You, the Other Kind of Business Leader
This past Saturday I had the honor of closing out this year's Entrepreneur Mindshare at my alma mater, the Rhode Island School of Design. It was a true pleasure to be a part of this event, which included brilliant minds, lots of ideas, and some beautiful enthusiasm. To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive of my involvement, because I've never really thought of myself as an entrepreneur. But as I've explored the idea, I have come to realize that entrepreneurship isn't just about ownership — of ideas, of companies, or anything else, for that matter — but about enacting change. When it comes down to it, entrepreneurs want to enact change and have an impact, which is something that can be done by starting something completely new, or by revitalizing something that already exists. My experience has certainly been in the latter. Here are my thoughts on that...
RISD Entrepreneur Mindshare
Clean Up on Aisle 7
With iOS 7, Apple introduced a lot of usability missteps in favor of visual design. They cleaned the interface up, rather than organized it carefully. Don't fall into that trap! Here's how to focus on the usability issues that get forgotten during the design process.
A Philosophy of Failure
I volunteer for a non-profit organization that is attempting to turn a philosophy of work and learning into a catch phrase: "Do it. Try it. Fix it." This is the mantra heard frequently in conversations among leadership and staff, specifically when organizing and executing a new initiative. And it's starting to bother me.
Don’t Make Me Search
We've misunderstood search for a long time. That's what Chris Butler thinks is holding us back right now. In this month's article, he makes a compelling argument for designing systems that support better outbound marketing programs, rather than ones that are solely reliant upon inbound strategies…
Ideas
Have you ever stopped to consider the value of an idea? Maybe you haven't — at least not specifically — but I bet you have a sense for that value, and I bet that sense is inflated. Or, in other words, your ideas are probably not as valuable as you think they are. They're certainly not as unique...
Increasing Email Deliverability
If you are spending the time and resources to invest in marketing automation and email marketing, then you should make sure that you are taking all of the proper steps to achieve high email deliverability. What follows is a list of the various items that affect deliverability and what you can do to increase the percentage of your email messages that make it into your contact's inboxes.
“I Don’t Know”
One of the greatest gifts of maturity is learning how to say I Don't Know. Contrary to our expectations, the frequency with which we find ourselves saying these words increases as we age. But as we age we learn more things! you say. Yes. Sort of. But one of the "things" we learn is just how little we know about other things. We discover the tips of many icebergs, but time forces us to only plumb the depths of some. And that's another truth that keeps us saying I Don't Know — specialization. The time we spend developing deep knowledge in one area is time we don't spend developing deep knowledge in another. So as we age, we exchange saying I Don't Know less about one subject for saying it a whole lot more about everything else. The more you know, the less you know...
The Family Business
I arrived home yesterday from our company's annual fall retreat. Every year, the two offices (Providence and Carrboro) meet near Asheville, NC at a beautiful mountain retreat center to relax, eat, drink and get to know each other a little better. Oh, and we talk a little business, too.
We Don’t Build Websites Anymore
It's time we reframed our entire concept of web development, and this month, Mark and Chris have teamed up to do just that. First, in terms of widening the scope of what websites do today — which Mark believes is best expressed by locating them within a broader lead development ecosystem — and second, in terms of understanding what web development as a discipline is becoming — which Chris explains by drawing a distinction between platforms and programs. Sophisticated web development is no longer about creating discreet applications, but doing what he calls information logistics...