This announcement relates to changes in my service and schedule, which will take effect immediately following my return from holiday break on January 4, 2010.  Specifically, I will be cutting back on my workload by about half of what it is currently.

I will not go into great detail on the personal circumstances behind these changes, except to say that my youngest child has exhibited  developmental delays that have become a concern for us and her pediatrician.  Her initial screening seems to point toward a spectrum of autism, though it is not conclusive and her full diagnosis will not be made until the end of January.  As a minimum, we know at this point that she requires speech therapy and a greater amount of one-on-one interaction to encourage interpersonal relationships & communication.

Because my greatest priority at this point is focusing on whatever is needed to improve her development, I have decided that it would be best for me to temporarily cut back my Veda Designs workload so I can spend more time with her.  Our hope is that an early and aggressive intervention will give her the greatest chance of catching up developmentally so she can still start preschool on schedule next fall.

I have outlined below in more detail on the specifics of these changes. Because I will be working about half of what I do currently, some of these changes require adopting more strict policies relating to client updates and new projects than what I’m entirely comfortable with.   I want to apologize in advance for whatever inconvenience these changes cause.  Cutting back on my business was a difficult decision to make and not one I’ve made lightly.

Changes for New Clients…

Schedule and Availability
I will be scheduling no more than 2 or 3 new projects a month, which is about half of what I currently take on.  Unfortunately, this means I may end up having a longer waiting line for new projects, but I’m hoping the reduced workload will mean I can finish up projects sooner because of not having to multitask as much.

Fees & Maintenance
Unlike previous years, I will not be raising my rates in 2010.  However – because VedaCMS allows you to do all of the basic editing you need to your website (text, gallery photos, calendar, etc), I will no longer be offering 6 months of free basic maintenance with my standard design fee.  I will still assist with questions or bug-fixes of course – but any website changes (photos swapped out in the design, pages added or renamed, etc) would be charged for at my standard maintenance rate.

Development
Development time-lines and scope will remain the same, though I will be more firm about insisting companions are available for regular correspondence after stage 1 of development so it will be possible to finalize their design in a more timely fashion.  I’ve had too many projects in the later half of 2009 take 2 or more months to complete because of slow communication on finalizing the design (though, in their defense – I was much more laid back about waiting, as I had a high workload and plenty of other projects to work on).

Because there have been too many scheduling delays relating to photos, I will not schedule a start date unless you are certain your photos will be ready for me to work with by that date. If your photos are more than 3 days late in arriving, I’m still happy to work with you, but your project will lose it’s place on my calendar and it will be necessary to reschedule at the end of my queue.

Changes for Existing Clients…

Fees
No changes in hosting services or fees.

05/05/2010 UPDATE: There is now a $5/year increase on domain name renewals and $15/year increase on web hosting renewals.  Please refer to this post for information.

Client Updates
Non-critical client updates will still be performed Mondays and Fridays, though I will be adopting a more strict update process in that all new update requests will need to go through the ticketing system available within my online help desk.  The reason for this is that it automatically orders tickets by the date received, which saves me time in having to manage an update queue separately.

Emergency support tickets will still be handled as soon as I see them, though again – I will ask that they are sent through the ticketing system so I can keep everything in one place.  Support requests sent directly to tara@vedadesigns.net will take longer to process – as I’ll have to manually create a ticket for you (or I’ll ask that you create your own ticket).

Additionally, I will no longer perform updates that clients are able to do themselves through the CMS.  If you run into a problem or are confused about how to do something, I will walk you through through the process step-by-step, but you will be asked to do it yourself.  Because all basic updates can be made through your CMS (text changes, gallery page, calendar, blog, etc),  I am no longer offering six months of free basic maintenance.  This does not apply to bug fixes or questions on how to use the CMS.  However any website changes (swapping design photos, adding pages, renaming menu items, etc) will be charged for at my standard maintenance rate.  I’ll be revamping and adding to my online knowledgebase while I’m on holiday break, so there will be much clearer usage instructions and troubleshooters available after the new year.

Working Hours
The specifics are not established yet, but I’m hoping to adopt more standard day-time working hours so I can reserve 5pm and later for time with my family.  Until now, I’ve generally just worked on and off from the moment I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night.  Although this has worked well for me in terms of having to multitask motherhood with my job, it’s caused some stress in my family dynamic because everyone in my household complains that I’m ‘always working’.

To alleviate this, I’m going to experiment with having an official end of my work day at 5pm (CST).  I’m sure there will be exceptions to this, but for the most part – clients should be aware that my availability will generally run from 9am-5pm, four days a week. I will still be taking weekends off for time with my family as well as one day during the week that will be needed for whatever program my daughter is enrolled in.  My ultimate goal with Veda Designs is to maintain a 25-30 hour work week, which is about half of what I typically work now.

I will email clients privately before I go on holiday break with more information on these changes.  However, with exception to a few possible adjustments or additions – the information above gives a relatively clear idea of what to expect.  As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

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