Soapbox Ramblings

Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m Kathy, also known as Kat, also known as Mattie. I’m a 6th generation Texan, living in the small North Texas town founded by my ancestors. At networking meetings, I like to call myself a “multi-preneur” because I have so many business interests! I decided why choose just one!

Wow, so many aliases! Where did all the names come from?
Well, my given name is Kathy (not Katherine or Kathleen, just Kathy). Kat came about partly as a shortened version of that and also while trying to keep my Twitter name shorter. @YellowRoseKat was the shortest name I could come up with that wasn’t already taken. And Mattie is from a Monkees song.

Where did you come up with the name “Yellow Rose Designs”?
Obviously, there’s the song The Yellow Rose of Texas. Through the years, my personal web sites have typically included pages dedicated to Texas and the Rose, starting with my first site in 1993. And I’ve always loved the story of the real Yellow Rose of Texas – a woman named Emily Morgan, who, according to Texas Legend, helped Sam Houston defeat Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Her role in the battle changed Texas history forever. I couldn’t think of a more fitting name for a business – you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can never take Texas out of the girl.

And the “Designs” part? What do you mean when you say “Design”?
LOL. I get that question all the time! Yes, I made it generic on purpose, so the business could grow with me. Almost anything involving “design” interests me. Jewelry design, graphics design, web site design, application and computer program design (object oriented programming is a form of design too!), designs from the Arts and Crafts movement, art design, architectural design, engineering design… Wikipedia defines “engineering design” as “a formulation of a plan or scheme to assist an engineer in creating a product.” So the word encompasses several of my passions all at once. Gotta love that!

You have so many interests! How do you do all of them at once?
Ha! I don’t! While setting up my business plan, I kept hearing over and over again that you should have a niche. While I don’t really have one niche interest, I am starting to individualize each of my sites so that everything isn’t all mixed up together on just one web site. Admittedly, that’s how I started out, but I quickly figured out that it can become difficult to manage that way. With the help of Knowledge For Success’ New Quest program, I was able to more concisely outline each branch of Yellow Rose Designs and how it relates to my business model as well as how they relate to each other. That helped me narrow down specific areas. So Yellow Rose Designs focuses primarily on jewelry design, Arts & Crafts design, graphic design, and web site design.

How many web sites do you have?
I own 25 domain names, though not all are active. You can see all of the active sites on the About page for my blog here: http://blog.yellowrosedesigns.net/about/. There are currently about 10 live web sites (including this blog), with 9 more already in the planning stages.

You mentioned having a site in 1993. How did you get started in web design?
Yes, that was when I started. I was working as a secretary for Tarrant County Junior College (now it’s Tarrant County College), and I found myself lucky enough to work in the Media Department. That included the audio/visual department, computer labs, and the graphics and photography departments for the school. So I not only had the opportunity to assist the graphics department when they needed help – more than once, I was solely responsible for the internal campus newsletter layout – our director also tried to keep up with changing technology as well, giving me an opportunity that few people had at that time. When she heard other schools were getting involved in something called “the World Wide Web”, she picked me to attend seminars at nearby universities and even meet directly with Apple to research new server technology. There was no such thing as a degree in web technology then. Luckily one of the universities at the forefront of training other professionals from colleges and universities was Southern Methodist University, right here in the Dallas, Fort Worth metroplex. Their seminars were where I received my initial training and from there found online bulletin board and Usenet chat groups to discuss, share ideas and learn from each other.

If you had only one word to describe your business, what would it be?
Eclectic.

Now it’s your turn! Have a question for Owner/Designer/Multi-preneur, Kathy Bigham from Yellow Rose Designs? Ask it in the comments and she’ll answer your questions too!