My Office Snapshots New Years Resolutions

As mentioned in the Top 25 Popular Offices of 2012 post, it has been a great year. Across all metrics, all things related to Office Snapshots are looking positive. But just because that is the case, doesn’t mean I can’t work to keep improving in 2013.

I decided to come up with several goals for the year and post them on the site as a more public way of holding myself accountable. Here they are:

Write More, Read More

I recently read an inspiring blog post about someone that quit their job and began working full-time for himself. One of his  goals was to try and write 1000+ words per day. I think I’m going to try and do that as well.

  • Goal: Writing 1000+ Words per day
  • Goal: Read at least one research/trend article per day

One of my goals last year was not only to have more posts, but have the site seem less like a plain ol’ spam blog. There are hundreds of design sites out there that don’t actually seem like anyone runs them, let alone actually cares about the content they post about. In order to let readers, companies, and advertisers know I wasn’t a robot, I added an about page as well. If you’ve not see it, you should check it out.

I think writing more will help set Office Snapshots apart from the rest by providing original commentary, both written and/or edited by me.

Reading more design research and trend articles will also work to hone my views down to more than just the ability to look at pretty pictures of offices. Synthesizing that new knowledge with real world office knowledge should prove to be a great combination in improving the weight of Office Snapshots.

For those interested, here are a few places I go to learn:

Develop Additional Relationships

I was taking some time the other day to list my contacts at various design and architects firms that regularly send office projects my way. That number was somewhere around 30 – which seems like a pretty good number. But given the number of firms that exist in the entire world, it is pretty low number.

  • Goal: 150 project-submitting design firm relationships

There are a few architecture websites where architects can submit work to their online portfolios. They then are added to a database that is searchable. That’s pretty neat, I guess, but there is no way for those thousands of uploaded projects to see the light of day.

I like the blog format for this type of content because it gives the submitted work the ability to actually be seen. With the additional partnerships, more projects will be available to actually be seen and not just tucked away in a database

Having more companies involved should also prove beneficial to increasing the number of great office design articles by industry professionals. Here were a few from last year:

Increase Readership

I’ve recently been working hard to find additional readers that will enjoy Office Snapshots and to syndicate to where they are. Unfortunately, the dream off everyone just subscribing via RSS is no longer. Instead, it has been important to send content out to all of the various social networks and work to get viral traffic in hopes that some of those viewers will convert into faithful readers.

  • Goal: to have monthly pageviews at 1M+
  • Goal: to increase FB and Twitter to 15k+ followers each
  • Goal: to have 1k email subscriptions
  • Goal: to double visits in the top non-US countries

An interesting story about social networks in that Twitter – in its infancy – was actually what propelled Office Snapshots to its first large traffic spike and somewhat notoriety. Brian Shaler (had most twitter followers at one point) tweeted about it, and it was soon posted to Digg where it hit the front page and shortly thereafter downed the server.

For those that haven’t, here’s how you can read and subscribe:

Increase Influence

As many of you know, I began Office Snapshots on a whim and didn’t really have any grand visions for what it could be. I now do and am playing catch up to gain influence in an industry dominated by a few print magazines.

  • Goal: to have 5 top-tier office projects appear on Office Snapshots before industry magazines

While I have nothing against these magazines, though I do have a sneaking suspicion that several are more coffee/reception table fodder than anything else, I would like to see more industry influence swing online. I would like to see that influence swing my way, but as long as it joins the 21st century I’ll be happy.

Visit More Offices / Travel

One of the misconceptions about Office Snapshots is that I get to globe trot and visit all sorts of offices around the world. Unfortunately, that is not true – but I would like it to be.

  • Goal: visit 20 offices this year
  • Goal: visit 1 office outside of the US

Visiting offices is by far the preferred method for understanding them. Sometimes, I feel like I am getting the glossed-over view of an office because I usually see the beautiful architectural photography of them. While that does help me understand the architect/designers goals with the office – an important part of each project – it does a poor job of letting me see if the office actually is a good working environment.

I don’t try to take as many photos as I used to because I generally am not allowed to anyway, I was able to visit the offices of a few great companies this year:

  • Zynga, Lynda.com, LPA Inc, Disqus, and Revision3

Conclusions

Given the trajectory of the site over the last year, it seems like 2013 is poised to not just be a great year for growth, but instead a real breakout year. Hopefully you continue to read, enjoy, and share the content throughout the next year – I know I’ll continue to enjoy running the site.

Do you have any resolutions for the new year?