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Confidence or Stupidity?

August 4, 2010

I have noticed recently that in certain situations I am presented with someone who is clearly wrong, but has the kind of confidence normally reserved for brain surgeons. Not only do they exhibit extreme confidence regarding an issue they either know nothing about or are coming at from the wrong direction, but they seem predisposed [...]

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Less is Best

July 26, 2010

If you want, you can make the simplest task the most complicated waste of time imaginable with almost a guaranteed outcome of non-completion. Now why on earth would we choose to do this? Well, there are a few reasons we tend to do this, and hopefully by identifying them early, you can avoid them and [...]

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Have an Opinion, and Don’t Tell Me Everything is Fine

April 14, 2010

I’m not interested in feeling better. When I am at work, I am dealing with problems—my client’s problems, my agency’s problems, somebody’s problem. I always joke that we aren’t designers or programmers, rather we are problem solvers. When I meet with potential clients, they are meeting with us because they think we might be the [...]

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What makes a good Content Management System (and why we built our own)

March 31, 2010

Before clients see BigTree CMS, Fastspot’s proprietary content management system, they often ask us why we built our own when there are so many out there that we could have simply used. When they ask me, I usually picture this. I have seen these CMS offerings, and frankly, they are horrible. How could I ever expect [...]

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Exploring Failure – Part 2 (Failure is the New Success)

March 8, 2010

I was reading about Van Halen’s brown M&M® line item in their contract and being reminded of how brilliant it was. For your reference – wikipedia provides the following explanation:
Van Halen had a notable effect on the modern rock music tour with their use of the concert technical contract rider. They were one of the [...]

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Nasty Isn’t Necessary

August 7, 2009

It never ceases to amaze me how rude some people can seem in various forms of communication. My mother taught me to smile when talking on the phone, that the act of smiling will come across in my voice, making me sound like the ray of sunshine I am. However, nothing rains on my party [...]

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What Painting Taught Me About Business

January 8, 2009

I read lots of books about business, and how to do the right things in business. I think many of them are obvious and say the same things. I think some of them are just plain stupid and self obsessed. I learned how to succeed in business by first learning to become a painter.
When faced [...]

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