We Time Starts with Me Time: Create a Team Environment By Recognizing Individuals
“It’s not you, it’s me”, “I think I really need a break”, “you really are great, but I just do not think you are the one for me”. All of these are sayings that we would like to say to our busy lives, but never do. Why is it that people seem to be consistently […]
Guiding Principles – Part 3
The following is the third part of our assumptions pulled from our “Guiding Principles” Wikipage. Here is Part 1 and Part 2 Assumptions Part 3: These are broad based and not as set as principles. It’s useful to list assumptions, just to be clear on the thought behind the system. Some of these are more […]
Guiding Principles – Part 1
Our Wikispace reminds me of my over stuffed parents’ attic. Among all the “once cool/relevant but now outdated” stuff are gems that got lost in the noise. In the process of updating a few Wiki pages, I stumbled upon our “Guiding Principles” page and, in rereading, realized it’s well worth exposing to the light once […]
What’s Wrong With the College Speaking Market
There’s one name all college speakers know. That “brand awareness” is a great testament to his ability to market himself and his own products. Not surprising, then, that marketing is what he teaches. People say he’s very successful and that’s great. I’m sure he helps some college speakers with their marketing. The problem in the […]
Cutting the Fat
My fiancee and I (Tom) recently sold our car and signed up for the non-profit car sharing service iGo Cars**. Our reasons for breaking free from the car chains were partly environmental, economical, and practical as we live in downtown Chicago. But three months into the program, I discovered another unexpected reason and it interestingly […]
The Evolving Design of Swift Kick
When we started we wanted to make a mark as a company. The goal was to be bigger than just speaking, bigger than the individuals involved, but actually establish a brand that a network could grow with. So on our early Dance Floor Theory presentation slides, we put our logo: Every single slide had the […]
2006 Debrief
One quarter in to 2007, I thought it would be a good time to air our semi-dirty laundry from 2006. Plus it’s a good reminder for us. We are a modern company, with most of our work done over the web, while traveling, coffee shopping, or in Emma’s case, gallivanting around central park with English […]
Emma Knows We’re Not Wearing Pants
I love 37signals** and reference their book all the time. They are masters of the 90% solution. They are masters at what they call “Judo”: minimum effort, maximum return. They have a very small team with a huge philosophical impact based on the reach of their tools (over 1 million users). My dream is to […]
How New, Smart, Fast, Companies Work (Part 1.)
I get asked a lot about offices, and when I explain that we work from all over the country people often ask how it works. It deserves its own post. We started with almost all web-based software. It travels, it scales, it was quick to turn on and go. Our first priority was sales (cash […]
Half Naked
It’s a function of a small team that is trying to do and learn at the same time. We spent a pile of cash 8.5k or so, on a website we threw out after one year to put up a temp iWeb site that actually describes what we do. (Sort of, has the right “one […]