The quote below shows how important it is for everybody in a company to have experience with customers. For Amazon and Zappos client satisfaction is their main goal. Every employee, including CEO is asked to spend a few hours a year in their customer support call center. We start to work a client in mind. All employees should be sales oriented, including designers.
Graphic Design at its basest level is to communicate something visually. The best way to communicate something better is to understand what customers need or what they’re looking for. Jamie, On the Front Lines, In the Trenches, Signal vs. Noise
Smashing Magazine is a source of great content and information for web designers and developers. They are extremely popular and respected by a design community. Every month they offer inspiring and creative wallpapers for you desktop created by artists from around the world.
Does your office look like this? Imagine yourself working there – so close to the nature in a top-notch working environment. Would you seek for inspiration in this beautiful vast space in front of you or rather stare all day at the trees?
Gary Vaynerchuk shows us the real potential of Social Media and the freedom that Web 2.0 brought to all of us. From artists to marketing gurus we can go out and spread our message. If we have enough passion and patience we no longer need to be afraid of gatekeepers, as Gary repeats all over again. If you are a musician you can record your song and let people buy it or download it for free. If you are an artist you can become another Hugh Macleod with his iconic cartoons on the back of business cards. All you need is your talent, what’s unique about you and determination.
On the video you can watch above Gary is speaking on Web 2.0 Expo in New York and as he is an extremely passionate guy he expressed his message in a very direct way:
“There is way to many people in this room right now that are doing stuff they hate. Please stop doing that! There is no reason in 2008 to do sh*t you hate!”
For me Gary Vaynerchuk is a new Seth Godin but focused much more on Social Media. Do you want to know more about Gary? Google “Winelibrary TV” or “Crush it”.
When talking about personal growth, self-development or generally about lifestyle design many times we hear questions like “How to find motivation?”, “How can I gain confidence?”, “How to find fulfilment?”. These are really important questions and many people work really hard to find answers for them in their lives.
Many times they look outside at things, achievements, goals, expectations… and they end up with disappointment. I would like to invite you to read a poem that talks about values you can grow in your life when focusing on “Love of Oneself”, a “healthy selfishness” as we may call it. It really resonates with my life and I find it groundbreaking with many great thoughts hidden inside.
Rory Sutherland had a hilarious presentation on TED about marketing and how it really plays with our perception. He talks a lot about building intangible value where we take what we have in front of us and change the way people perceive it. I am sure you will find his examples funny & entertaining.
You can watch the best part from the presentation above where he talks about a marketing campaign for cereal called “Shreddies” and how the producer decided to add value and present the same product in a “revolutionary” new way.
I usually run out of space with whiteboards especially when drawing mind maps. One day I came across IdeaPaint that you can cover any smooth surface with and so it becomes a whiteboard. Creating large spaces for your ideas and utilising walls for brainstorming sessions only adds flavour to outside of the box thinking. If you have any experience with it – please share it.
Victorinox is well known as a maker of the original Swiss Army Knives. They decided to add new flavour to their brand and called it Remade in Switzerland. Christopher Raeburn from England is a young designer behind this project as he created a unique collection of men’s and womenswear utilising decommissioned military stocks of uniform and parachute fabrics. They look really fashionable and stylish. The collection will be available in September 2011.
An exciting story of an Italian who worked for Adobe/Macromedia for over 6,5 years and found his way to switch to the passionate life. He built on the side and launched a web app for mockups called Balsamiq Mockups.
Peldi - Beach coding in Mexico (before the switch)
Switch in numbers!
11 months of coding to push the first version of the app out
Paul Montwill specializes in Digital and E-commerce Strategies, Online Marketing and industry analysis. He is an E-commerce Sales Director in one of the European IT companies, a blogger and he offers consultancy.
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