There’s a lot of talk out there about passion.

“Do something you’re passionate about.”

“Try to find your true passion!”

Is passion just a driving force to help us accomplish our goals in life? Is it something that we really need to discover, or do we already know but won’t admit to ourselves what it is?

Maybe being passionate about what we do for a job is a selfish pursuit. I mean, do folks who’ve been laid off get to choose something they love to do when they have bills stacking up?

Or is passion simply a point on the horizon that we should all be striving towards. Sure, maybe this minute we don’t LOVE the work we’re doing, but does that mean we need to give up?

I would like to think that passion is that little voice inside reminding us what is really important in our lives. Perhaps passion isn’t just an ingredient we need in our jobs alone, but also in every aspect of our lives. Something to keep us balanced, motivated, relaxed and inspired.

Maybe we should call it the “pursuit of passion.” We “pursue happiness” so why not passion?

This post is rather rhetorical, I realize. I’d love to hear you’re point of view.

This week I met with a potential client who is struggling to carve out a strong market share, and their website isn’t helping things any. The problem is that they have their own in-house development team who they feel should be able to create a new web presence for their company.

Unfortunately they are getting hung-up on technology. They are more concerned about the platform than they are about delivering their company’s primary message. It’s like debating what fire hose to use when the building is on fire.

Companies need to see the urgency that is ingrained in the ’social media’ age. It’s not about planning, planning and more planning. It’s about finding your best ideas and then showing the world in a unique and interesting way.

You don’t have an excuse to not be joining the conversation already happening in your industry. If you don’t speak up, your customers will make up their minds about you anyway.

Don’t get hung-up on technology. Your competition isn’t beating you because the have some super-secret weapon. They’re beating you because they’ve done it – and you’re still planning.

Here’s a nifty animated .gif design I created for a Twitter contest. I believe the contest was one of the first of its kind, and spawned many clone contests thereafter. Animated GIFs are easier for analytics programs to track. Building a relatively smooth one under 150 kilobytes takes some practice. This one features the Flip MinoHD camera, and weighs in at only 75 KB. It’s pretty much no-nonsense but is high-contrast to attract attention.

This banner has a 4 or 5 part message for the viewer, then a call to action button placed strategically below the text once the message has been played. Bright, high-contrast orange and green colors set this advertisement apart from the light blue elements on the original web page.

A prescription drug online pharmacy website needed a splash page to welcome visitors prior to their initial launch. This design fills a 1920 x 1280 pixel area, filling the screen of very high resolution monitors. The content box in the middle is designed to contain the brief welcome message in html.

Prescription Drug Website Splash Page