Easiest way to progress is to give yourself an unrealistic goal with an equally unrealistic deadline.

Please give us a brief bio of yourself.

Stacey Mulcahy, Flash team lead at Fuel Industries. I have a little site where I rave more than rant about Flash/Flex - www.bitchwhocodes.com. Sometimes I can be found teaching the ins and outs of ActionScript at Algonquin College.

I'll be speaking at FITC and FlashBelt this year.

What do you do for inspiration?

Go for a long drive with no intended destination. Pick up a pen and write. Wander into a music store and discover something new.

Please list 3 of your favourite sites.

www.popurls.com

yayhooray.com

www.gapingvoid.com

What do you regard as being your biggest achievement?

Not getting pregnant.

Um... probably being profiled by Adobe for Flash's 10th anniversary- huge honour for me.

What software could you not live without?

Does call display count? Eclipse with FDT. iCal. Charles. A font manager.

What projects do you have in the pipeline?

A toy website, an interactive piece for a car company, a couple upload-your-face gigs, and some top secret stuff with Microsoft; Fuel just launched our own games site @ allgirlarcade.com.

Who do you rate as being the top 3 design companies?

I always enjoy the work of Big SpaceShip, group 94 and lately I've been digging what comes out of Driftlab.

Who is your target audience?

This varies project to project. In the last year we’ve gone after kids virtual worlds, casual-gaming moms, tech-heads, slasher movie fans and the software development community.

Our target audience is every North American with an internet connection. On the current project I'm working on, its 6 - 12 year olds.

What area of web design lacks the most?

Spell checking. No lie. It’s the easiest way to make an unreal site come across as thoroughly amateur. Outside of that, it's hard to say.

Usability and information architecture come to mind. People highly underestimate the importance of that IA roll.

What did your very first site look like? Is it still online?

My very first flash site was my first portfolio. It's still online, I show it my students, to teach them what not to do. I think its here: www.bitchwhocodes.com/index3.html.

Have you written any books, if not do you plan to?

I haven't written any, but I have worked as a technical editor on a few O'Reilly publications. Does that even count?

What was the toughest thing you ever did with Flash? How long did you spend on it? Is it still online?

Recently we released the first ever digital McDonalds Happy Meal toy for desktop deployment via cd-rom. More than 33 million units are being shipped to 40 countries in April and May.

Hard to not freak out when the number is that high, with all the variants that desktop development inherently brings to the table. Plus, there are no second chances, you can't just go back and re-press 30 million cds. I worked on the project for just over two months I believe, but its project cycle exceeded 6 months.

Do you think Flash is here to stay?

I don't see how it could be going anywhere anytime soon. Silverlight is still just growing up and will a bit of time to mature into the threat it will potentially be.

What are your views on design/graphic school. Do you think someone can get into the field without educational experience in a school environment?

School can definitely give you the opportunity to learn transferable skills that doing it the self-taught route cannot.

Things like team dynamics and deadlines. On the other hand, school can't teach how to be talented or driven. I'd take talent and drive over a degree.

When your company was just getting started, what did you find was most effective for getting new clients?

Demos. Before we had a big portfolio, we built working versions of a site to show the client in a pitch. People are far more likely to buy into your vision if they can see it in front of them.

How have you learned so many Flash/design skills and techniques and can you offer any advice for newbies?

I got in over my head and just had to learn how to swim. That’s' how I have learned everything - Flash, Flex - to various server side scripting languages.

Easiest way to progress is to give yourself an unrealistic goal with an equally unrealistic deadline.

What is the most expensive thing you have bought in the last week?

A MacBook Pro. I'm in love with it, it's complicated.

Fuel Industries