Interview With Jacob Gube of Six Revisions

Jacob: Hi, Brian. First, I want to thank you for having me here. A little bit about myself: I’m a web developer/web designer, a book author, the site owner of Six Revisions, and the co-founder of Design Instruct.

Jacob: Being an independent publisher such as myself, to be able to publish high-quality articles regularly requires a large amount of discipline.

But I can’t take all (or even most) of the credit; the ability of Six Revisions to publish high-quality articles every day is due largely to the authors that contribute and believe in the site’s purpose of sharing useful information about web design and web development. If not for people like Cameron, Tomas, Shannon, Tyler, Jan, Fatima, Chris, Richard, Alex, Matt—and all the other authors (you know who you are)—Six Revisions wouldn’t be able to do what it does now.

However, the site still does require me to work my butt off every single day. Time management and task prioritization is key to my ability to keep up with a demanding workload.

I use two tools for task and time management. The first is my Moleskine, which I use sort of as a (very) bastardized GTD system. (You can see a photo of it on Flickr.) The second is Google Calendar for tracking appointments and deadlines. I set it to send me email reminders of tasks that have a date assigned to them.

Jacob: Writing MooTools 1.2 Beginner’s Guide is probably the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in quite a long time, compounded with the fact that I also had a website to manage and a full-time job to tend to. I wouldn’t mind being a full time author, but the topics that I’m interested in writing about require you to be in the mix—making (and breaking) stuff and developing new things.

One thing I can say about the book-writing experience is that it’s like a scary theme park ride: You get in line all giddy and excited, but when the ride starts to do its twists and turns, all you can think of is getting off the damn ride, wishing it’d be over soon. But when the ride’s finished, all you want to do is get back in line and do it over again! I’m in the midst of another book deal—I hope you all wish me luck that it works out!

The biggest challenge of writing a book is showing me how much I didn’t know about MooTools and JavaScript before writing the book—and then having to come to terms with that. The book merely scratched the surface of the power of MooTools, but even then, you’ll see amazing things that MooTools is capable of giving you (with just a little bit of practice).

Writing the book helped me understand JavaScript a whole lot more and has made me into a much better web developer.

Jacob: I’d prefer not to be asked the same questions over and over again, simply because it’s boring and shows to me that the interviewer didn’t want to take the time to learn about the subject. But I find ways to answer the same questions differently. I do interviews because it gives me a chance to share something about Six Revisions, Design Instruct, and my work that you wouldn’t normally be able to find out. I want to show that there is a real person behind these projects.

Jacob: Design Instruct is primarily a tutorial web magazine. Design Instruct is not a weblog, but rather an online magazine. That means higher-quality tutorials and thought-provoking articles, carefully and professionally presented to readers. You can think of it like a traditional print magazine, such as Computer Arts or Communication Arts, but with the advantage of the internet where you’re able to interact with the writers and the readers of the web magazine.

What’s frustrating about print magazines, to me, is not being able to ask questions or speak up after reading an article. The internet allows us to negotiate that flaw. We have a lot of plans coming up for Design Instruct—we’re still in version 0.1.2 – so we’re nowhere near where we want to be.

We’ll have a regular features that display readers’ work, articles that explore the topic of Design and Visual Arts, reviews of products made for designers and digital artists, and more. I can’t reveal much more, so you’ll have to stay tuned and see for yourself!

Jacob: Focus on the product you’re hocking, not the income stream. The best way to ensure your failure is by building a product for the sole sake of profit. A successful entrepreneur sees profit as a side benefit to creating and selling the product they’re passionate about. People on the web are smart, they know when you’re only about the money. They’ll happily buy your stuff if you’re able to show them that you believe in your product and that you’re passionate about it. Otherwise, it’s like pulling teeth.