No thanks. Any specialized material I develop (like tutorials) will now be for-pay only.

Besides, I couldn’t use past employers or customers as fodder. It doesn’t seem fair. They didn’t hire me to make an example of them. They hired me so I’d help them solve a problem, not blab it to the world. You have to realize that many people are identifiable by their niche and specific problems. Many people on the outside looking in wouldn’t know who the company was but on the inside, one could easily narrow it down to one or two companies. And, failing to describe the specificity of their market would mean diluting the description of their problem (and what I did for them) to a point where it means nothing. It sounds like blah blah blah.

Case studies of the companies you’ve helped are also a good idea, since you provide more services than patternmaking. Frankly, some of the anecdotes in your book can be fleshed out and polished into excellent case studies.

The key is to not give away the details. Just summarize your process and provide some statistics or graphs to illustrate the improvements you implemented. I can share some examples with you if you would like.

In most pro sites, whitepapers are free, unless they contain consulting advice, and are available for download when a subscriber provides contact information (e.g. an email address, etc). It’s like asking for a business card when someone takes marketing collaterals off your table at a trade show.

This list makes me feel like a lazy blogger, but then I’m no pro. I find it’s one of those things that take up exactly as much time as I let it. Sure it’s effort but it’s genuinely fun so it’s easy to let it take up a significant chunk of my day if I allow myself.

I wish I could justify spending half the day reading as professional development… sigh… the glamorous life of a pro-blogger =)

I find it interesting you’re not getting more patternmaking jobs from your site… my site functions pretty well (if indirectly) as a portfolio/promotion for services. Your site is much more powerful and focused, you could advertise yourself more obviously on the sidebar if you wanted to develop some more clients… or put a blurb on the about page…

Joke? Um. Humour is not, well, my forte. I can tell you’re having fun with dittos, ibids and book references… but now (in my extremely literal mind) I am trying to squeeze your second-to-last paragraph (failing that, your entire post) into the following format:

A man walks into a bar with a dog.
The bartender says, “Hey buddy, can’t you read that sign? It says no dogs allowed! Get that mutt out of here!”
The man replies, “No, I can’t read the sign – I’m blind, and this is my seeing eye dog.”
The bartender is embarrassed and gives the man a beer on the house.
Later that day, the guy is telling his friend about it: “I told him I was blind and I got a free beer!”
The friend then takes his dog into the bar and sits down, and the bartender says, “The sign says no dogs allowed! You’ll have to leave!”
The friend says, “Sorry, I can’t see the sign because I’m blind, and this is my seeing eye dog.”
The bartender replies, “Since when do they give out Chihuahuas as seeing eye dogs?”
The man says, “They gave me a Chihuahua?”

… anyway, keep having fun! (Hugs!)

Ann K

(And I have no comment-spam at all anymore with the CCode MT plug-in.)

(Actually, whenever she is hunting scrapers and spammers, I get to learn some very interesting phrases that they didn’t teach me in Spanish class)