Specific versus General….that is the question. Or at least the one I am asking myself today. Working through the specifics of a problem allows you to understand all of the various and nuanced facets of said problem. We can have very theoretical discussions around philosophy, probabilities, customer desires, market dynamics and anything else that comes…
Balancing innovation and protection of ideas.
One of my favorite websites is Clients from Hell. They run quotes from many freelance developers and designers who deal with smaller companies and clients (for the most part). It is one of those great glimpses into the world we are all collectively part of. The other day they ran one that hit home particularly…
Artistry is the highest form of any given field. #stevejobs
Was reading an article from Jeff Jarvis over at Medium about Sorkin’s new Jobs movie and one of the comments pointed me down a path to a wonderful quote from Steve Jobs (pulled from within a long Interview): I think the artistry is in having an insight into what one sees around them. Generally putting things together…
Is this Apple’s Steve Ballmer moment?
Steve Ballmer famously once said about the iPhone: There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have…
Be aware of self-selected groups.
We work with lots of different collections of people. Internal, external. Higher, lower or peer level. Mnay we may like and others we may not. Some we like to go out for a beer with and others we simply enjoy working with. Few that we can do both with at equal ease. Many of the…
A few ideas for the #CRE Internet of Things.
IoT is all the rage these days when contemplating the future. Everyone wants their hand in the game and to look like an amazing prognosticator. This is one of those future looking trends that I actually agree with. As monitors and sensors become smaller and cheaper they will be natively embedded in more and more…
Buying decisions always have an emotional component.
Are you trusted? Is your company safe? Is your product the “industry standard”? Will you make them look good? Will you make them look unnecessary? Does working with you make them seem more professional? Does working with you mean they don’t have to do anything? Will you make them money? It’s all about the person….
“We’re not Apple, we’re in [fill in different industry].”
A bit back I was around someone who through out the phrase “We’re not Apple, we’re a Professional Services firm.” (Thankfully not anyone that I work with.) It really through me off guard to hear this because it seemed very limiting. The context at the time was regarding how they go to market and present…
Message without meaning is just noise.
When faced with silence most of us seek to fill it. When a conversation drifts we try to bring it back. If someone seems lost we try to guide them back. Words begin to flow. The same is true in sales. Many simply say platitudes that sound great but you could never put in a…
Sometimes it is better to do nothing at all rather than to do it wrong. #design #marketing
There’s no such thing as bad publicity. If that saying was actually true then the Streisand Effect would be thought of very differently than it is. The truth is that image matters. How people think of us matters. Our interactions with the universe of customers and potential customers matters. All of your permanent presences impact…