Chris J. Karr

From The Weblog: 2011 Ambitions

2010 has come and gone and here we are at the beginning of a new year. In the customary fashion, I wanted to share some goals that I'm setting for myself this year.

Resume my H.P. Lovecraft research.

From 2005-2008, I had a great time putting in the legwork and investigation needed to compile "The Black Seas of Copyright" and say my piece about the copyright status of the Lovecraft fiction. Given that the investigation is sufficiently complete to my liking, I haven't done much original scholarship lately related to the Gentleman of Providence.

In 2011, I'm beginning a new project to compile a comprehensive geospatial database on the locations and places found in Lovecraft's stories. This database will be distributed in the form of mobile apps that serve as a reference resource as well as let you play a SCVNGER-like game to revisit the locales found in the early Cthulhu mythos.

Become proficient at squash.

Since graduating college, I've struggled to find a nice consistent way to exercise and keep in shape. I've had good points where I went to the gym regularly, and I've had bad points where I didn't. My main problem seemed to be that how I was exercising didn't really have an end goal other than get in shape and it was extremely tedious to workout for workout's sake.

Back in March, I joined the University Club of Chicago as a networking tool and as a means to put some business infrastructure in place. I've enjoyed my membership there, but I faced the same problems with respect to keeping in shape. Fortunately, the University Club is nuts about the sport squash, and I started learning how to play and practicing last month. I've had a blast doing it and the game's sufficiently complex to keep me interested on an intellectual level as well. I've been practicing several times a week in the mornings, and these sessions just go by so quickly. I feel that I've finally found a good way to get in shape and burn calories.

So, my goal with respect to my physical health is to continue my squash practices for the next couple of months (so I don't kill myself of or someone else in a real match), and start competing in the club starting sometime around April. The club maintains an internal ranking system, and my (tentative) goal is to get enough squash in this year to break into the top 50th percentile of players in the club. Starting from scratch won't make it easy, but given that I have a tremendous amount of control over how much time and effort I can throw to this, I feel good about my chances.

Find a new place to live.

Holly and I are on the market for a place of our own (we currently rent from her parents) and I would like to see this process finished by the end of 2011. There are a lot of good properties out there, so this should be a fairly straightforward goal to accomplish.

Mature my business.

2010 was an interesting year for Audacious Software. I would say that it ended 2010 in a somewhat adolescent state in that I learned a lot about running a business last year, and I've been implementing the changes that will set it up as a more serious and sustainable enterprise. I would like to have the business perform a bit better than it did in 2010 - which was a pretty heavy "investment" period - and I think I have the pieces and know-how to make this happen.

Some changes on the agenda:

Less effort spent on coming up with new "large" ideas and launching the associated businesses. In 2011, I'll have my hands full continuing to launch Shion Online, and that project will constitute the bulk of Audacious Software's non-consulting efforts. I do have plans to start relaunching the Books software using a service model in 2011, but this will be a much less involved process where I can leverage the skills and resources created for Shion Online (online billing, account signups, etc.) Relaunching Books will be my last "big" project for a while, and I'm looking forward to filling the gaps between Shion & Books with smaller and more tractable efforts such as the recent comic app I built.

Slow down the pace of hardware and platform investments. In 2010, I spent a significant amount of time and resources getting a good development setup and testing lab for creating Android and iPhone apps. I'd like to spend 2011 realizing the fruits of those investments before jumping into too many more platforms. While I could spend similar amounts of resource getting into Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, WebOS, Bada, and other mobile platforms, it's likely that I'll only add Windows Phone 7 to iOS, Android and Qt/Symbian as Audacious Software's list of supported platforms.

I've communicated to existing clients and new clients that my consulting rates will go up in 2011. This was the business's major structural problem - I was not charging enough to projects to build the resources to expand the business in terms of personnel and a safety net for times when billable project work becomes sparse.

I don't particularly regret how I ran Audacious Software in 2010, and how aggressive I was in extending the breadth of the company's platforms and services. However, I would like to focus in 2011 on shoring up those competencies in a sane and sustainable manner. I currently have enough projects on the books to keep me completely busy, so my challenge will be to be more selective when picking new ones to add to the mix.

Get back into the city.

For the past two years, I've been very internally focused making the transition from the safety of a salaried job and graduate school to becoming an independent and self-sustaining actor in the local economy. In this transition, I have stopped enjoying elements of the city that I enjoy. In 2011, I want to get back in touch with Chicago in the form of resuming my long walks through the city, taking advantage of more cultural opportunities and getting out in general. There's a lot to enjoy that I've been ignoring for some time.

Wrapup

So, these are my major five goals or projects for 2011. While 2010 was a tough year (in a good way), I'm looking forward to using 2011 as a period for refining and polishing myself on a personal and professional level that will put me in a good position to tackle the new decade.