While writing an article just a few short moments ago about photography, I suddenly found my mind wandering and thinking to myself; what are the best decisions I’ve ever made in life?
No, I don’t understand how I strayed onto that subject, but seeing as I did, I thought I’d blog about it here, without any preconceived plan about where I’m going with this. Though I’m fairly sure there’ll be a blog just around the corner countering this one, as that’s the type of negative person I can be sometimes.
Anyhow, while thinking about this I thought how powerful would some of my websites be now if I’d used WordPress from the beginning, and how strong would they be if I could take WordPress 2.5.1, go back in time, and use it around the year 2000?
So, the best decisions I’ve ever made in life? Let’s see…
- Spending money to register the domain www.thetransformers.net in August 2000, when I had a website already but it was on a free hosting site called 20m.com (which meant 20 megs free space). That decision was quite a good one!
- Then, just a short while later I bought www.transformersthemovie.com (much to Don Murphy’s disgust a year or so ago, claiming I was jumping on the bandwagon). That domain was bought, I think, in December 2000, when I made a website about the original animated film. That domain has done quite well of late.
- Not selling the aforementioned domain when someone inquired to buy it. Yes, that was Paramount.
- Leaving my job in Cardiff to move to Manchester and work for an SEO company. That has to be pretty high up there. You have to challenge yourself in life and work for the companies that will offer that.
- Buying a HP Smartphone and installing voice recording software to record ALL of my phone calls. The CSA aren’t too keen on that one, but it paid for itself after just a few days.
- Getting in touch with DVD suppliers and PR companies when I worked as the web designer for GAME. This allowed me to build up contacts I still use today, create the website WhatDVD.Net and become involved in the Transformers DVD releases for Maverick and Metrodome. Thanks to the guys at GAME who thought no one would actually send us DVDs for review because GAME didn’t buy enough units, so they let me do it. Had they known how successful I’d be they’d have done it themselves. Cheers Jonny A and CJ Ravey!
- Working for GAME in the first place. I have to say this I feel, it was my first 9-5 job in August 2000 and I worked there for a few years, made some lifelong friends and have never really found anywhere else like it.
- Buying a Jedi outfit… that one’s self explanatory 😉
- Trying out Google Adsense when it launched in 2003, and at the time I though Commission Junction was the best thing since student grants. It made just a few cents a day at first, but sticking with it proved a brilliant move.
- Finally, and this one hasn’t proven itself yet but I feel it will, not selling my house at the beginning of the year. I risked financial ruin to keep it when I could have sold it and walked away with a few grand to my name, however I kept hold of it, went to wire and now it’s happily rented out and providing me with something for the future. That may still fall down on me, but I’m confident.
There you have it, the best ten decisions I think I’ve ever made in life, not necessarily in the right order, but equally important.
As I say I no doubt expect there’ll be another blog soon with the ten worst decisions I’ve ever made… though that might be in several parts 😉
Darren Jamieson, aka MrDaz, is the Technical Director and co-founder of Engage Web and has been working online in a career spanning two decades. His first website was built in 1998 and is still live today.
