Many web designers think of design as an outlet for creativity. Yes, creativity helps immensely in this job. But there’s many of us who believe that being a designer it goes a bit deeper. I believe that design should be focused on solving problems and understanding business objectives first and foremost. How do we determine […]
Category Archives:
Business & Entrepreneurship
Listening Is a Competitive Advantage
Focus on Top-Line Revenue, Not Cutting Costs
Cash flow is like oxygen for businesses. Without cash flow, a business will asphyxiate. The ability to consistently turn a profit means survival. Businesses that are in the danger zone — right on the line between financial comfort and anxiety, often turn to cutting costs. I agree that cutting costs is a good idea, but […]
Setting Clear Expectations For Work Performance
Businesses of every size value high performing employees. Savvy businesses spend a lot of time thinking about what characteristics their company culture should exhibit. The ultimate goal is to hire the most talented employees, who are self-starters, and take ownership of their work and any problems they encounter. But hiring is not a perfect process, […]
What’s Your Point Of Differentiation?
There are three main points of differentiation for a business. Be cheapest, be fastest / have best service, or be highest overall quality. It’s possible to do two, I have a hard time thinking of any company that consistently does all three. This means you have to make choices, and decide who you serve, and […]
You Don’t Have To Do It All Yourself
There’s something many of us are guilty of that we need to quit doing. We live in a culture that encourages us to do everything ourselves, even if we’re not the best person for the task. We’re constantly told to work on the things we’re weakest at. We buy into the fallacy that we’re deficient […]
“Will You Build My Site For Equity?”
“Will you build my website in exchange for equity?” Every developer I have ever met has been asked this question before. Some hear it several times a month. Some developers already work for funded startups, where the hopes are the company goes public, and they are on the ground floor of stock options. With the […]
Balancing Business, Creative and Technical Skills
If you’re an independent web professional, how to you balance your energy between business, creativity and technology? When you’re flying solo, you have to focus on every aspect of your business, while working towards making the business larger than yourself. One thing that is helpful is to create enough room in your schedule to handle […]
Why Multitasking Hurts Your Productivity
It’s a fact that we each have the same 24 hours in a day. Some people seem to get more done in those 24 hours than others do. We see people use different systems for organizing their day, and squeezing more out of it. We try different systems then quickly abandon them. We read more […]
Gratitude For The Grind (Any Audience Is Amazing)
Running a business is hard. Our viability depends on a steady stream of customers coming through our doors. There are days when it seems like our competitors are beating us at every turn — for attention, for publicity, for those customers that we need to stay afloat. There are billions of people all fighting for […]
Article Discussion: The Future of the Digital Design Agency
Published January 29th, 2015
2 Comments on Article Discussion: The Future of the Digital Design Agency
Recently there’s been a lot of discussion about the future of digital design agencies. In recent months, consultancy Adaptive Path joined the Capital One team. The partners at Teehan + Lax joined Facebook. The general feeling in the industry is that large companies now understand that design is valuable, and they are looking to build […]