It’s tempting to count everything that can be counted. The current obsession with social media ROI is just one example – of many – showing how numbers influence our behavior.
I had the opportunity to again think about this issue last week when I was on a panel at a Startup Bootcamp event in Boston. We discussed, among other things, data analysis and how some startups regularly look at the data to learn insights and help plan strategy.
I expressed my view: trying to count everything can be wasteful, distracting and can lead to decision paralysis. Startups and small businesses that become obsessed with metrics often lose their way.
Not all metrics are important. Albert Einstein famously said:
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Wise words – most startups and small businesses should take those words to heart.
Data is important, but you should let your assumptions and theories drive your analysis of the data, not the other way around. (for some tips on working with data, I recommend you read 5 thoughts for startups and small business: numbers count.
We tend to rely very heavily on metrics crowdSPRING andcan easily become distracted if we don’t smartly pick and choose the metrics that influence our decisions. Sometimes, we make the right decisions and focus on the right metrics. Other times, we make the wrong decisions and lose focus, paying attention to metrics that turn out not to be as relevant as we thought. (Last week, I suggested four questions you should ask when making decisions based on metrics and statistics).
Given the wide availability of good software and plenty of data (from your internal and from many external sources), it’s pretty easy for startups and small businesses to measure pretty much anything.
One of the lessons we’ve learned from our successes and failures: we are more likely to succeed when we spend a greater portion of our efforts discussing and debating what should be counted – and a smaller portion of our effort counting.
Numbers are good – but everything does not need to be counted.
With it being Oktober and all, I thought it would only be fitting that we profile a German brewery! Penn Brewery just finished with their print design project for the body and neck labels of their Penn Kaiser Pils, a pale german-style pilsner that’s highly hopped with four kinds of Hallertau hops. Congratulations to mindsite09 for taking home the grand prize!
Penn Brew is based out of Pittsburgh and has been brewing beer since 1986. Penn Brew was the first craft beer manufactured in Pittsburgh and has remained there this whole time. Their brewery has been around longer, however, and was originally built for a different brewery by German immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century. The brewery still houses a maze of stone caves that were used to lager barrels of beer before they had refrigeration (so cool!).
I got a chance to speak with Linda Nyman at Penn Brewery and she has some great information to share with you. So in the spirit of Oktoberfest, grab a beer, take a seat and if you’re a designer go design a label for this beer! And if you’re an entrepreneur keep reading and see what tips Linda would like you to know…
1. How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING?
This is Penn Brewery’s first project with crowdSPRING. In the past, we had hired design firms, used the graphic design services groups at our various label printers, or simply tried to piece artwork together ourselves using illustrator or publisher.
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
image credit: Nicola since 1972 (photo of FIORI DI COMO – the ceiling at The Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, installed with over two thousand handblown glass elements).
40 Small Businesses and the Online Tools They Can’t Live Without - http://bit.ly/bs8wPi
Very useful guide for small businesses & startups – New SEO Starter Guide From Google - http://bit.ly/diFntX
Google’s revenue from adwords in 2009 was USD$23 billion. While adwords can be part of a strong small business marketing strategy, most startups and small businesses can’t afford to pay much for traffic.
A few years ago, Google released a very useful search engine optimization starter guide (and later made that guide available in over 40 languages).
Just days ago, Google published a new version of the SEO Starter Guide. The guide is outstanding. It contains, among other things, SEO basics, tips for improving the overall structure of your site, suggestions to optimize content, insights to help you optimize your site for mobile devices, and tips to help you promote your site.
Innovation has been a driver in business for just about as long as business has existed. From the invention of the wheel (and the first appearance of tire salesmen on cave wall paintings) all the way up to the modern web browser (and the appearance of flashing ad banners and obnoxious pop-ups) businesses large and small have found a way to make a profit off of a good invention. Innovation has no copyright – it can come from anyone, anywhere at anytime and this is the beauty of it. Sometimes, as with the invention of the steam engine, it can take years or decades before a clever entrepreneur figures out the right angle, other times the invention itself is the business (think Edison and the lightbulb, or Edison and the telephone, or Edison and the phonograph, or Edison and the stock ticker, or Edison and the, oh you get the point). Here are three of my favorite innovations through history and a note about the businesses each of them spawned.
1. Vodka (1430)
According to popular lore, Vodka was first distilled in the 15th century by a Monk in the Kremlin in Moscow. Prior to this no one had distilled an alcoholic beverage of similar quality, clarity, and flavor. Of course the Russian aristocracy wanted to keep it to themselves and for several centuries it was only available in limited quantities and at great cost. By the mid-18th century, the Empress had decreed that vodka distilleries were the exclusive purview of the government and and in the latter half of the 1700s taxes on Vodka sales were responsible for up to 40% of the Czar’s revenue! Meanwhile, distillation of Vodka spread like wildfire to neighboring countries. For instance large-scale vodka production in Poland dates to the 16th century and the Ukranian word Horilka (or Vodka) appears in written form as early as 1562.
By 1863 the government had given up the monopoly and opened production to all comers; an industry was born, prices plummeted, and by the early 20th century Vodka represented almost 90% of the alcohol consumed in Russia. Today the vodka business is massive, with global consumption in 2008 logging in at over 512 million cases! Drink up, friends…
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Raoul Camion (crowdSPRING username: Raoul_Camion) today. Raoul lives and works in Vielsalm, Belgium.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
I’m Raoul Camion (of course, it’s not my real name), I’m 40 years old and I live in Vielsalm, a (very) small city in the Belgium Ardennes with my wife Cindy, my little son of 9 years old, Toto, my two cats (one is a complete psychopath, he’s the Charles Manson of the cats) and all the other people who are living in the Ardennes too.
I started to work 20 years ago as an imagesetter operator (Linotronic). I then carried out several trades in the « traditional » photoengraving ( scanner operator, phototypesetter, …) before working as a freelance graphic designer.
In the final installment of our exploration into our community we’ll continue to dive into work habits, this time focusing on how many entries Creatives contribute when they participate in a project and how much time they spend working on an entry. Every designer has differing work habits and each of you approaches a project in a different way; The two infographics below illustrate how you choose to participate, and how you manage your time.
Once again, we divided our designer community into our four largest groups: logo designers, web designers, print designers, and illustrators. This time the differences between the groups were not so wide; this graphic shows that each of these groups contributes at roughly the same level. When asked, “how many entries do you typically submit to any one project?” designers in each of the groups averaged between 3 and 4 entries.
When we asked designers to tell us, “on average, how much time do you spend preparing an entry to a project?” once again there was not a wide spread between the amount of time a Logo designer took compared to a Print designer, with 2.3 hours and 2.4 hours respectively.
crowdSPRING is the world's #1 marketplace for entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and agencies who need custom logo design, web design, a new company name or other writing and design services. Over 110,000 designers and writers work on crowdSPRING. We are trusted by more than 27,000 happy clients around the world.
Prior to this no one had distilled an alcoholic beverage of similar quality, clarity, and flavor. Of course the Russian aristocracy wanted to keep it to themselves and for several centuries it was only available in limited quantities and at great cost. By the mid-18th century, the Empress had decreed that vodka distilleries were the exclusive purview of the government and and in the latter half of the 1700s taxes on Vodka sales were responsible for up to 40% of the Czar’s revenue! Meanwhile, distillation of Vodka spread like wildfire to neighboring countries. For instance large-scale vodka production in Poland dates to the 16th century and the Ukranian word Horilka (or Vodka) appears in written form as early as 1562.
