Hi my name is Joanne Smith

Hello Steemians!

let me introduce myself, my name is Joanne Smith and I was born and raised in Ireland before emigrating to Perth Western Australia just after I completed my schooling. I entered Uni here and completed a business degree at Edith Cowen University. (( and just for fun in between it all, I completed 2 and half years of a 3 year nursing course ( the Irish disease ) but opted out voluntarily at the last moment on my 21st birthday as I began to realize I DID NOT want to do this as a living ans it was not something I could see in my future! BUT I learned a lot of life experiences for such a early age such as being there for births all the way to other spectrum of seeing people pass. A lot to take in at that age.

The funny thing was, when I was working to support myself to get through Uni, it was at my family business ( sculpting ) and after I graduated, I was enjoying my work so much I kept working there and still am today 35 years later. We have produced over 100 public art pieces to date ranging from Ireland to Hong Kong and all over Australia.

Growing up my father ran his OWN graphic design business and I wanted so badly to be a graphic designer too... my brothers were into computers and we had one of the first home computers at 12, a tape driven Amstrad. So at 25, I combined my skills and saw there was a need for web designers, for local businesses in my area. So I went and took night classes and learned to build websites in pure HTML with SLOW the dial up internet services and A drives and also learned Adobe Photoshop, which was probably version 1.1

In and around 2001, without any clients and without a portfolio even, I took the plunge and set up my own web design business called ' YaZoogle ' which I still run today, all those years later. It was hard in the beginning but once I designed a few websites ( tabled based ), soon I grew in confidence and was able to promote myself as a successful professional web designer. Everything was going great for me, the phone was ringing every day..hell, I did not even have to advertise myself I was so in demand. ... I had a great surge of success for many years. AND then it happened, FACEBOOK arrived and suddenly small businesses announced that they did not need a website. Social media was the way to go.

I actually sat in a meeting with a top client who's business had started small and I had helped them grow into a top multi million dollar business where they had to move 3 times in 10 years getting bigger and bigger. HE looked me square in the eye and said " I went to this FB course the other day, and the room was full of small businesses people and he told the room, Facebook is the way to go, build your fb page and everyone will follow your business, you DO NOT need to waste your money on an expensive website " . I was absolutely dumbfounded and a shudder went up my spine. I knew this was going to bite and bite hard it did.

Literally overnight, the phone stopped ringing. Facebook was exploding under my feet. I had fellow web designers moan to me that their work had dried up too and they were getting out of the business. A top web business in town jumped on this opportunity ( with deeper pockets than mine ) and started to buy out all these little web design business around town and became a web design king with suddenly a big client list.

BUT I hung in there, and did not close my doors. I did not want to leave my long time clients in the lurch. Every year since then I have been upgrading my web technologies and keeping up with the pace of new designs specs and absorbing as much knowledge as I can after hours. I could outsource this work but I strongly feel that my clients are in better hands with me able to look them in the eye and say that what they are getting is the best service and that I am able to deliver what I say I can. YaZoogle is still operating today and I do struggle to get NEW clients as the competition is even greater with the market being flooded with cold calls from overseas. However, I am optimistic, as I think Australian Businesses are starting to turn away from cheap overseas work and starting to look again at getting the work done locally. Sometimes getting something done Cheap is actually not in the end.

I am 52 now, and have been through every technological change there has been in the industry.

I still work part time at my parents sculpting business. We spent the last 8 weeks making a life size bronze sculpture - the deadline was pushed back a month so we have had to work weekends and holidays including over Christmas which has not been fun. Sometimes the politics of getting a job done is mind boggling when we know its going to be there for 100 years +++ as it is in bronze. So whats an extra week or two really going to affect the outcome all so that ' bean counter ' who has NO idea how time consuming it is to create such a sculpture like this, is able to tick a box to say a achievable out come as been done.

I love living in Australia, we are THE LUCKY COUNTRY, I don't miss the cold dam dark gloomy weather back in Ireland. I do miss the wonderful Irish people with the great sense of humor and having a crack. I have not lost my Irish accent ( not at 18 ) and there is a twang of ozzie in there after so long here. But sometimes you are still the ' blow in ' .

Been through a 18 year relationship which ended 2 years ago when my partner left me for reasons I cannot go into now ( a shock to the system to learn to live alone again ) . Very sad situation, and begged to come back but it was too late as the damage was done.

Now I am happy to be 'solo' and not looking to get involved with anyone again. I enjoy my own company with my 4 year old German Shep dog, Regina. (( I did have 3 other dogs, all made it to 16, 16 and 17, and miss them very much, they were our children )) .

Recently, I have been developing my marketing skills and have added social media manager to my bow. I develop weekly plans for my clients and roll my eyes as I am forced to confront Facebook and other social media platforms - how IRONIC!!

I come from a very creative background and hope to share some stories and content with my fellow steemit friends. It may be a short story or a poem, or a image that has taken my fancy in the form of a photograph or a sketch. I will NOT be trolling for work or clients. This is a place for creativity and inspiration and to share my ideas on life in general.

thank you for reading this post

take care my fiends

Joanne