects with this in mind is one of the most rewarding parts of this project so far.

Lastly, if you’re reading this, thank you! Thank you to everyone who listened to my EP (even if you didn’t dig it 😛 ), posted on socials about it, watched and shared my videos, and gave me words of encouragement on the EP and project as a whole. It means a lot to have my hard work recognized, and I hope I can keep you coming back for more cool stuff in March and beyond. 

And remember, if you want to get to where you want to be, it starts with that first step :). Subscribe to the blog, my YouTube channel, or follow me on Twitter to keep up with my 12 Months of Stuff! I’ll have more info on March’s project tomorrow.

Hear My Cover of “Pity” By A Day Without Love

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On February 16, 2015

In February

On ‘Young Professionals’, there’s a special audio dichotomy that can only exist when two friends miscommunicate. Namely, A Day Without Love’s songs are electric, and mine are acoustic. If you watched the Split Announcement Video you’ll hear me allude to the fact that Brian told me we were doing an acoustic EP, yet he recorded all his songs as full band, in-your-face electric jams. I was initially surprised when I came in with acoustic tracks, but it ended up working in our favor. What we created speaks to how Brian and I are as music fans and as artists — we wanted to create something cool together, so we did. Neither of us feel it’s necessary to release a split with an artist that sounds exactly like you, so we rolled with the miscommunication, and Young Professionals stands tall, half acoustic and half electric.

That said, I decided to take an acoustic spin on the hardest song on the EP, ADWL’s opener, “Pity”. Think of it as what could have been had we gone all acoustic :). Hear my take below, and hear the finished version on February 24th when Young Professionals releases on all your favorite streaming services.

If you haven’t heard, I’m tackling a project per month for a year and calling it 12 Months of Stuff. Subscribe to my newsletter for monthly updates as well, and follow me on Twitter. Use the hash tag #12MonthsOfStuff to let me know the small steps you’re taking to get to where you want to be.

-Sam

Hear An Alternate Version of A Song From the Split EP

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On February 9, 2015

In February

Here’s an alternate version of a song that’s on the Young Professionals split EP that I’m releasing on February 24. It’s called “Kim”. 

The EP version is very light hearted and bouncy. There’s a capo on the third fret and it’s much faster than this one. There’s even some parts that may leave you laughing (seriously), but I’m not giving anything away just yet. That isn’t this version. So, don’t be alarmed if you don’t like this alternate take, because it’s nothing like what’s on the EP :).

This version is in standard tuning and slowed down, which gives it a darker tone. Watching the video back, this version of “Kim” is actually pretty ominous and a tad depressing, but I still like it. It’s a much different vibe than the EP cut. The darker tinge and lower octave opens up the melody a bit, allowing me to riff vocally here and there. That’s fun. Plus since the song is slowed down there are some interesting lyrical patterns that I can fit into each verse.

Hope you enjoyed this alternate take of what is usually a happy-go-lucky jam :D.

If you haven’t heard, I’m tackling a project per month for a year and calling it 12 Months of Stuff. Subscribe to my newsletter for monthly updates as well, and follow me on Twitter. Use the hash tag #12MonthsOfStuff to let me know the small steps you’re taking to get to where you want to be.

-Sam

 

How I’m Organizing A Project Per Month For A Year

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On February 1, 2015

In January

Although chaos in my task management stresses me out, my strong suit has never been organization. This year I decided to kick it into high gear and figure out a system that would keep my to-do’s in check. Get a peek at how I’m organizing 12 Months of Stuff in the video below, as well as how I came to the decision to use good ol’ Squarespace to build the site.

January is over, and today marks a new month. Keep your eyes on the blog for the announcement of February’s project.

P.S. Keep in touch! Sign up for my monthly recap newsletter, subscribe on YouTube for weekly update videos, or follow me on Twitter. Use the hashtag #12MonthsOfStuff to keep me posted on the small steps you’re taking to get to where you want to be.

– Sam

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