It's crazy late Sunday night--or crazy early Monday morning--and I'm still lost in the world of web design. Boy, do I ever love it in here. Whatever you can dream up, you can create!

There are a few caveats though...

For one thing, the speed of imagination outpaces the speed of design at a ratio of about 100 to 1. And the speed of design outpaces the speed of production by about 10 to 1. So mathematically speaking, the speed of imagination outpaces the speed of production by... you got it: 1,000 to 1.

If you want to enter the world of design and you intend to be involved in the creation process from start to finish, be prepared--the need for patience on the back end is significant.

As a by-product of the imagination-to-production ratio, there's a tendency for us creative types to forge on ahead with our wild ideas while the production process is still chugging along at a relative snail's pace. At some point, the creative process has to stop to allow both design and production to catch up.

If you ever want to see a design specialist go stark raving mad, try changing the design specs on their project four or five times a day. The same goes for the production team, but they'll go crazy over just one change per day. They're very down-to-earth, those production folks.

The best way to handle creative types--myself included--is to force us to enter the physical design process. Nothing grounds the imagination like good old-fashioned pen and paper. Computers work too. Anything that forces the imagination into some kind of tangibility will throw a healthy dose of realism into the equation.

Laying out the design work for the new site, we soon realized that we were looking at far too many pages to be realistic right out of the gate. The navigational system alone was turning into a nightmare.

As a general rule, users need to be able to find what they're looking for within two mouse clicks. You might get three clicks out of someone with a cable modem, but then again you might not. And for everyone who still has a 56K dial-up connection, forget it. You'll lose them after two for sure. You might well lose them after one.

On the other hand, if you can engage your visitors within those two clicks, then they might decide to surf your site for a while, just to see what else is there. But you have to reward them with a worthwhile experience in every new click or they'll lose their interest.

So we've nailed down the specs for "Phase One," and we're well into production mode on the new site. All critical information is one click from the home page, with secondary clicks providing even faster "in-page" navigation for the most attention-demanding customer.

And I've promised to limit all daydreaming to Phase Two and beyond. But that's fine by me. As soon as Phase One is up and running, I'll be ready for 'em.

I can not even begin to tell you how much I love design work!

In honor of Mind Unbound's new, more focused direction, I'm redesigning the website to highlight the services we provide to writers and authors.

We help with developing book ideas, writing book proposals, querying agents, and promoting & selling books in the marketplace. We also help writers to package their words by providing graphic design services for websites, blogs and newsletters. We even design book covers!

At the moment, I'm wrapped up in designing and building our own website, and I'm loving every minute of it. I'm including a few "screen shots" of some of the pages that are currently under construction. That first one on the top left is the splash page that will welcome visitors to the site.

Much like a book cover, the splash page should be an attention grabber.

This next page here will be the first page of the "company overview" section. It will include some brief text (not written yet, as you can see) and will link to the other pages in the section.

In a large site, navigation is always an exciting challenge. You want the pages to be accessible quickly, but you don't want to take up too much page "real estate" with complex navigation schemes.

That's one reason I usually stay away from sidebar-based navigation. A blog is one thing, but on a regular website, navigation in a sidebar can leave lots of wasted space below the navigation links. Unless you have something else to use that sidebar for, I'd recommend either "floating" a navigation layer so that the rest of the page can wrap around beneath it... or simply using a left-to-right navigation scheme as I have on the new site.

Another thing I enjoy about design is the challenge of creating a common "look and feel" for a site that is flexible enough to vary as needed.

Notice, for example, how I moved the main Mind Unbound text from the top of the splash page to the bottom of the information pages. I started out with it on the top, but in the information pages, the big blue bar over the white page made everything "top heavy," and when I made the bar smaller, the title didn't look right anymore.

I played with the title size for a while, but ultimately I kept the nice big "splash" feel of the title and just moved it to the bottom against the white background. It keeps the brand prominent without creating the feeling that it's in the way.

Which leads me to my final comment on design for the day... the key to design, as in so many places in life, is to give it the time it needs. You can't rush the kind of creative play that leads to genuine breakthroughs. I must have played with that silly title layout for a couple of hours. I still wasn't happy with it, so I took a short break and when I came back, I finally tried moving it to the bottom.

Bam! That was the key. But I needed time to play and then a little time off to see it. Sometimes slowing down is the only way to hit that "Aha!" moment.

This is the new home of Win-Win Web, the original blog that started this little blogging empire.

Posts cover the months from September 2005 to May 2006.

Thank you for reading Win-Win Web and joining me for the early days of this blogging adventure. Although Win-Win Web is no longer being updated, you can see new Mind Unbound posts here.

Come on in, cruise around, and browse to your heart's content. If you're not sure where to begin, you can find my very favorite Win-Win Web posting trilogy here. Enjoy!

Here's a great article on recent trends in marketing to women. For what it's worth, the recycled stereotypes that aren't working for women were never so great for men either. What do you say guys? Do images of strong, aggressive men "hooking up" with random women make you want to buy the stuff those guys have? The ladies have weighed in (read the article). Now let's hear from the gentlemen. Care to comment? Is the male psyche innately tuned in to images of casual "hook-ups"? Are these "animal instincts" just basic human nature? Or are they the invention of a dying mindset?

Man-Eaters of Madison Avenue

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz swears by three critical factors for growing and managing any business. (These lessons were brought to my attention by bloggers Phil Gerbyshak & Rosa Say. Great stuff!) But to understand the tremendous transformational power inherent in all three, you have to understand the essence of the animal mind.

Lesson 1: Dig deep to identify what you are truly passionate about (hint: it's not always the product itself) and convey that message to employees, customers, and colleagues. When you are passionate, you come across as excited, energetic, and enthusiastic -- all of the qualities people like to see in others. And if people like you, they're more likely to do business with you or to back your vision.

Why this is true: human beings are primates. We are programmed to live together in relatively large groups, and we are programmed to respond emotionally to those around us. We naturally resonate with the emotions of others, so we are attracted to people who are passionate (excited, energetic, and enthusiastic) because they make us feel the same way. Angry people upset us, sad people bring us down, and passionate people fill us with enthusiasm. This simple fact is one of the most profound keys to truly exceptional leadership.

Q: What single item is the most powerful possession of each and every "successful" individual, both personally and professionally?

[Those traits that make us different from each other can be seen as either strengths or weaknesses, depending on the context. But when it comes to teamwork, our differences are essential to the vitality of the whole. The true power of any team lies in our differences, not in our similarities.]

[The book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi is reviewed. The post also introduces the switch from "Win-Win Web" to the Mind Unbound format.]

I like to think of Kevin Eikenberry as "the guru of learning." I don't know how he'd respond to being called a "guru," but learning is definitely his thing. Talk to him for just a short while and already you will begin to sense the joy and wonder this man extracts from the simple learning experiences of everyday life.

So it's a brand new year, and there are brand new things brewing at Win-Win Web!

Early in 2006 you're going to see a complete blog overhaul. It's almost time for me to unveil the "big picture" with a new website that presents all three aspects of my work: speaking engagements on societal design; business consulting; and personal consulting. (Stay tuned to find out what the mysterious EM Sky does when she's not blogging!)

Well, we're coming up to the end of another year, and it's time for a brief sabbatical. I'll be taking the next two weeks to concentrate on family and friends and to rest and reflect on the year ahead.

Thank you to Win-Win Web readers from all over the world for dropping by to visit and making this year a very special one for me. I look forward to returning on January 2 for a new year filled with new learning, new joy, and new adventures.

What is the true value of a life mission? It unites our nature in a common purpose. It is both what we SEEK and how we CONNECT to the world at the same time. It is the gateway into success and fulfillment in every aspect of our lives.

In the introduction to this blog, I began to discuss the ideas of our SEEKING and our SOCIAL natures as human beings. Our life mission integrates the two into a cohesive whole.

International Crafts

Today's marketplace is truly international, but not everyone benefits equally in the global arena. The least we can do as consumers is try to promote fair treatment of those who may be unable to negotiate prices or other contract terms on an "equal footing" with international conglomerates. (And let's face it, that's just about everyone.)

If my life mission leaves me lots of options, how can I narrow down my choices?

In my last post on life missions, I talked about aligning your career with your life mission. The idea is to choose a career path in which simply living your life mission every day will naturally and inevitably bring you success. But as I also pointed out in that article, your life mission can do that in more than one career!

Responsible Jewelry

I've been inspired by the holiday season (and by last night's blog maintenance) to add one more category to the list: The Upside of Shopping.

I'm going to use this section of the blog to highlight companies that are making a difference - not just companies that have foundation "arms" or do charitable "public relations" works from time to time, but companies that exist specifically in order to accomplish a vision of positive change in the world.

First up, I'd like to introduce you to greenKarat Ecojewelry.

How can you leverage your life mission into career success?

I like to say that the greatest strength of a thing is also its greatest weakness. What makes something especially good at doing one thing will often make it especially bad at doing the opposite. Take a fish, for example. A fish is especially good at thriving in an aquatic environment. It can breathe underwater, and it can swim like... well... like a fish. But take it out of its natural environment and plop it unceremoniously on dry land, and it will be about as successful at surviving as... well... as a fish out of water! (Hey, these similes are cliches for a reason.)

Your life mission is what you stand for. How you choose to express your life mission is where your own unique interests and talents come in.

To be honest, it is unlikely that anyone's life mission is entirely unique in the world. As I write these words today, there are over six billion human beings on this planet, with two or three net additions every second. (That adds up to just under eighty million additional people every year!) With so many people walking around on this earth, I can virtually guaranty you that I am not the only one who stands for the principle of inclusion!

Nonetheless, every single human being is unique. Each of us has our own unique set of interests and talents, developed through a combination of genetics and experience, so that even people sharing the same life mission will most likely express that mission in completely different ways.

The easiest way to see the true breadth of a life mission is by example. In my last post in this series, I mentioned that my own life mission is about inclusion. But what does that mean I am supposed to do, exactly?

That's the beauty of a life mission: I am to do whatever I feel called to do at any given moment. A life mission is not about specific tasks. Ultimately, we are meant to explore and express our life mission in many different ways throughout the entire span of our years.

Your life mission is at once both narrowly focused and yet sweepingly broad. Think of it as the profound theme that permeates your life.

It’s tempting to think about your life’s mission as though it were a particular career, or at least a particular type of work. People who receive public accolades and media attention for their professional accomplishments often seem to have found their mission in what they do for a living. No one looks at Wayne Dyer or Tony Robbins or Bill Gates and thinks, “Poor guy - if only he could find some direction in life!”

Sitting down to my weekly calendar this morning, I had a very odd moment. Every single item on my schedule sounded either easy or fun (or both), and my immediate gut reaction was an intensely negative response. Exploring that feeling, I realized it was something along the lines of: “If you don’t work harder than this, you’ll never achieve your vision.” Talk about old programming! When exactly did we decide that we aren’t being productive unless we’re bored or struggling (or both)?

The irony is that I’m creating my own dreams at work every day. Our dreams, by definition, fill us with enthusiasm. So it only makes sense that I would find my work easy and fun, not dull and dreary. It made me realize that one of the greatest hurdles we can face in manifesting our dreams is the programming that says, “If you’re having too much fun, or if it seems too easy, then you’re not getting anywhere.”

I’m interrupting our regularly scheduled “Castles in the air” series to bring you this photograph, created by Dwayne Melancon and contributed to the Win-Win Scavenger Hunt under the “funny moment” category (just in case that wasn’t immediately obvious). Thanks, Dwayne!

I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight the difference between the kind of humor that unites human beings through the common experience of joy and laughter, and the kind of humor that divides us through ridicule and not-so-subtle persecution. The difference, as with most human experience, lies primarily in our intentions.

I'll be taking a long weekend off from blogging to get some writing done, but I'll be back on Monday. In the meantime, send in some photos for the Win-Win Web Scavenger Hunt!

Of course, you don't have to send photos in order to suggest a topic for dialog. Win-Win Web is all about connecting with each other in a mutually supportive community. Every voice counts! So let me know what you're interested in, what you're excited about, what you're wondering about, or whatever you're up to. Whether you'd like to leave a comment on the blog or send me an e-mail, I'd love to hear from you.

I love visiting other people's blogs and connecting with the blogging community. But there are so many wonderfully colorful sites out there that recently I was starting to feel as though Win-Win Web was looking a little... well... drab. (If you missed Dwayne's post on Genuine Curiosity yesterday, go check it out. If that photo isn't eye-popping, I don't know what is.) So I decided to do something about it.

There was a time when I would have looked around for an "artist" to help me, back when I believed that some people are artists and some aren't. (I was convinced that I fell into the "aren't" category.) But being who I am today, I decided to give it a shot on my own first, just for fun. And wow, was it ever worth it. I had no idea what I'd been missing.

EJ's comment on yesterday's post drew an important distinction between joy and happiness, and I think it's a great topic to explore. In considering the difference between the two, it seems to me that the distinction is more than just a matter of degree. Joy is more than happiness multiplied. Joy seems to be happiness... connected.

I love writing, and I love to use this blog to promote win-win living. But some days I feel a profound need to take a break from writing and go do something. So today will be Win-Win Web's first official Call to Action day.

Call to Action Promise: I promise that at least once today I will offer a genuine compliment to someone I don't know very well. Will you join me?

I figure we'll start off easy. One compliment, one person. If you're feeling shy, then compliment a family member, or a neighbor, or a friend. But try to make it a compliment that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise, or that you wouldn't normally share out loud. Be kind. Be genuine. See what happens.