I miss this song. I loved playing this one live and love the lyrics still to this day.

I was an angry young adult

IT’S SO EASY!

When you save your images in the “Save for web” option, save your basic file as is and named accordingly. Then save a second file. This time under your image size tab, save the file out at 200% larger and save it with the same name as the file before but add @2x to the file name.

So if your original image was called filename.png, your new file should be called filename@2x.png.

From there, the rest is pretty simple. Point your developer to the open source Retina JS (http://retinajs.com/) where they can grab some code that will automatically search for the high res @2x file and display the appropriate graphic if the user is viewing through a retina enabled device.

Thats it!

That struggle, lack of understanding and hand slapping for thinking other than the ways I was “supposed to” or the beat downs for doing the things I was told I couldn’t do… they all drove me to become more and more creative and independent. That creativity and independence drove me to find my own support systems. Looking back, I had no idea I was doing it… but I was building a network of people who supported me. I built myself a new family because I needed to.

That experience of finally feeling like I had found home… even though my home wasn’t a physical one… gave me a sense of freedom. That freedom then gave me the chance to use my creativity to push my own limits because I felt safe. I felt like I wasn’t going to fall.

That freedom to express, create, build, DO… thats why I do what I do now. I want to be able to give people that freedom to feel safe. I want to give people the safety to feel creative, to create the wonderful things their personal minds might dream up. I want to give our friends, neighbors and strangers a safety net so that they don’t have to worry about surviving so that they can focus on creating. I want to create change, but I believe that I am best at creating the things that people can use to create their own change.

I believe that the end of poverty is possible. I believe we’re all interconnected. I believe what I do helps to eliminate the lines between those things. I know I want to continue to create things that empower people to feel safe so that they can find their passions and unlock the beliefs inside of them without the fear of failing. I believe by focusing on this that more change can happen then I am even able to comprehend.

Happy Saturday.

At least thats what I find in life. I find myself at plateau points at times. I first recognized this while learning how to play bass, singing and drumming. There are almost sprint like moments where you advance at rapid rates and then you hit these lulls where you feel like you can’t break out. You’re just stuck. It sucks!

Then, when you stop, refocus and come back to the basics… you find new things. New avenues to travel and new forks in the road to explore. Doors open up!

Thats where I am finding myself right now. Back to my roots. What was the goal, how can we accomplish this in a new, bigger, better and more advanced way?!

Stay tuned.

High High’s and Low Low’s

Though there are the incredible moments and there are the lonely moments… I find the biggest challenge I face face is how I manage my time. It’s terribly easy to get lost in being reactive to the barrage of emails that pour in daily. It’s easy to take meetings with people you ultimately know aren’t going to help progress the business, it’s ultimately really easy to get buried under your stack of to-do’s that you actually never get anything real done.

Lately, I’ve been VERY cognoscente of staying PROactive vs REactive, and I have found a few tricks that help me stay focused on the things that really matter.

Break your time up in a way that makes sense for you

There are tons and tons of business books on how to control your work week. Many with the same messaging… I have personally found them worthless for my style of work. For me what works is to identify you core focuses. What 4-5 things make or break your business? I broke my week in to 5 days, each with a different focus. Weekends are for all the remaining BS that ends up adding to my lists.

Monday – Business Development Day - On Busi Dev day I work with our two Business Dev Gurus on active campaigns, potential campaigns, identifying opportunities and relationships we can move on or make connections to… and ultimately proposing and closing deals.

Tuesday – Community Tuesday - Community is a huge focus at PictureHealing. Each Tuesday our Community Guru and I work together on upcoming events, happy hours and mixers. We work on Social Media strategies, customer service needs and wants and basically any other way we hang out with our users, piers and other businesses.

Wednesday – Whatever Wednesday - This speaks for it self. This is for all of those BS meetings that don;t push the business forward, the random freelance gig I need to do to pay rent this month, coffee meetings with friends of PH, drinks with friends in general. Etc etc

Thursday – Tech Thursday - On Thursday’s I hunker down with the dev crew. We talk about where we’re at with open projects, timelines and then get in to design and ideas.

Friday – Non-Profit Friday – NPO days are filled with inspirational stories, work with new orgs, educating our charity partners on what we’re up to and developing programs that go above and beyond what the app does.

This truly helped me stay on track with the major focus points and the core business of what we do at PictureHealing… but it’s still super easy to get lost in the stack in those days. So I have gone one level deeper in to my organizational habits.

The 3 P’s!

Each day… regardless of the theme, I focus on what I call my 3 p’s. PEOPLE, PRODUCT and PROFIT. Each day, lets say Tech Thursday’s I will break my day up in to the three P’s.

People: Who do we need on the team? Who on the team needs help? How is our tech supporting our users, who’s having issues with the tech.

Product: What development phase are we in, how far are we on each sprint in that phase, how can we refine the UI/UX so it’s a better and more friendly application?

Profit: Which dev projects create revenue, how can we move them to the top of the list and maintain the order and flow our users are expecting?

Basically, each day has a theme and inside of each of those themes I have broken the core business up in to three focuses per day. This has not only allowed me to stay focused, refreshed and on top of the stack… but it’s helped me become a better leader, ask the harder questions and ultimately keep the ship pointed in the right direction.

If you’re a startup ceo or even a Fortune 500 ceo… I’d say to give it a go… it might work for you too!

There are many companies collaborating and focusing on supporting these amazing missions of change and growth. There are new impact investment firms springing to the surface now (imagine investors betting long term on change!!! Thats amazing!). The one thing I don’t see enough of though, are groups out to inspire the masses. If we’re going to build a responsible/social economic environment that builds both wealth AND good will… we need the general public to adopt it. Not just the movers and shakers we in the space get to know and work with. We need everyone to adopt this lifestyle of social responsibility.

It’s starting to happen more and more though! At PictureHealing we’re working on this daily. One of our goals is to inspire people to get involved. Even in the smallest of ways. Each incremental change adds up to a major impact. I also preach that “exposure breeds opportunity” constantly. You just never know what this inspirational effort can lead to. What if we touch one million individuals, and that millionth person ends up becoming a leader in global development because she was exposed to an issue through our efforts?! <~~~~ I know… I know… I am a romantic… but WHAT IF?!!!

We all share this rock we call Earth, Home, Mother Nature. We all share each other’s influence, consciousness, creativity. I believe we should commit to inspiring new people every day to open their eyes to the potential. Even in the smallest of ways.

I am excited to see stats like:

• “ According to a report by D S Simon Productions, “media initiatives with a corporate social responsibility focus generate 35-50 percent more positive media coverage on television, radio, web and social media than comparable programs without CSR.”
• 67% of people would switch brands if a different brand of similar quality supported a good cause

• 61% have bought from a brand that supports a good cause, even if it was more expensive

This just shows the potential. The pot of water that’s about to boil. It shows that WE care because WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!  Now we just need to move the needle a little higher!

Much Love,

Chris

Here are some resources to help you start from my friend and Business Dev Guru at PictureHealing. Mr. Yohei Nakajima’s own StartUpHen

Later on in life, now almost 30 years old, I find myself interested in school… but for far different reasons than going back to learn. I have had some amazingly intellectual conversations with some outstanding minds, both arguing for it, and against it. I’ve spent time with teachers of standard ed, and teachers of unconventional wisdom. I’m finding myself reading and being attracted to countless pieces on whats going on in our schools… and I have come to at least two conclusions that I think we can all agree with:

1. Schooling, or education, the passing of knowledge and ability to increase the knowledge and sharing opportunities are fundamentally important parts of our being.
2. Our existing system in flat out broken!

Schools, by design, teach our kids to be smart enough to push the button, but dumb enough not to ask why. In the industrial revolution, that made sense. We were expanding rapidly, through factory style settings, and we had no idea where it was all going, except that it was going and going faster than anyone was prepared for.

Since then however, life is different. We are more able to connect over massive distance, collaborate with different timezones in real time, and create new opportunity for niche and “weird” marketplaces. Our access to knowledge is limitless really… and we’re just getting going.

So what do we do with these School Factories? How do we reform education? I don’t know… but Seth Godin, a thought leader in my opinion has some pretty great things to say about it. I would have to agree with many of them. Which person would you want to be?
Aware
Caring
Committed
Creative
Goal-setting
Honest
Improvising
Incisive
Independent
Informed
Initiating
Innovating
Insightful
Leading
Strategic
Supportive
or
The obedient person?
Which person would you want your kin to be? Your employees to be? Your boss to be? I think we all know the answer! It’s not time to fix the system, it’s time to reinvent it!
Here is a link to Seth’s manifesto on the subject… read it. Share it. Talk about it. We need you to!