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!

The video above is a new Super Bowl commercial from Honda, featuring Matthew Broderick and reminding us how much we loved Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

What Zappos Can Teach You About Becoming Irresistible to Customers – http://t.co/3UxbuL0b

Gamification: The buzzword that can ruin your apps and business – http://t.co/bdsJOO6q

Fail Your Way to Success – http://t.co/NZIGRSUA

Got Early Startup Competition? Here’s Why I Think You’re Fine – http://t.co/VvfDsrZP

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Geben Communication - http://t.co/8OpJiC5o

Fail Your Way to Success – http://t.co/NZIGRSUA

Hiring for Lean Startups: The First Few Hires – http://t.co/1T5hVqFh

Outsourcing, crowdsourcing and crowdSPRING – http://t.co/DOAMW5nc

Ignore TechCrunch, Don’t skip your MVP, and be Data-Driven – http://t.co/mqOnDbs5

Solid advice for entrepreneurs – Startups are not a chess game – http://t.co/L8RI5z4y

Got Early Startup Competition? Here’s Why I Think You’re Fine – http://t.co/VvfDsrZP

What Zappos Can Teach You About Becoming Irresistible to Customers – http://t.co/3UxbuL0b

When has a consumer startup hit product/market fit? – http://t.co/Qb5Z5nXX

…Because Most SEOs Don’t Know What Strategy Means – http://t.co/50xVysi2

Gamification: The buzzword that can ruin your apps and business – http://t.co/bdsJOO6q

Tony Hsieh’s new $350 million startup – http://t.co/UbKfBVm0

To-Do Lists Don’t Work – http://t.co/huDb4pCd

Google+ demographics are predictable – http://t.co/4SuDAL0M

Study: Only 1% of Facebook ‘Fans’ Engage With Brands - http://t.co/C0dCY2UH

Not surprising to see ad agencies shedding employees - http://t.co/kGx6Jo2q

Why Necessity Will Soon Make Facebook The World’s Largest Mobile Ad Network – http://t.co/U7pHhIR9

Klout means nothing, because attention is not influence – http://t.co/7KclyNws

Aging in Adland: The Gray-Hair Phobia That’s Hindering Older Execs – http://t.co/btNQGAZJ

Facebook Pads Its Lead Over Yahoo in Online Display Ads With 28% of Market – http://t.co/oseZI92P

Pinterest Rivals Twitter in Referral Traffic – http://t.co/7bEJrlQU

Seven observations on the 2012 Super Bowl ads – http://t.co/AA9QA2ie

…Because Most SEOs Don’t Know What Strategy Means – http://t.co/50xVysi2

A very handy guide to mobile advertising – http://t.co/ffWgOvWb

Report: Search Ad Spend To Rise 27% In 2012 – http://t.co/AyQeTPKA

Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers [INFOGRAPHIC] – http://t.co/2I1tXTMc

41 New and Fresh Fonts for Your Design Projects – http://t.co/954Anu7O

55 Fresh And Free Texture Packs To Spice Up Your Designs – http://t.co/sU2LXkZb

Free High Quality Leather Textures for your Design – http://t.co/yeyb7Ftp

30 Beautiful and Elegant Wedding Fonts – http://t.co/qgwrP4ZD

55 FREE Awesome High Quality Wood Textures – http://t.co/XObEL8Ly

20 Glyph, Symbols and Minimalist Icon Packs – http://t.co/7vM6t9nw

28 Free Slab Serif Fonts – http://t.co/c7XFSkEp

50 Great Label and Paper Tags Designs – http://t.co/sziph542

Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App – http://t.co/JWwmvauP

35 Highly Advanced Yet Simple To Use jQuery Plugins – http://t.co/FuVquoRF

50 Superb Examples of Vintage Package Designs Used for Modern Products – http://t.co/naCqPvAy

Fresh Resources for Creative Designers #3 – http://t.co/XRo1qveK

94 Free Colorful Bokeh Textures – http://t.co/P2GRXS9R

Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template tco use today) – http://bit.ly/1ySfi

Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – http://bit.ly/XTLkS

15 Brilliant Tutorials On How To Design A Logo - http://t.co/sBmUpkZt

41 New and Fresh Fonts for Your Design Projects – http://t.co/954Anu7O

40 Negative Space Logo Designs - http://t.co/0xJTydxw

22 Examples of Love and Dating Logo Design – http://t.co/DbcXPrnK

Fascinating – logos seen through a five year old’s eyes – http://t.co/ysaY88mL

33 Inspiring Examples of Heart Logo – http://t.co/eHHoHp3P

35 Excellent 3D Logo Design – http://t.co/dHq0JtVV

32 Brilliant Design Examples of Book Logo – http://t.co/Zmp1t4zX

25 Glorious Charity and Non-Profit Web Designs – http://t.co/lhr419Z6

Creative Uses of Illustration in Web Design – http://t.co/nil9XrTA

14 Beautifully Designed Church Websites – http://t.co/mX2gu9Pw

The Proxority Principle in WebDesign – http://t.co/8HX2xmq0

6 Best Ways to Add Texture to a Website Design – http://t.co/LkUr8Lfd

Landing Pages Guide 101: Create Landing Pages that Work – http://t.co/D7ILnuwX

50+ Creative Examples of Websites Designed With HTML5 – http://t.co/MjYqB76X

25 Examples of Super Wide Website Designs – http://t.co/K2Idoq7w

DIY Branding, Self-published Fame, and Romantic Trolls – http://t.co/i829XGK9

Crowd-Sourced Labor: Will It Trump Permanent Employment? – http://t.co/ucRLoJVI

Outsourcing, crowdsourcing and crowdSPRING – http://t.co/DOAMW5nc

If you’re curious how wi-fi was invented and developed, read this article – http://t.co/nv5HppXn

An interesting drill-down into Apple’s valuation – http://t.co/eoVAey01

Understanding J.C. Penney’s Risky New Pricing Strategy – http://t.co/l2Xa5gvx

Amazon S3 Reports Staggering Growth in 2011 – http://t.co/ooAvEF1W

Is Apple building a holographic TV? – http://t.co/GEDoVWFL

New CMU Study Shows How Firms Can Successfully Crowdsource High Potential New Product Ideas From Consumers – http://t.co/Swr3Azgy

TED2013 is crowdsourcing speakers – nice to see – http://t.co/CdhV5Nnk

Ferris Bueller is back (sort of) … in a Honda commercial – http://t.co/Ht4YxpEZ

Amazon Misses; Q4 Sales Up 35% To $17.4B; Net Income Down 58% To $177M – http://t.co/9DHjQqTu

A horribly awesome Twitter recruiting video - http://t.co/dEC4QJSd

Stupid & short-sighted. Warner Bros. now adding restrictions to your Netflix DVD queue – http://t.co/dEFhuAiZ

Here’s crowdSPRING’s @chrisdetmer playing an original tune at a recent performance in Chicago – http://t.co/Ugbt2Tr0

crowdSPRING writer interview: 12 Questions: Meet Vinay and Asha (India) – http://t.co/lljMThlA

I hope you enjoy these links! Please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Link Roundup #95 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
2. Twitter Link Roundup #91 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
3. Twitter Link Roundup #92 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

February cS Award

The cS awards are designed to celebrate the incredibly talented designers and writers in the crowdSPRING community and to encourage high quality work as well as community-oriented behavior.

For the February cS Award, we will award $1,000 to the Creative who participates in the most projects and receives the highest average score on their entries. All crowdSPRING writers and designers will be eligible for this award, but you must compete in TONS of projects and get great scores from the Buyers!

Good luck everyone  - we look forward to seeing those February entries!

And now…. the January cS Award Winner….

We are thrilled to announce that the January $1,000 cS award will go to niteshthapa!

niteshthapa has been a member of the community since 2008 and has participated in over 1,400 projects! niteshthapa comes from India and is a wonderful professional,and we are so proud of the work they do every day!

Thanks to everyone who participated in January, and congratulations to niteshthapa on winning the cS Award!

Related posts:

1. The January cS Award and The December cS Award Winner
2. The December cS Award and The November cS Award Winner
3. The November cS Award and The October cS Award Winner

Today’s spotlight is Geben Communication, a PR and communications firm located in Columbus, Ohio.  Don’t let their “fly-over” status fool you: these guys are pros and handle clients from across the globe. President Heather Whaling has truly taken the world by storm.  She’s been listed as one of the Top 30 PR Professionals to follow on Twitter and writes a monthly column on digital PR trends for American Express OpenForum.  If that’s not enough (seriously, I’m exhausted listing all this!), she co-moderates a Twitter chat every week called PR 2.0 Chat (#pr20chat).  There’s only one word for this woman: kick ass.

Heather talks more about taking over the PR business:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

It seems like a new tool is being added to the communication toolbox every day. That can be
overwhelming for businesses who are trying to navigate this fast-paced, “always on, always
connected” world we live in. At Geben Communication, we help companies achieve their
business goals by incorporating the right mix of online and offline communication.

We deliver a wide range of services, depending on the client’s specific needs – anything from
media/blogger relations, online community building, and content marketing … to securing
speaking engagements, promoting events or managing crisis communication.

By combining traditional and digital PR, businesses can shape perceptions and influence
behaviors among key audiences – including customers, prospects, referral sources, industry
analysts, investors, and so on.

What are some industry specific challenges you faced?

Because social media gets so much attention, some companies think they can just launch a
Facebook page or a Twitter account, and the rest will take care of itself. It’s not quite that
simple. This isn’t Field of Dreams. If you build it, they won’t necessary come. Instead, truly
effective social media requires strategy, creativity and an investment of time and resources.
Plus, companies can amplify their message by using traditional PR and marketing to support
their online efforts. But, that requires planning and coordination. People see these free online
tools and sometimes don’t realize all the work and resources required to build a successful
online presence.

This isn’t an “either, or” situation. Instead of trying to choose between traditional PR or social media, figure out how they can work together.

What made you use crowdSPRING?

After spending a decade working for PR and marketing agencies, I understand the importance
of a strong, visual brand. First impressions matter. I needed a color palette, logo, and
stationery design that reflected the type of company I set out to build. Plus, I knew I’d be a
little picky, so I wanted options! The crowdSPRING process was really simple, and I appreciated
the willingness of the designers to listen to and incorporate my feedback.

What was your biggest learning curve/experience?

I learned two important lessons early on. First, not every prospect is right for my firm. When
people first start their businesses, the natural instinct is to work with whoever comes calling …
or is willing to write a check. Sometimes turning down work is the smarter business decision.
I know that our best clients are the ones who see us as a partner – an extension of their team
– and want to incorporate traditional and digital opportunities to achieve results. If a prospect
comes calling and doesn’t seem to align with our approach to PR, I’m not afraid to walk away
from the project.

Along those same lines, I also learned the importance of smart growth. I’m very loyal to our
clients and want to make sure we continue to exceed expectations by being responsive to their
needs and delivering high-quality work. If we grow too fast, that’s just not feasible. As a result,
I try to pace the growth. That starts by making sure we’re choosing to work with the right

clients.

What’s the craziest story you have from starting your own business?

I can trace at least 75% of Geben’s new business back to relationships that began via social
media – primarily Twitter. It’s crazy that relationships that began with 140 characters have
turned into long-term, retainer clients! I joke that Twitter keeps our lights on, but it’s also
somewhat true. Five years ago, I couldn’t have done what I’m doing today.

(PS If you’re on Twitter, let’s connect! You can find me at twitter.com/prTini).

 If you could go back, would you do anything differently? If so, what and why?

I’m really happy with where the company is currently, and what I anticipate us doing in
2012. Looking back, I don’t think I’d really change anything. Prior experiences and learning
opportunities helped get us where we are today. And, it’s a good place to be.

How do you see your company growing in the future?

We’ll continue to add clients and staff, but like I mentioned earlier, at a manageable pace. In
2011, we grew 150% over 2010. Is it realistic to do that again? We’ll see.

To help us continue to attract the right kind of clients, I think I need to do a better job
sharing case studies and results we’ve helped clients secure. Of course, I hope that means
more companies will want to hire us, but I also hope that people can see what we’ve done
and “remix” the ideas to fit their own brand’s goals. (If you’re interested, here are two
examples: A B2B case study, featuring Madison Electric Products, and one of 2011’s break-out
startups, Zaarly.)

Six words of advice to those looking to start their own company.

Plan smart. Implement smarter. Good luck!

Wanna your business on this blog!? Email Us!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Twittapolls
2. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Creative Semiotics
3. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: SpotHero

Amanda Hocking is a star of the publishing world. Last year she signed a 4-book, $2 million dollar deal with St. Martin’s Press, one of the largest publishing houses in the world. While in itself, this is not unusual – authors become best-sellers every day, and publishing houses announce contracts with authors just as often, what is unusual is the road Hocking chose for her journey from high school-loner and Star Wars geek to group home worker to self-publishing royalty. Less than a year after she uploaded her first novel to Amazon, Hocking had uploaded 8 more of her novels and collectively they had sold more then a million copies and earned over $2 million in royalties. Hocking’s story is a classic tale of identifying a market need, strategically occupying a niche, and quickly building a strong brand field by a rapidly growing base of fans and word-of-mouth marketing.

Though she had been writing stories from the time she was 9 years old, and had already written full-length novels, Hocking tells of seeing a YouTube video of Mark Hoppus from Blink-182  talking with Pete Wentz of Fallout Boy. In the video, Hoppus encourages kids to follow their dreams and make them come true. It spurred her to take a passion for writing and approach it as a job instead of a hobby and to devote herself full time to the pursuit. Over the next year she made a serious study of the literary landscape, focusing on the teen paranormal-romance genre, and the market opportunity for series like the Twilight Saga and The Vampire Diaries series. Hocking settled down to work and within a year she had written 5 more novels all of which she started selling on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other e-book platforms.

The traditional routes to success are crumbling as creative people turn to the web to find outlets for their talents. A global pool of  creativity has always existed, but technology has enabled the creators to find new access to clients, new channels for sales, new tools for self-marketing, and new opportunities to find audiences without the interference of the traditional gate-keepers. Websites like Amazon’s CreateSpace, Blurb, and Lulu allow authors to design, produce, and distribute their own books, either digitally or via print-to-order hard copies quickly and inexpensively. Sites like Etsy offer similar value to craftspeople and artists; iStock Photo does the same for photographers and videographers and, similarly, crowdSPRING offers opportunity to designers and copywriters.

In the old days of 2006, when Hocking was still an arty high school kid and was learning her craft and developing her skill, there were no e-books; self-publishing was typically limited to runs of a hundred or fewer books, and the entire process was slow, cumbersome, and expensive. The invention of the Kindle, the advent of a meaningful self-publishing platform and self distribution channel via Amazon (and later Barnes and Noble and others) meant that authors like Hocking would no longer be limited to sending manuscripts to publishers and receiving rejection letters en masse.

Once Hocking had identified her target market (readers of young adult fiction) and determined her niche (paranormal, urban romance) she was on her way. Her characters are quirky, her story-telling fast paced, and her tales are action-packed, romantic confections that seem to attract an endless audience of readers hungry for her work. This combination has resulted in millions of dollars in sales, the above-mentioned publishing contract, and worldwide media attention. A quick Google search turns up almost 1,000,000 hits, her Facebook fan page lists 13,400 Likes, and she has been written about in the New York Times, The Guardian, the Huffington Post, USA Today and dozens of other outlets.

We love small businesses, we love creativity, we love the people who are leveraging the internet to promote and benefit from these things and, now, we love Amanda!

Related posts:

1. Personal branding in a world of meat.
2. 5 great viral marketing campaigns (and what small businesses can learn from them!)
3. Twitter Link Roundup #85 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

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!

The image above is a fun look at bottled water from Apple – if Apple made bottled water. That post, and other interesting posts are in the “Other” section below.

Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (tips for businesses on leveraging crowdsourcing) - http://bit.ly/wxqtb5

Starting a new biz with a friend? Good interview with @mike_samson about biz w/ friends – http://bit.ly/wBFfBv

Women Small Business Owners – America’s New job Creators [infographic] – http://t.co/74nUB76D

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Studyers -http://bit.ly/wy7Qty

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Twittapolls – http://t.co/aFHWJTmq

The One “Process” Every Startup Should Have - http://perfor.ms/jJ3Bzz

Love this post and agree 100% about need to promote intense debate among teams - http://bit.ly/zNbohI

Starting a new biz with a friend? Good interview with @mike_samson about biz w/ friends - http://bit.ly/wBFfBv

ExcelerateLabs ranked in the top Startup Incubators by Forbes – http://t.co/loB7YTes

Silicon Valley’s New Secret Weapon: Designers Who Found Startups – http://t.co/i8Vq3xl3

“If Willy Wonka built a financial institution, instead of a chocolate factory, it would look something like Square.” – http://t.co/icQhWPI3

You’re Mentoring the Wrong Way – http://t.co/2wWUC2ZQ

These Guys Launched A Startup For Entrepreneurs And Then Got Turned Away By Entrepreneurs – http://t.co/YWoM6gI0

When has a consumer startup hit product/market fit? -http://perfor.ms/vWhc5w

How to Develop Your Fund Raising Strategy – http://t.co/l4dOckDn

The best definition of entrepreneurship, in 25 words – http://t.co/lUKmQO0d

Venture capital investing hits 10-year peak, sparking bubble talk – http://t.co/IAI1IJKk

To Find Happiness, Forget About Passion – http://t.co/IAXq064F

Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (tips for businesses on leveraging crowdsourcing) - http://bit.ly/wxqtb5

Online Ad Spending to Surpass Print for First Time in 2012 -http://on.mash.to/w4dv2J

Mobile-Ad Spending Projected to Reach $2.61B in 2012 - http://bit.ly/wFv8KO

Pinterest Demographic Data: The Marketers Guide to People Who Pin - http://bit.ly/x7xkYS

Facebook Now Earns 23% More Per Impression Than In Q1 2011 – http://t.co/czMMI45P

Why Startups Shouldn’t Hire PR Firms – http://t.co/D8kFztzL

Big Firms Try Crowdsourcing – http://t.co/M5XFnBF0

Study: Why Do People Use Facebook? – http://t.co/QEoLTL66

I don’t agree w/ @benkunz – obscure price increases that trick customers are not brilliant – http://t.co/hakIhSHK

Why You Ought to Throw Away Your Vanity Metrics for These 5 Customer Metrics – http://t.co/Tzd95hKL

Google+ demographics are predictable - http://bit.ly/AAjf43

Interesting post from @bbhlabs about the digital revolution & whether we’ve overstated its impact - http://bit.ly/w4bFSJ

Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (tips for businesses on leveraging crowdsourcing) - http://bit.ly/wxqtb5

50 Hilarious Printed Ads Guaranteed To Make You Laugh -http://bit.ly/ABMoaJ

25 New Fonts for Graphic & Web Designers – Download Now -http://bit.ly/zBy2Ou

40 Superb Free Fonts for Your Next Typographic Project – http://bit.ly/zA5WGJ

50 Great Adobe Photoshop Tutorials That Every Designer Should Know About – http://t.co/IB2ngprh

25 Most Recently Released Illustrator Text Effect Tutorials -http://bit.ly/xKjARJ

10 Creative Brochure designs - http://bit.ly/xE11UG

29+ ways to stay creative – http://t.co/yi3lX1

250+ Free Distinct Geometric Patterns - http://bit.ly/ydhPeK

12 Creative Web Applications for Creative People – http://t.co/ET7k20oT

33 Free and Lovely Heart Brushes for Photoshop -http://bit.ly/Azyy22

Showcase of Creative Booklet Designs - http://bit.ly/yEfOBh

35 Stylish Wine Label Design Examples – http://t.co/pg2uyfmI

50 Superb Real Life Examples of Retro Typography -http://bit.ly/zT4wSd

Stand Out Among Freelancers by Communicating with Your Client -http://bit.ly/vZBaGV

30 Latest Photoshop Poster Tutorials - http://bit.ly/zA7ewU

Typography Inspiration: Bottle caps – http://t.co/bPWUPC7A

17 Astonishing Minimalist Business Cards Designs – http://t.co/kCErS0Nz

New High Quality Drawing Illustrations – 31 Examples -http://bit.ly/yCVdJN

40+ Cool and Creative Bicycle Designs - http://bit.ly/w61FkK

Typography in Advertisments - http://bit.ly/xY9X5l

50 Hilarious Printed Ads Guaranteed To Make You Laugh -http://bit.ly/ABMoaJ

Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template tco use today) – http://bit.ly/1ySfi

Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – http://bit.ly/XTLkS

From Concept to Completion: 50 Examples of the Logo Design Process – http://t.co/IXPqDbYa

15 Brilliant Tutorials On How To Design A Logo - http://bit.ly/x9lOc4

21+ Useful Logo Design Tutorials for Photoshop and Illustrator – http://t.co/9mhwzwBc

5 Cliché Logo Design Trends to Avoid - http://bit.ly/zbZ3ai

25 New Fonts for Graphic & Web Designers – Download Now -http://bit.ly/zBy2Ou

60+ Latest Logo Designs for Logo Design Inspiration -http://bit.ly/zLjgih

22 Conceptual Logos that Convey the Right Message – http://t.co/5NZ5svdt

25 Attractive Multicolor Logo Designs - http://bit.ly/xTx9gz

50 Examples of Animal Logo Design – http://t.co/DSXexPQD

Logo Design: 36 Emblems & Badges - http://bit.ly/zb5aus

50 Fantastic Examples of CSS-Based Websites - http://bit.ly/y2m6du

Why Black and White Pictures are Good for Web Design -http://bit.ly/zRARPK

CSS Tools for Designers and Developers - http://bit.ly/wsyQz0

What Successful Products Teach Us About Web Design -http://bit.ly/AkBSP9

30 Clean and Light Website Designs – http://t.co/WpZ2ph3w

Landing Pages Guide 101: Create Landing Pages that Work – http://t.co/D7ILnuwX

35 Minimal Web Designs – http://t.co/6Nt0l7UZ

Current Trends in Social News Website Design - http://bit.ly/zFdms1

25 Glorious Charity and Non-Profit Web Designs -http://bit.ly/wuZnQL

50 Fantastic Examples of CSS-Based Websites – http://t.co/Mk7xsod6

25 Corporate Websites for Design Inspiration – http://t.co/4O7qMsc1

Unusual Color Combinations to Make Website Design Unique and Unconventional - http://bit.ly/AktP9f

10 Most Useful Music Services, Sites and People - http://bit.ly/yJUPuW

How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work - http://nyti.ms/zdrkkg

If you’re curious how wi-fi was invented and developed, read this article - http://bit.ly/ylW9QH

25 Crazy Facts About The Human Body – http://bit.ly/zOztzt

Facing Another PR Disaster: Google Accused Of Fraudulently Undermining A Kenyan Startup – http://t.co/9uXFijah

Obama Administration Comes Out Against SOPA And Protect IP – http://t.co/WQUApaFk

A very touching video about the mind of an autistic child. The parents’ dedication is so pure – http://t.co/DvapniLb

Amanda Hocking, the writer who made millions by self-publishing online – http://t.co/Q6hX1Hes

Snapshot of the computer market, with and without iPad - http://t.co/i4vU9hKY

The future of education – http://t.co/2bjnzbCc

The top 1% – what jobs do they have? – http://t.co/3aqLc1fq

Steve Ballmer Reboots – http://t.co/FrBoAFAn

Alter Ego: Portraits of Gamers Next to Their Avatars – http://t.co/v1Ynakcg

Ladies Home Journal to crowdsource content for its magazine – http://t.co/ms9DaS2C

If Apple Made Water – http://t.co/h8FkL3tA

Can Technology Transform Education Before It’s Too Late? – http://t.co/aS98JWdL

Stack Overflow search results are interesting – especially the very low referrals from everyone but Google – http://t.co/9TD2qJ0L

I hope you enjoy these links! Please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Link Roundup #89 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
2. Twitter Link Roundup #91 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
3. Twitter Link Roundup #108 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

We’re very proud to feature Vinay and Asha (crowdSPRING username: Knifeonbutter) today. Vinay and Asha live and work in Goa, India.

1. Please tell us about yourselves.

We have traveled around the world, working in places as far and diverse as Fiji Islands and Dubai, not to mention all the cities across India. We now reside in Goa, dream beaches, sun,sand, coco feni, and like to pretend to work hard. Ideas fortunately , winning ideas save the day for us on sites such as yours. We just love crowdSPRING.

2. How did you become interested in writing?

We are both writers from the day we left college, and have worked with top 10 ad agency networks. It all started in school, when the teachers noticed we had a flair for writing, however, the idea lightbulbs started glowing, later on, after 3 years of hard, rigorous college education in disciplines as strange as physics and home sciences.

3. Who/what are some of the biggest influences on your writing?

David Ogilvy for sure. He was the greatest at one time. We never studied literature, so
we can’t quote Shakespeare. We are more fascinated with Adworld writers, Paul Hegarty, and creators like the Saatchi brothers.

4. Please tell us about your favorite projects.
Oh, its a long list, right from brand names on your site to tag lines to hold your breath, selling a premium burial space in Trinidad and Tobago (seriously, and we actually did it – it was fun).

5. What types of writing interest you the most?
Anything and everything, our niche is travel and we have a long running blog for a UK client.
We also did some nice work on Indian destinations for a US travel company. Love doing brand names, tag lines too!

6. When working as a team, what is your creative process?
Read the brief, sit under the hot sun, reach out for a cold beer, wipe the sand off your feet,
and go to sleep. Wake up with a day to go for the deadline and let the creative juices flow.

7. What kind of on-line resources do you use?
Not much, except admiring the canners gold winners for their outstanding work – it’s good inspiration for us. We are sure there are tools to spinning and sharpening brand names and tag lines, but we never got down to discovering them – which is a pity.

8. How do you promote your work?
We really don’t promote our work – you folks promote it for us! its word of mouth, honestly.
Apart from your site, we sit pretty on elance under the same name: knifeonbutter.
The reviews and feedback on elance knifeonbutter also get us a fair amount of attention.

9. Please describe your typical work day.

We are tired by 9am, with the ardous task of getting our daughter ready to go to school and shopping for the day. We brighten up once we log on to sites which are our regular work feeds, and from then on, we take it as it comes. some days are longer than the others, and we don’t mind even stretching beyond evening time into the orange hues of dawn, if the work is good.

10. What is your favorite advertisement?
By far, the lemon ad from the VW series, hats off to Bernbach.

11. If you weren’t writing, what would you be doing?

Would be a bookie perhaps, as one of our passions was at one time horse racing.

12. What do you do with your free time?
Oh, plenty to browse around with 20 news sites, and a colorful country like India.
Lots of catching up on fb with friends and co-pros. We like to visit art galleries, travel, play with our 4 year old daughter.

_________________________

Than you so much Vinay and Asha!

Related posts:

1. 12 Questions: Meet Keith Woodruff (USA)
2. 12 Questions: Meet Grace Conlon (USA)
3. 12 Questions: Meet Dragan Lončar (Belgrade, Serbia)

It can start with a service like Studyers. Studyers is an online note-taking service, marketed primarily towards college students (or those lucky, lucky high school and middle school students who are allowed to have tablets or laptops in class).  Students can type comments, upload the lecture’s presentation if available, and even draw arrows or doodles to help remember. Studyers also allows users to share with their friends, who can the post their own comments and feedback.  Pretty rad, right?  If anyone wants to post notes on how to master the pen tool in Illustrator, I’d be happy to take a peak (but seriously…HELP).

Shlomi talked to me more about making an online, collaborative note-taking platform:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

Studyers is the easiest way to take notes online and share them with friends.

With Studyers a student can create a course notebook and create lesson notes. In the notes the students can type in their comments, free draw, add the lecturer’s presentation, create charts and graphs and add additional content from Wikipedia.

Studyers is also about sharing your studies which your friends (or with everyone) and enriching each others learning.

What are some industry specific challenges you faced? 

We wish to replace the traditional notebook. We have discovered that many students are really attached to notebooks and won’t replace them easily. Additionally we learned that in some colleges teachers will not allow laptops / tablets in class, yet that is changing.

What made you use crowdSPRING? 

My friends at Socrative have showed me crowdSPRING. I loved the option to choose from many designs and from many designers.The fact that several design professionals gave attention to my application was very appealing to me and made me a crowdSPRING customer.

We really like the fact that everything is clear and transparent to everyone (us, the designers, and crowdSPRING).

What was your biggest learning curve/experience?

1) Researching user experience. We invested a lot of time in understanding what are the real needs of students in in-class note taking. 2) Figuring out graphics. Until we started the process with crowdSPRING, this was a big bottle neck.

What’s the craziest story you have from starting your own business?  

A minute before launching the private alpha, right after we had the new design from crowdSPRING - I accidentally deleted the application from the production server. After a short “heart attack” , I pooled the latest version from the backup and uploaded back to the production servers (developers, always backup!)

Six words of advice to those looking to start their own company.  

Passion, Patience, Optimism, Clear vision, Guts, “Change the world” state of mind.

If you could go back, would you do anything differently? If so, what and why?

I would not change anything.

How do you see your company growing in the future?

We are only at the beginning. We will be an open source company that powers the online note taking for students, throughout the world.

Studyers’ call for a new logo received 21 entries.

Wanna your business in this feature? Email Us!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Twittapolls
2. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: SpotHero
3. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Mobilotto

Last week I posted the first part of this article on crowdsourcing strategies. In the post, I discussed some of the big-picture issues that I believe should be considered carefully when planning a crowdsourced project. Best practices for crowdsourcing require managers to first determine the best venue for their project, effective management of the process, careful quality control, executing a well-planned recruiting strategy, active engagement of the intended audience, express ’training’ of the participants, and the anticipation that pushback may be encountered.

Today I’ll discuss 7 practical measures which managers should take to ensure a successful outcome to their crowdsourced project. These steps, when well executed, will significantly increase the probability of success, will increase the value derived from the project, will save a meaningful amount of time, and will help to assure a high quality work product.

1. Determine project goals and strategy: One of the key tenets of a lean approach to management, is the definition stage; determining a project’s goal is the first and most important step in the process. Specify exactly what you are trying to accomplish with the project and let the specific strategies and tactics flow from that objective. It is important that managers devote the time, energy, and necessary resources to the definition process as every man-hour dedicated will pay off in the end. Pull the team together, clean the whiteboard, and start brainstorming to clarify your intent and to set forth your specific objectives.

2. Define the process and the steps: Once your larger goal have been defined for your crowdsourced project, it is time to plan specific strategy and tactics to achieve it. Ask and answer for yourself these questions: Where will you host the project? Who will you recruit to participate? How will you reward or compensate the participants? Will the process be an open, transport effort or do you need some degree of privacy? There are literally dozens of considerations and contingencies to plan for when crowdsourcing and this planning process will force you to account for all of these.

3. Select the platform: By its very nature, modern crowdsourcing has a technological underpinning; it is the Internet, after all, that enables businesses to reach the large audiences needed for a successful result. Whether building your own site for the project or hosting it on one of the established crowdsourcing platforms, the choice of technology is key. Carefully evaluate the tools and features your project will require; consider the skill sets needed for the participants; and review your goals to make sure the choices you make during this part of the process are serving the ultimate aim of the project.

4. Create a strong project brief: A well-written brief will contain information not just about the project and the deliverables, but also about the goals for the project, the company sponsoring it, and the intended audience for the end-product. On crowdSPRING designers like to say, “We can’t work in a vacuum” (and, no, they are not referring to working in deep space or at the Dyson factory). The participants in your project need information: specific requirements, clearly established scope of work, defined expectations on deliverables, well-explained schedule, and established awards for participation are not just expected, but are required for success. Without overwhelming the potential participants with reams of data or pages of descriptive prose describe what you need, how it will be used, who you are, and who it is for. Provide examples of similar projects or products; provide appropriate links to other businesses, websites, designs, or samples that you like. In other words, the better job you can do with your brief, the faster you will start to receive submissions and the closer they will be to what your requirements specify.

5. Drive traffic to build participation: A large part of the challenge with any crowdsourcing project is to make people aware that it even exists. Simply put, without a crowd, crowdsourcing can not survive. Give careful consideration to your strategy for attracting participation, leveraging word-of-mouth, and promoting the project effectively to convince as many qualified people as possible that they definitely want to participate. Your efforts with this will, in large part, be driven by you choice of platform. For instance if you use an established crowdsourcing company you will have a built-in pool of talent, but check carefully to see how your project will be promoted within that community. If you are building your own platform plan for strategic public relations work, social media effort, and other marketing tactics to gain the attention of the workers you are attempting to enlist. The more traffic you can drive to your crowdsourced project, the greater the levels of participation and the higher the overall quality of work you will receive.

6. Engage in active management: Once your project is under way it is essential that you participate actively in the process. Give feedback to the participants, communicate with them about the overall process and progress of the project. Keep your brief updated as new details or other information becomes available.  The work that you put in during the open phase of the project will be rewarded with higher quality and a happier, more satisfied group of workers. Their opinion of you as a project sponsor is directly correlated with your behavior and your engagement is what they are expecting; remember, in most cases the participants in a crowdsourcing project will be working hard with no guarantee of payment, so the least you can do with them is let them know how much you respect their effort by matching is with your own.

7. Provide direction and professionalism: An important part of your engagement in the project is the direction you will provide and the professionalism you display. Be sure that you are working closely with the participants on submissions and their revisions, and actively encourage the iterative process. Be polite and respectful with your workers; communicate clearly and concisely with them at all times and be as present as possible. At crowdSPRING we recommend buyers visit their projects at least once a day to posy updates, give feedback, and communicate with the participants. Be friendly, be available, and be yourself – more than anything the workers in your project will want to know that their work is appreciated and that there is another human being guiding the process.

Photo: Leo Reynolds

Related posts:

1. Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (Pt. 1)
2. The State of the Crowdsourcing Union, 2011
3. Lean Marketing tips: not-for-profit edition

Twittapolls is a service does just that: organizes the feedback you gather from social media sites. It’s simple to use, too, all you have to do is launch a poll, the service immediately promotes it on Facebook and Twitter, and then gathers the results to view and share in an easy and compatible format.

Below, Dave shares a lot of insight on starting a small business, especially one in such a popular medium:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

(assuming everyone’s grandmother is as smart as mine….)  

Granny, you see there are FREE services on the Internet called ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook’.  They enable people to share personal opinion quickly in short messages using your computer and/or phone.  They are very popular, and are in fact used globally….

However, while expressing opinion is easy, it is NOT easy to collect opinions and organize them.  We created a service called “Twittapolls” (twitt-a-polls) to make that possible.  Users can simply launch a poll, and automatically promote and share it using their existing Twitter and/or Facebook account.  Results are collected automatically and are available immediately for everyone to view and share.

It was designed for use by Radio and TV stations to connect with their audiences, but is also used by individuals around the world.  Oh, and we make money by providing the service and selling poll sponsorships (e.g. This poll sponsored by…).

What are some industry specific challenges you faced?  

Getting people to re-think their own views of “success” in social media.

We honestly think the number of followers is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. In our view it is about the “passion” of your crowd; specifically, what percentage (%) of your friends/followers are actually participating, passing it on, and how often, and what is the trend?  Twittapolls is the perfect measuring stick for that “passion” because it captures feedback and opinion by using polls using your Twitter and Facebook accounts – measuring your crowd’s responsiveness and engagement to your brand/account.

What was your biggest learning curve/experience?

Awareness is HARD to get in social media – there I said it…  If you are not offering something obvious, cool, easy to use and works… you are not going anywhere fast. 

What made you use crowdSPRING? 

Honestly, in our business careers, we found that working one-on-one with a creative individual has been a mixed bag of results. Some have been awesome, and some have been a complete waste of time and money.  When we have had bad experiences, we often questioned ourselves as to “what are we not communicating, doing, sharing, or whatever?”  Given that we have had great working relationships with individuals, we could only conclude that the bad relationships were not listening, caring or responsive, or had the skills for our needs.  However, even the bad ones still expected to get “paid” for their “work” (which was unfortunately not even useful).  The solution has at times been to hire multiple individuals to “hedge our bets” and pick the better of the two or three efforts – which can get expensive.

We learned about crowdSPRING by one of our internal people who happened across it by a mention on Twitter.  When we saw the process, and the results that others were getting, we were sold immediately.

What’s the craziest story you have from starting your own business?  

We had a pseudo offer for partnering with a large media company within a few weeks of starting… THAT was crazy…  We asked ourselves “Did we really figure this whole thing out THAT fast?!”  But, in the end it was not as good as we anticipated.

Here is some real world advice:  Make sure you understand the person you are talking to, and where they are in their company structure – Titles mean NOTHING!

If you could go back, would you do anything differently? If so, what and why?

Trust less, verify more.  Within the social media space, things move very fast.  There is a tremendous risk to play in the space, it takes time and real money, and everyone thinks they are an expert because they have a X-Followers and Y-Friends (with 0% engagement).

Bigger companies who are behind your solution will always sell a “vision” of their future (just around the corner) based on a baseline of your existing product/service/technology.  Selling todays reality against corporate visions is hard – excellent service, support and ease of use should trump it, but not always. Seek great working relationships and read: Sun Tzu – The Art of War.

Your ideas are vulnerable, and selling to an organization that has resources to build what you have done is a risk.  It is all about who can run fast, and keep the ground they have captured.  You must appear to be really far down the road, even if you are 70% of where you want to be.  A clean and professional user experience is a deterrent for your customers and/or competitors to try to leap-frog your solution with their own. Force an opportunity to discuss the “build vs. buy” by killing the argument up-front…

It is important to establish goals for your own people, your resources and even your customers so that everyone is aware and working towards them. Keep everyone accountable – especially your customers once you get them on the same page and pointed the same direction.  Stay in contact, know what they need to do next for you, keep them busy supporting your mutual goals.

We have had plenty of suitors… Avoid people who want a percentage of the company for their “advice” and “industry contacts” to help things grow faster or “take it to the next level” (oh how sooooo cliche that has become).  ”Advice” is free, you can purchase a list of “industry contacts”; seek people who can actually “DO” things to produce desired results – they are hard to find.  If you think you have the right person that you don’t want to lose, make their rewards directly related to their performance – never agree to carving up your organization, too many cooks in the kitchen sucks.

How do you see your company growing in the future?

We are a work in progress.  Goals 6-months ago are different today, and they will likely change in the future.  All of this depends on finding customers who “get it”.  Never be afraid to change your Business Model if you need to.

Six words of advice to those looking to start their own company.  

Put together a trusted business team.

Twittapolls’ call for new website graphics and styling received 34 entries.

Interested in having your small business featured?  Email smallbiz@crowdspring.com!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: SpotHero
2. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Mobilotto
3. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: DressRush.com

Some people will find this inspiring, some will find this repetitive, some will agree with a few ways and others will agree with all of them, but one thing I’m pretty sure is that you’ve got your own way to stay creative and we’re eager to hear from you in the comments bellow!

Related posts:

1. To Innovate, You Must Stay Dissatisfied
2. How I Stay Efficient – My Three Hour Rule
3. Community creative – who we are

We write often about small businesses and startups and lean approaches to marketing and other business functions. Mid- to large-size companies can also benefit from the lean methodology and one way to do so is by actively leveraging crowds of workers: designers, software engineers, testers, writers, customer support people, customers, market researchers, and dozens of other groups via the Internet.

Crowdsourcing, like many business activities had distinct advantages both strategic and economic, but the process also comes with its own set of unique pitfalls and dangers. Careful planning and good management of the process can mitigate the risks, but it is crucial that managers understand some of the issues and challenges involved as well as best practices for successful crowdsourcing. I’ve created a list of 7 big-picture issues that companies should consider as they plan their crowdsourced projects. Next week I will discuss the 7 steps companies can take to ensure a successful outcome for their crowdsourced projects. Here then, 7 “Big Picture” thoughts on how best to crowdsource your next project.

1. Make a choice and determine a venue: The critical first question for a manager considering crowdsourcing is simple and binary: is it the best choice for this project? There are many ways to complete a project, and determining how to do so is not just a choice of economy, or convenience, but also a choice of value delivered. Crowdsourcing can be of substantial economic benefit, but this comes with some trade-offs as well. You must answer the question for yourself: do the benefits of the crowd outweigh the benefits of a more traditional outsourcing, partnering, or in-house approach?

If the answer too this is a ‘yes’ the next step is to determine the venue for your project. There are dozens existing online communities and platforms that managers can leverage for tasks ranging from transcription to translation (Amazon Mechanical Turk), QA to RD (uTest to Innocentive), and coding to composing (TopCoder to musikpitch); these are readily available and easy to use, but some companies have chosen to host their own crowds and develop their own technical capacity. Keep in mind that the existing services have already done a great deal of the heavy lifting and because of that, they can deliver great value to you. It takes time and commitment to build a community of skilled workers in any domain, as well as more time and money to build the underlying technology, infrastructure, policies and protections necessary to the process. A DIY approach to crowdsourcing makes sense for a long-term approach, but many companies will want to experiment and learn before they decide to build their own.

2. Manage the process: Be certain that you don’t simply throw open the doors to your project without thorough preparation, active involvement, and careful oversight. The assumption that, once launched, a project will run itself is a very dangerous expectation and can easily lead to the failure of the project, as well as a likely inability to repeat the experiment going forward. Actively managing a crowdsourced project is no more or less difficult than managing a project executed in-house, but does come with a different set of hazards. Remember the Internets are a wild and scary place populated with creatures rarely seen in your warm conference room, so keep in mind that a crowdsourced project can get out of hand and without your own diligent participation you risk the success of the undertaking.

3. Control quality: The quality of the final work product is a key goal when managing any product, project, or process and crowdsourced projects require your careful oversight to ensure high-quality. Because many crowdsourcing communities are open platforms which have low barriers to participation, the quality of the submitted work can often be subject to great (ahem) variability. The role of the project manager is to act as gatekeeper, curator, editor, and leader and this guidance is vital to the project’s success. Take care to quickly identify the best work being done and the most talented participants, then take the time to communicate directly with those workers. Just as quickly identify the low-quality work and politely (but firmly) discourage those workers from participating further. Some platforms provide tools to assist with this, but often it will be up to the manager to perform this role.

4. Recruit and manage the crowd: Essential to the success of your crowdsourced project is the crowd itself. Established communities have done much of this work for you, but you will have to take the time to recruit the appropriate talent to participate in your project. If using an established community, marketing your project to the community is critical and you should try to promote it however you can: via emails or messages, newsletter inclusion, or by leveraging any features the site may offer such as internal promotion packages and display placement options. If you are going the build-it-yourself approach careful use of social media tools, public relations, and other word-of-mouth tactics can help you to attract the right workers to participate. Keep in mind that established communities typically have their own rules and policies designed to help you succeed: codes of conduct, user agreements, community policing and enforcement protocols are often in place and if you decide to go it on your own, you will want to make sure you have thought these through and are ready to take action to enforce your policies.

5. Engage your audience: Part of the inherent beauty of crowdsourcing is its ability to engage audiences with brands or products and your project has this potential, too. In fact, many brands are leveraging crowdsourcing not just to deliver design assets or other collateral, but to engage their own customers or clients in the process. A great example of this is General Electric which in 2010 launched their Ecomagination challenge develop viable ideas for smart grid technologies. This 10-year project invites consumers. engineers, entrepreneurs, and other GE customers, clients, and vendors to participate in the process, engage with the brand, and add value to the GE community.

6. Train the crowd: Often times some or all of the crowd you recruit may not arrive with the skills required for your particular project. This is largely avoided when you use an established platform or community, but when building your own it is critically important. The first step is to devise a system that helps you to understand a worker’s skills; this can be via a survey, a quiz, or by requiring some other documentation such as a portfolio or resume that demonstrates their abilities. Once you have dome the initial triage, you can implement a training program to help those workers whose skills need improving before they can participate, videos or screencasts can be used to provide training as can written or illustrated materials. Some sites require a rigorous review of worker skills prior to allowing participation – for instance, companies like GeniusRocket and Victors & Spoils do a great job vetting their worker’s abilities before allowing a access to the community.

7. Anticipate pushback: While crowdsourcing is now a well-established business concept, in some quarters there is still strong antipathy towards the model. Traditional providers of services and other incumbents have expressed their concerns about job loss, downward pressure on wages, and other detrimental effects from this new form of competition. In many cases the objectors have protested actively via the social media, often working to organize campaigns against the companies that practice crowdsourcing. Their efforts mirror those of groups who noisily opposed the trend towards outsourcing in the 1990′s and, like the objections made 20 years ago, their arguments have done little  to slow the crowdsourcing trend nor to dissuade companies from using an incredibly powerful business stratagem.

Photo: Clive Power

Related posts:

1. The State of the Crowdsourcing Union, 2011
2. Twitter Link Roundup #67 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
3. Twitter Link Roundup #64 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

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!

The video above contains 160 of the best one liners from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. That post, and other interesting posts are in the “Other” section below.

Small Businesses Spending More And More On Social Media – http://bit.ly/wvg6rw

Give Your Employees Unlimited Vacation Days – http://bit.ly/w2aCvA

Good interview with Mike Samson by @butleronbiz about biz w/ friends – bit.ly/wBFfBv

Five kinds of work to farm out to the crowd – http://bit.ly/Az9JmC

Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips – http://bit.ly/wZETZN

Give the Users What They Really Want – http://perfor.ms/tWUUnD

Good suggestions from @stoweboyd on handling customer service questions and issues – http://t.co/80Fc5ocd

Interesting and good read, especially for women … Confidence is a Numbers Game – http://bit.ly/w1zaqB

10 things entrepreneurs can learn from chefs – http://bit.ly/AyAln3

Mark Cuban’s 12 Rules for Startups – http://bit.ly/wVvAVK

What It’s Like To Be An Entrepreneur – Eboo Patel – http://t.co/ZaotKCvl

What history teaches us about startup incubators – http://bit.ly/w7vLYB

Why You Can’t Hire – http://t.co/5E9bi0tV

Good suggestions from @stoweboyd on handling customer service questions and issues – http://t.co/80Fc5ocd

4 Skills Every Startup Employee Needs – http://bit.ly/ynUZIr

When To Get Rid of Your MVP – http://bit.ly/AgEek6

When Reviewing A New Idea, Never Forget Its First Impression – http://onforb.es/yBYqmJ

The power of failing – http://t.co/KCxzb69f

Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips – http://bit.ly/wZETZN

Five kinds of work to farm out to the crowd – http://bit.ly/Az9JmC

Why do we pay sales commissions? – http://bit.ly/yTEoDi

Give the Users What They Really Want – http://perfor.ms/tWUUnD

Interesting and good read, especially for women … Confidence is a Numbers Game – http://bit.ly/w1zaqB

Give Your Employees Unlimited Vacation Days – http://bit.ly/w2aCvA

Smart: A Man. A Van. A Surprising Business Plan. – http://n.pr/w5KGsB

Good interview with Mike Samson by @butleronbizabout biz w/ friends – bit.ly/wBFfBv

Small Businesses Spending More And More On Social Media – http://bit.ly/wvg6rw

Worst Use Of Social Media of 2012: Boners BBQ – http://bit.ly/zcrHYf

It’s no secret that visitor data measured by Alexa, Compete and others is flat our wrong – http://mz.cm/wXaQ4K

Good LeWeb talk by Jeremiah Owyang about scaling your business to leverage social media – http://bit.ly/x1g7t9

PR to come to grips with Data (or not) – http://bit.ly/yLg6ca

Interesting and good read, especially for women … Confidence is a Numbers Game – http://bit.ly/w1zaqB

Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips – http://bit.ly/wZETZN

Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World” – http://selnd.com/ynKBiD

Wow – $99,344,382 pledged on Kickstarter in 2011. The Year in Kickstarter – http://j.mp/xmuEHu

New High-Quality Free Fonts – http://bit.ly/ybWRte

40+ Fresh And Useful Adobe Illustrator Tutorials – http://t.co/Ip3CGZBY

50+ Creative collection of business cards – http://bit.ly/xuaAIJ

Strange But Efficient Business Cards – 36 Examples – http://bit.ly/xnTFYs

Spec creative isn’t going away in the agency world – http://bit.ly/ySrnwd

Free typography ebooks from Guggenheim – http://bit.ly/zODWXP

22 Free Handwritten Fonts Collection – http://bit.ly/zOrd07

50+ New and Free Photoshop Brush Packs – http://bit.ly/wTTRVF

Inclusive Design – http://bit.ly/xG1Zve

30 Creative Circle Business Card Designs – http://bit.ly/yDchxY

41 Inspiring Email Newsletter Designs – http://bit.ly/yxnlQO

60 New Creative Business Card Designs Inspiration – http://bit.ly/xjvQwH

Horror Movie Posters: Originals versus Remakes – http://bit.ly/yNc1jx

50 High-Res Light Bokeh Textures: Exclusive Freebies – http://bit.ly/xBwCIR

23 Cool Brochure Printing Examples – http://bit.ly/Am2442

70+ Hot, Fresh & Creative Printed Party & Event Flyer Design Inspirations – http://bit.ly/yAAThJ

Party Flyers: 40+ Awesome Template Designs – http://bit.ly/xB25Dy

24 Cool and Creative Packaging Designs – http://bit.ly/zTNCU4

Great Black Package Design – http://bit.ly/yLIiv7

Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template tco use today) – http://bit.ly/1ySfi

Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – http://bit.ly/XTLkS

15 Beautifully Creative Typography Logos – http://bit.ly/AjE39A

34+ Fantastic Music Logo Designs for Inspiration – http://bit.ly/zk5gXd

30 Examples of Transparency in Logo Design – http://bit.ly/xPWfCt

30 crisp and green nature logo designs – http://bit.ly/xLZJ1a

New High-Quality Free Fonts – http://bit.ly/ybWRte

22 Free Handwritten Fonts Collection – http://bit.ly/zOrd07

28 Functional Examples of Web Design Pagination – http://bit.ly/xzXzH8

40 Effectively Designed Non-Profit and Charity Web Sites – http://bit.ly/ylVb4l

41 Inspiring Email Newsletter Designs – http://bit.ly/yxnlQO

20+ Examples of Perfect Landing Page Design – http://bit.ly/zKJ02W

Stop Designing Pages And Start Designing Flows – http://bit.ly/xU56sT

30 Superb Examples of Creative Web Design – http://bit.ly/wYIXlX

15 Eye-Catching Food & Beverage eCommerce Website Designs – http://bit.ly/AAvavY

15 Eye-Catching Food & Beverage eCommerce Website Designs – http://bit.ly/xYdsk6

36 Outstanding single page website designs – http://bit.ly/wndUkl

50 Rules for Dads of Daughters – http://t.co/EiKdMqnz

What the world looks like magnified 22 millions times – http://bit.ly/ADEJMy

So simple, so powerful – portraits of women 0-100 http://j.mp/xwAcQW

160 Greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes – http://bit.ly/zOP6v3

“There’s a particular pleasure to using what you have, without having to change” – http://bit.ly/xaPNDX

Skype is killing long distance, one minute at a time – http://bit.ly/xdgHJS

Stack Overflow search results are interesting – especially the very low referrals from everyone but Google – http://bit.ly/wHB3iD

Of the 50 cities in the world with fastest Internet service, 38 are in Japan; only 3 in the US – http://sto.ly/wBK5Sv

Everything is a Remix: Creative Influences in The Matrix – http://bit.ly/wPSofp

U.S. Snow Drought Could Have Serious Implications – http://bit.ly/wsMb0E

No wonder aliens don’t want to visit the Earth. I’d be scratching my head too if I saw stuff like this (planking) – http://bit.ly/AhBUyq

I hope you enjoy these links! Please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Link Roundup #91 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
2. Twitter Link Roundup #92 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
3. Twitter Link Roundup #89 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

This is not surprising and confirmed by other recent survey data, including a survey from StrongMail on 2012 marketing trends). Although the survey data is inconclusive and often conflicting, most surveys report that 40 to 70 percent of small and medium size businesses are using social media. Non-survey data tends to support those results (58.2 percent of SMBs have a presence on social media networks, according to Palore – but these numbers are not clear-cut because between 40 and 50 percent of the businesses who self-identify as using social media on Facebook, for example, have little or no activity there).

Perhaps the most important piece of data (other than adoption) concerns the methods businesses use to measure success in social media. Although it’s not clear how most businesses track this – many use customer acquisition as the key success metric. Fans/friends/followers are also an important metric (see graph below).

How active is your small business on social networks and how do you measure success? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Related posts:

1. How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]
2. Twitter Link Roundup #97 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
3. 10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips, (Part 2 of 2)

1. Chefs live by their creativity. There are not many businesses that are completely dependent on a continuous flow of creativity. Entertainment, advertising, and fine art are among the few industries built completely on a creative output. Fine dining stands among these as an example of pure creativity as a service and a product and the best chefs live and die purely on their ability to create. The chef who loses this ability can no longer compete and can no longer serve their customers or their market.

2. Chefs develop skills over time. Like a great musician a chef develops their skills and technique over many years of practice and refinement. Cooking is not just an art form, but also a craft and the tools, methods, and skills can take years to master. Whether classically trained, or self-taught the great chefs have worked hard to develop their expertise and these abilities are what set them apart and make them unique.

3. Chefs perfect. We speak and write often about the importance of iteration and constant improvement and the best chefs are masters of this. Developing great recipes is a time consuming process and the analogy to developing our own products or services is apt: take the time to develop yours by a process of refinement and repetition until it is as delicious as can be.

4. Chefs listen to their customers. Can you think of another profession where your customer is more critical to the process? Seriously, if they don’t like your product they will leave. They won’t come back and they won’t send their friends to eat the food either. In other industries, the entrepreneur can survive if their product is OK, or even of they have a fail or two. If you are to compete in the world of the chef, you had better pay close attention to that customer and their happiness with your food or you will not have a customer left.

5. Chefs work in teams. Great food is often, though not always, a team endeavor and the skills if the team are crucial. Chefs compete for talent on their staffs just the way you compete for talent in your business. And, as with any team, chef’s teams are an aggregate of the necessary skills and abilities needed to get the job done: sous chefs, line cooks, prep cooks, wait staff, mixologists all contribute to the overall experience of the customer and each of these folks come with their own talents and abilities.

6. Chefs compete. Like many great entrepreneur, and most artists the great chefs have a competitive streak a mile-long. They closely watch what their counterparts do, learn from the best ideas and discard the worst. But, perhaps more importantly, like great athletes, chefs constantly compete with themselves. This inner-contest is what drives the best artists, chefs, composers, and dancers to constantly improve, constantly work harder, and constantly out-do themselves and their rivals. The drive for the new personal best is a large part f what keeps the great chefs fresh, interesting, and successful.

7. Chefs evolve. If you look at a sample of some of the great chefs of the world, you will notice that what they produce today is not what they were producing 10 years ago, nor is it what they will do 10 years from now. An important part of the creative process is the act of destruction: tearing down the od to make way for the new and chefs are not unique among artists in this respect. A great painter, Picasso’s work as a young man in almost indistinguishable from that which he produced late in life. The same can be said for James Beard who spent a lifetime teaching the art of French cuisine and who, by the end of his life, was a proponent of fresh, local ingredients and a cheerleader for American food and cooking techniques.

8. Chefs work their asses off. I can not think of an industry that requires harder work, longer hours, and more dedication than food service and fine dining. These are people who epitomize the work ethic and whose labors in difficult settings make other jobs look easy. The focus, physical labor, constant tension, fast pace, and notoriously fickle customer base means that chefs work hard just to keep their businesses afloat and to maintain their competitive edge.

9. Chefs choose the best. Ingredients, assistants, flavors – chefs are discriminating in their choices of who and what to work with. The quality of the basic elements used in any business can be a deciding factor in its success and chefs are keenly aware of this.

10. Chefs take the heat. Kitchens get hot and business environments do, too. Great chefs understand that the environment in which they work is, by its nature, difficult and in order to survive they build the capacity to endure tough conditions both physically and psychically. This strength and endurance is something that all entrepreneurs need to persevere and succeed.

Photo: Vanessa Pike-Russell

Related posts:

1. 10 things entrepreneurs can learn from athletes
2. 10 things entrepreneurs can learn from musicians
3. 10 things entrepreneurs can learn from kids

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!

The image above is taken in Takotna, Alaska during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on March 9, 2011. The green in the sky is the aurora borealis. More phenomenal photos from 2011 are in the Other section below.

10 New Years Resolutions For Small Businesses and Startups – http://bit.ly/t7wmEP

Small Businesses and Startups: Worst. Advice. Ever. – http://bit.ly/v6SwXL

Five Tips To Improve Employee Performance Reviews – http://t.co/qujdIQZk

Radio Still Good Advertising Option for Small Business – http://t.co/oVRqihB3

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: CorpsAfrica – http://bit.ly/x2iA7L

The ideal product manager – http://perfor.ms/uK2qJu

Stop whining and start hiring remote workers – http://bit.ly/vviGal

Good suggestions on handling customer service questions and issues – http://sto.ly/whZCLX

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Flightwise/ MyRadar Mobile Apps – http://t.co/5TTMqMLJ

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: NinjaDog Concepts – http://t.co/JVMH0TfV

Small Businesses and Startups: Worst. Advice. Ever. – http://bit.ly/v6SwXL

Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not? – http://t.co/83e0h2kS

Mark Cuban on Why You Should Never Listen to Your Customers – http://t.co/b5DHvVmz

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives – http://onforb.es/zZqYcZ

My advice to startups pitching the media – http://perfor.ms/vbXP8P

Five Tips To Improve Employee Performance Reviews – http://t.co/qujdIQZk

Some Thoughts On The IPO Market For Web Companies (by @fredwilson) – http://t.co/WzfBvutC

Marc Andreessen: Predictions for 2012 (and beyond) – http://t.co/2Y3XJq2G

The ideal product manager – http://perfor.ms/uK2qJu

There’s Only One Thing In Life You Can Control: Your Own Effort – http://read.bi/u32aYq

CEC’s Startup Forecast – “Never been a better time to start a company in Chicago” – http://t.co/8FckJve9

Mocked And Misunderstood – http://t.co/ubJCMtdq

Experienced entrepreneurs preserve equity – http://perfor.ms/uquQlD

What It’s Like To Be An Entrepreneur – Eboo Patel – http://bit.ly/ynsVZA

Good suggestions on handling customer service questions and issues – http://sto.ly/whZCLX

Stop whining and start hiring remote workers – http://bit.ly/vviGal

10 New Years Resolutions For Small Businesses and Startups – http://bit.ly/t7wmEP

The State of Social Marketing 2011 – 2012 – http://t.co/38z8IOAc

Has Twitter caused journalism to turn narcissistic? – http://bit.ly/vod6qk

Advertising Isn’t Dead – The Creative Process Is – http://bit.ly/u34ztJ

Advertising Firms Need To Be Downsized Before They Become Too Dumb For Their Own Good – http://t.co/niRIhwhx

End of an Era: The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over – http://t.co/CvUPSIRf

SEO Pricing: 600+ Agencies Share Costs of Services & Pricing Models – http://mz.cm/yeySyi

How Google+ Is Changing the Web, Even Though No One Wants It To – http://bit.ly/zeoG6J

Mobile Users Split on Check-In Services – http://t.co/deg6RQp4

Social network addiction around the world (Israelis are the most addicted) – http://t.co/RAXUY6kd

So great to see such strong support for interesting KickStarter projects (espresso machine) – http://t.co/tx9eiUln

Strong and prompt response from FedEx – good to see – to the monitor throwing video – http://t.co/1xMPCASl

Good to see Yelp/BWM integration – but are we heading to app overload in cars? - http://t.co/Idyq5U4L

The media’s fixation on size (Google+ vs. Facebook) is misguided. Why do we continue to obsess about size? – http://bit.ly/tSXmCi

Last Collection Of Creative Ads For 2011 – http://t.co/nA8Drm2Y

45 Creative Alcohol Advertisements – http://t.co/aafNlnRe

65 Free Fonts for Graphic Designers – http://bit.ly/vUwZRj

Best Of 2011: 40 Detailed Photoshop Icon Design Tutorials – http://t.co/zhcReo9P

Top 50 Photoshop Tutorials of 2011 – http://t.co/54BJzrkP

35 Amazing Book Covers From 2011 – http://t.co/l05ClXha

50 Useful and Detailed Photoshop Web Layout Tutorials – http://t.co/x9XS0uFN

50 Excellent Text Effects Tutorials in Adobe Illustrator – http://t.co/EbSqm2Fb

Last Collection Of Creative Ads For 2011 – http://t.co/nA8Drm2Y

Best Of 2011: 70 Beautiful And High Quality Free Textures – http://t.co/aL3jtSd8

45 Creative Alcohol Advertisements – http://t.co/aafNlnRe

35+ Hilarious, Epic & Nerdy Print Poster Design Inspirations – http://bit.ly/sMrAlt

Freelacing vs Agency Life – http://t.co/twbVrxJd

Palette Trends of the 21st Century – http://t.co/6736ep9n

4 Simple Steps To Make Silhouettes Using Photoshop – http://t.co/8ngY2YwA

Background Pattern Design Trends And An Inspirational Showcase – http://t.co/FVfB4cSB

35 Beautiful Brochure Designs – http://bit.ly/uIg1Nx

25 Brilliant Sports Advertisements – http://bit.ly/xoiwEY

20 Creative & Wicked Awesome Print Music Poster Design Inspirations – http://t.co/DOxRBixE

Introduction To Designing For Windows Phone 7 And Metro – http://t.co/Ov6LyyK1

Mind-Bending Facts About Colour Perception – http://t.co/5OpJCIMl

25 Useful And Free Fonts To Download – http://t.co/0nqFzw60

5 Tools to Help You Identify any Font – http://t.co/qYSOf1qV

15+ Illustrator Tutorials on Retro Text Effects and Vintage Lettering – http://t.co/F3o3Nz7i

Cool business card designs – http://bit.ly/uGgTaC

60 Absolutely Stunning Typography Projects – http://bit.ly/tlzD61

10 Superb Wedding Invitation Ideas – http://t.co/D6cHlx4q

25 Must Have Social Media Icon Packs For Web Designers – http://t.co/I1Y8RR3a

25+ Resources for Starting a Freelance Photography Business - http://t.co/CtNi6VDf

30 Very Creative Business Cards Which Will Amaze You – http://bit.ly/yh7Lor

25 Groovy Cover Up Tattoos – http://t.co/fqdRpA5p

30 Unique Movie Poster DesignTutorials for Graphic Designers – http://bit.ly/vnu3XC

20 Useful Tools, Stencils and GUI Kits for Android Developers – http://bit.ly/s5Y7t6

Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template tco use today) – http://bit.ly/1ySfi

Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – http://bit.ly/XTLkS

65 Free Fonts for Graphic Designers – http://bit.ly/vUwZRj

25 Useful And Free Fonts To Download – http://t.co/0nqFzw60

Logo Design: Cats – http://bit.ly/vZFx4Y

40 Examples of Music Logo Design – http://bit.ly/rKFLSz

Showcase of Creative Logos – http://bit.ly/AAKxk6

21 Inspiring Custom Made Logos – http://t.co/Fdpvke2g

36 Restaurant and Food Logos to Increase Your Appetite – http://t.co/BLorQx4P

Logo Design: Numbers – http://t.co/WkGgoRm9

Faces – 22 Clever Logos That Inspire – http://t.co/G2NFJpUV

Doors and Windows – 20 Clever Logo Designs – http://t.co/5KCTKD7R

20 Artistic Logos Inspired by Line Art Technique! – http://t.co/XjSiTefa

Our 50 Favorite Web Developers Resources and Tools from 2011 - http://t.co/3mVDO9T0

The 50 Most Useful jQuery Plugins from 2011 – http://t.co/87YCktyM

Best Of 2011: Best Useful jQuery Plugins And Tutorials – http://t.co/Ar5RhpSq

50 Interesting Navigation Menus – http://t.co/P3gay1pj

10 Crimes a Web Designer can Commit on Call to Action Pages – http://t.co/kTKY28oH

44 Photoshop Web Design Layout Tutorials – http://t.co/sZ2cnL73

Line25 Sites of the Year: The Best Designs of 2011 – http://bit.ly/vJd3Q2

Web Design Trends in 2012 – http://t.co/xJpxU5MA

18 Useful Web Usability Testing Tools – http://bit.ly/vDgm1K

Usability Tips and Tools for the Visually Impaired on the Web – http://t.co/gKxWstzO

Web design predictions for 2012 – http://t.co/uNGmSsKG

40+ Fresh jQuery Image and Content Sliders Plugins – http://bit.ly/v72j5F

20+ Examples of Perfect Landing Page Design – http://t.co/6L2oH2Ge

Best practice in e-commerce design – http://t.co/Z0iklNMJ

Front-end Style Guides – http://t.co/iqxUaRtx

How To Create An Effective FAQ For Your Website – http://bit.ly/vZTrCf

6 Outstanding Wireframe Resources to Inspire Your Next Design – http://bit.ly/tMlz8b

30 Examples of Using Background Patterns in Web Design – http://bit.ly/uaRiOD

Freebie: Free Vector Web Icons (91 Icons) – http://bit.ly/w2rctu

Web Design Mistakes and How to Solve Them – http://bit.ly/vJcg0y

50 Rules for Dads of Daughters – http://bit.ly/xpaHV5

DSLR’s days are numbered. Great post about future of cameras – http://bit.ly/ADqmDx

The Funniest T-Shirt Designs of the Decade – http://t.co/x5TA06uP

War. Disaster. Death. Hope. The Year in Pictures: Some remarkable images – http://t.co/8bw7bVDp

The 50 funniest tweets of 2011- http://t.co/w2K8VLBW

Web helps level the field – http://t.co/Reqnh0mu

2011 tech highlights – from @waltmossberg - http://t.co/lEimgcGA

An Essay on Realistic Space Combat – http://t.co/yfLbLvb4

Microsoft done with CES after this year. Tech tradeshows days are numbered – http://t.co/9U1mLPT5

MIT begins offering “credential” for free online courses. This will shake up education – http://t.co/g9eaks9y

This will give you pause – income inequality in America visualized as physical map of NYC – http://t.co/ezHuA36U

Amazon Says Long Term And Means It - http://t.co/qIjWO2gC

The best engineering flow chart ever – http://t.co/Kf3QeVpm

The Butcher & Larder whole animal butcher shop in Chicago - http://t.co/2AQNcFA6

Nick Bilton proves FAA’s restrictions on electronics during take-off & landing not based on science – http://t.co/CztuVTPg

~$41 billion has been lost or is likely to go unspent in gift cards issued since 2005 – http://sto.ly/uKLhrn

For The 3d Week, Kindle (Incl. The Fire) Sales Have Surpassed 1 Million Per Week – http://t.co/fdp5wPOy

There are far too many writers – and that’s bad news for writers (except those at the top) – http://bit.ly/vShKq2

AI will change our relationship with tech – http://bbc.in/sL1yUH

This is wild. A contact microphone, a hard surface, and some software – http://youtu.be/erz-9f4M9B4

Fantasy vs reality – http://bit.ly/uwIgQS

I hope you enjoy these links! Please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Link Roundup #106 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
2. Twitter Link Roundup #92 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
3. Twitter Link Roundup #97 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

January cS Award

The cS awards are designed to celebrate the incredibly talented designers and writers in the crowdSPRING community and to encourage high quality work as well as community-oriented behavior. The most successful Creatives on the site are those who understand how to listen closely to a Buyer, how to read and interpret a project brief, and how to respond to a Buyer’s feedback with appropriate and creative revisions to their entries.

Typically these Creatives are rewarded with high scores from Buyers, so this month we want to focus on the Creatives who submit the greatest number of high-scoring entries. So for the January cS Award, we will award $1,000 to the Creative who receives the greatest number of 4 and 5-star ratings on their submissions! All crowdSPRING writers and designers will be eligible for this award, but you must compete in at least 5 projects and submit at least 10 entries during the month of January.

Good luck everyone  - we look forward to seeing your January entries receive tons of praise!

And now…. the December cS Award Winner….

We are thrilled to announce that the December $1,000 cS award will go to colewitte!

colewitte is a new member of the community and joined crowdSPRING just this past fall.Since then, he’s submitted work to 23 projects and already has his first win! colewitte is a wonderful professional,and we are proud to have him in our community.

Thanks to everyone who participated in December, and congratulations to colewitte on winning the cS Award!

Related posts:

1. The December cS Award and The November cS Award Winner
2. The October cS Award and The September cS Award Winner
3. The November cS Award and The October cS Award Winner

CorpsAfrica is a small non-profit that aims to allow African communities take control and begin to work on solutions to poverty. Instead of sending volunteers from countries that have little understanding of the real issues, CorpsAfrica is about empowering locals with the resources to come up with practical answers. The NPO provides volunteers with training, curriculum, and facilities to help reach these goals. They are currently working in Morocco and Malawi, but hope to expand to all 54 African nations. You can access their donation page here.

Founder and Executive Director, Liz, goes more in-depth about CorpsAfrica:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

CorpsAfrica helps Africans be “Peace Corps Volunteers” in their own countries – and drive solutions to poverty at the community level.

What are some industry specific challenges you faced? 

Being a nonprofit, the challenge is always fundraising.  Particularly in this down economy, securing start-up funding is so hard.  For CorpsAfrica to establish an office, we need an initial investment of at least $100,000: for the office space, training facilities, curriculum and, of course, the trainers, transportation expenses, insurance and other administrative expenses. The first staff person is the biggest hurdle, we’d need enough money in the bank to ensure their employment for at least six months,  and we need to hire someone good. The success of the program will depend 99% on the in-country person we hire to run it.

What made you use crowdSPRING?

A friend referred me; it sounded like an interesting idea.  I don’t know anything about design, but I know what I like,  and that combination makes me the ideal crowdSPRING customer.

What was your biggest learning curve/experience?

Since our plan is to have the CorpsAfrica program in all 54 African nations we want to create a model that can be scaled up and be it flexible enough to work in such diverse cultures.  To do this, our learning curve is steep and long-term.

What’s the craziest story you have from starting your own business? 

When you start a new business, everything comes down to the chickens and the eggs.  It takes money to make money; it takes people’s understanding of the business to spread the word about the business, etc. When I first decide to do this, the very first thing I did was get a logo designed through crowdSPRING and make business cards. Then I started meeting people and handing them out– as if it was a real up-and-running business – and pretty soon it was.

If you could go back, would you do anything differently? If so, what and why?

Actually, no. The biggest issue is struggling to raise the money, but if I had the money from the get-go, I wouldn’t have had the experience of selling the idea, which is a process of listening, re-working, and re-selling.  That’s been enormously helpful.

How do you see your company growing in the future?

I think we can be bigger than the Peace Corps in ten years, with 250 Volunteers each year in 54 countries. That’s 13,500 Volunteers on the ground at any one time across Africa. Quite an inspiring picture.

What’s your working relationship like now with the crowdSPRING designer’s project you chose?

I got both my logo and website design through crowdSPRING. When the projects were done that was it, but I hope to stay in touch.  Both of those designers were a big part of the birth of CorpsAfrica. They are a part of its history.

Six words of advice to those looking to start their own company. 

Think of it as your child.

CorpsAfrica’s call for a small website designed received 142 design concepts.

Interested in having your small business featured?  Email smallbiz@crowdspring.com!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: YES+
2. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Colourbox
3. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Crowdegy

Each episode focuses on one company or organization. The first episode featured our friends Matt Maloney and Mike Evans from Grub Hub – a terrific place to find every restaurant that will deliver to you. Subsequent episodes featured Lara Miller, a designer and Executive Director of the Chicago Fashion Incubator, serial entrepreneur Howard Tullman, Redbox Founder Mark Rechler, and James Miller and Samantha Ballenger of Network After Work. crowdSPRING was featured in episode six.

The latest episode features Eboo Patel, a social entrepreneur who founded Interfaith Youth Core in 2002, with a mission to make interfaith cooperation a social norm. Watch below:

Related posts:

1. What It’s Like To Be An Entrepreneur – crowdSPRING
2. What It’s Like To Be An Entrepreneur – Network After Work
3. What It’s Like To Be An Entrepreneur – Mark Achler

A few weeks ago I wrote about New Year ‘s resolutions for small businesses, but the other day I realized I had left one out. This one is not an action item, nor an intellectual exercise. It is at once very simple, but also incredibly difficult, especially when under pressure to get a new business off the ground to improve performance in an existing one. It is this: learn to differentiate between good advice and bad. And once you have mastered the skill of identifying bad advice, develop a second skill: the ability to discount and reject it.

Everyone who has ever launched a business has been subjected to the clamor that arises from well intentioned investors, family, friends, and casual cocktail-party-type acquaintances. Each of them has a pearl of wisdom, a relevant anecdote, or a driving reason why you should do this or should not do that. Each of them is absolutely certain that, if you follow their sage advice, your business will rocket to the stars, Google will acquire it for $1.7 billion, and your success will be forever assured. While some of their advice may actually be of interest, you will assuredly reject the majority of it as coming from someone who doesn’t understand your business, your market, and your customers.

We have all been on the receiving end of this advice, so in this article I am going to share with you some of the worst business advice ever given. Here then, are 5 pieces of bad advice I have been given, and my reasons for rejecting each:

1. Your Idea Won’t Work. Everyone has an opinion, and it is incredible how often you wil be told that your idea for a new business simply won’t work. People seem to love sharing this feedback, perhaps because it helps them to feel smarter or more powerful. In startups you need to trust your own opinion, and you need to back it up with research. Do your homework, provide your own skepticism, question your own biases, but trust yourself and the homework you do to answer that question for yourself.

2. Faster Is Always Better. Speed to market is critical for many startups, and many of us tout our ability to iterate quickly, our flexibility in managing our business, and our potential to pivot when the market demands it. But speed is not always of the essence, and business owners need to understand that often it is best to take the time to ponder a decision, sleep on a proposal, or throughly debate an issue. Everything has its place, speed included, but faster is definitely not always better.

3. If you want it done right, then do it yourself. The most valuable commodity that an entrepreneur has is time. Time to think, time to act, time to execute. Managing your time is critical to the success of your business and one of the best ways to do this is to delegate. Hire talented people, train them well, then launch them into the world by delegating to them work which your personal capacity constraints simply does not allow you to perform. To grow your business, you will inevitably have to grow your team and that inescapable fact means that you will have to trust others to do the work. The best advice I have seen on this topic was in a post Ross wrote last year: don’t be afraid to delegate, but make sure that you get your own hands dirty before handing off that task.

4. I Can Teach You Everything. One trap that many entrepreneurs fall into is the mentor-snare. We meet someone who seems wise, experienced, and thoughtful. Someone who exudes confidence and tells us that they can teach us everything we need to know. While there is great value in having trusted mentors and teachers, be wary that you don’t become enmeshed in the ideas and advice offered by someone whose experience may not be appropriate, whose wisdom may run thin, and whose confidence could be misplaced. Trust yourself, trust your instincts, and trust your hard work to answer the question of whether another person’s advice is worthy of acting upon. My advice? Learn from lots of people, but take care that you don’t become overly dependent on just one.

5. Play it safe. By its very nature entrepreneurism is risky and I believe the risk should be embraced, not avoided. The trick it to do everything you can to mitigate the risk and to improve your odds of success. Do your homework, hire the best talent you can find, keep expenses as low as possible, and keep it simple. The lean startup movement has taught us a great deal about how to limit our risk while bringing a product to market, and the unstated message is to never play it safe.

Photo: Gregory Taylor

Related posts:

1. 10 New Years Resolutions For Small Businesses and Startups
2. Saying “thank you” – why startups and small businesses should listen to mom.
3. 10 Tips for startups and small businesses on using voice in your marketing

Last week, Mike wrote about Small Business and Startups: End-of-Year Mishegoss, 2011 Version. In that post, he briefly mentioned that the end of the calendar year is a good time to conduct employee reviews.

I’m not a fan of end-of-year employee reviews. If you waited until the end of the year to give feedback to your employees, you failed. But, when done properly, year-end employee reviews can serve an important purpose.

Here are five tips to help you improve your employee performance reviews.

1. Never wait until the end of the year – provide constructive feedback regularly. You should be providing regular constructive feedback to your team – and each employee you supervise throughout the year – on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. I am not suggesting you set up regular meetings for such reviews. Make your reviews and constructive feedback informal, low key, and regular. The measure I use for myself: does each person on my team know how I feel about their work during the prior week? If I can’t answer that question, I failed.

If an employee isn’t contributing, fire them after giving them an opportunity to improve. Don’t wait until the end-of-year reviews – you’ll only make yourself and your team miserable.

2. Take time to prepare for each review and require each employee to prepare. If you’re going to invest your own time and your employee’s time for an end-of-year review, make sure you both prepare. Take the time to identify three to four strengths and three to four areas for improvement. Make sure you’ve identified concrete examples for each so that you can go into more detail when appropriate.

Also make sure your employees know in advance that you’ll ask them to talk about strengths and areas for improvement. No employee is perfect. No person is perfect. We all can improve – and it’s your job to help your employees identify areas for improvement.

3. Be brutally honest. I’ve seen too many people afraid to speak their mind at review time. That’s not surprising – we’re typically not even honest with ourselves – how can we be honest with others. But when it comes to reviews, candor is critical – and should work both ways.

But be careful not to make the review only about mistakes. You want each employee to walk away more motivated and excited about their job – talking only about mistakes and problem areas will not accomplish that goal.

4. Stay human. Fight the temptation to spend the time reviewing graphs filled with data or reading from a form. Review time is a time to talk. If you want people on your team to feel like human beings, treat them as human beings.

5. Listen more than you talk. Far too many people think review time is a time to talk. It’s not. Review time is a time to listen. The conversation should always be two-way. Invite your employees to talk about their accomplishments and struggles. Invite them to talk about their work and personal goals for the coming year. Ask them if they’re happy with the work they’re doing and the people around them (you’d be surprised how many people are afraid to ask this question). Ask them how you can do better.

What other tips can you add that can help improve employee performance reviews?

Related posts:

1. Five Tips For Startups And Small Businesses To Improve Their Customer Service
2. Small business and startup tips: training day!
3. Startup tips: 5 great tools for freelancers (and small businesses)

A missing pet can be as gut-wrenching as it is time consuming, and it’s not quite socially accepted for people to take large chunks of time off from work to search for a lost pet. That’s where NinjaDog Concepts comes in. Sarah and her team work 24/7 and launch full-scale search operations to recover a missing pet.  She takes care of posting pictures, responding to leads, and would probably even take on a mountain lion barehanded if it meant returning a pet to its owner. NinjaDog Concepts’ big heart is only matched by their willingness to go through any hoops to return missing pets. That’s definitely a great sentiment to get behind this holiday season.

NinjaDog Concepts is based in Los Angeles, they also provide a list of resources for those with missing pets.

Sarah had some more to say about her amazing lost-dog-sniffing abilities:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

NinjaDog Concepts works 24/7 to help people find their lost pets by creating and managing full-scale search operations.  Many people work or have other obligations that prevent them from being able to drop everything and look for their lost pet, as much as they would like to.  NinjaDog Concepts exists to take care of flyering, networking, using social media, responding to sightings, and everything in between!

 What are some industry specific challenges you faced?  

Some of NinjaDog Concepts’ challenges are dealing with the sprawling geography of Los Angeles, battling wildlife like coyotes, bears, and mountain lions that can go after loose pets, and educating people on the important of prevention (like keeping pets indoors/in secure yards, keeping current ID tags on them at all times, and microchipping them).

What’s the craziest story you have from starting your own business?  

The craziest story?  They’re all crazy when you chase missing dogs for a living.  And by “chase,” I mean, “crouch in a calm way and throw hamburgers at them until them come to you.”  I’ve (literally) crawled through drainage ditches, hopped fences, hung out with homeless folks, and traipsed through bramble in the hills to track dogs.  We always find dogs because of a confluence of all sorts of seemingly random happenings, which makes every recovery seems like a crazy miracle to me, no matter how many we do.

What made you use crowdSPRING?

I used crowdSPRING because it’s a well-designed system that gave me access to a lot of talent and has both the talent’s and client’s interests balanced and protected.  As a freelancer/entrepreneur myself, it’s important to me to support the very best creative talent AND the companies that respect their work.  Plus, crowdSPRING is awesomely easy and fun to use.

What was your biggest learning curve/experience?

One of the biggest learning curves has been my service and pricing structure.  The most effective way for me to run a campaign is to coordinate everything needed.  NinjaDog Concepts has the most success when our clients give us the freedom to “do whatever is needed.”  However, the cost for that type of service can be cost-prohibitive to some people, so we do offer our services a la carte, as well as have an email/phone coaching option.  It took awhile to figure that all out and we’re still tweaking it to make sure we meet the needs of our clients as well as covering our operational costs.  The tendency with a service like this is to want to give it out for free because we are so passionate about helping people and their pets.  But we have realized that it’s important to be realistic about cost and budget so we can do the very best, most effective job possible.  And it’s okay to accept fair payment for a job well done.

If you could go back, would you do anything differently? If so, what and why?

Originally, I got started in lost dog recovery as a volunteer and got to the point where I was ready to set up my own operation.  I debated about making NinjaDog Concepts non-profit or for-profit, and I chose to monetize it because I have a nonprofit background and know how difficult it can be to set up and maintain.  It seemed easier to go for the sole proprietorship, even though I had a suspicion it would take some of the joy out of it for me.  I chose to make it a sole proprietorship, but I still go back and forth about it.  I would love to be able to give this service away if I could also make a living.

How do you see your company growing in the future?

The great thing about NinjaDog Concepts is that it can really be done anywhere.  My hope is that my model for logistics and media management can be taught to others so they can have their own local branch of NinjaDog Concepts and lost pets everywhere can benefit from the strategies we use.  I could also see NinjaDog Concepts getting out of the direct recovery business eventually and sliding into full-time teaching of other organizations that do this work.  I also have really big dreams for the good NinjaDog Concepts can do using technology and working with different partners to promote prevention.

Six words of advice to those looking to start their own company.  

Learn, then do it your way.

NinjaDog Concepts’ super sweet logo received 146 designs.

Interested in having your small business featured? Email smallbiz@crowdspring.com!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: SpotHero
2. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Colourbox
3. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: NuCrepes

Some of these suggestions are specific things to do to help increase business activity, other undertakings are meant to help you learn more about the current state of your business. Not all of these are for every company, but I hope that you find a few on the list that make sense for you. Here then are 10 new-year-business-resolutions for 2012!

1. Review your strategic plan. It is a good idea to dust off your strategic plan at east once a year, and what better time then now? Business strategy needs to be ever changing and ever evolving if you hope to compete effectively, and an audit of your strategy is definitely in order. Schedule a brainstorming session, look hard at what your competition is doing, consider your marketing tactics and come away with a fresh approach to your business for the upcoming year.

2. Audit your social media strategy. A SM assessment is an easy resolution to start the year, and Facebook is a natural starting point. Simple to use and critically important, FB is a key portal to your business, a point of entry for many of your potential customers. If you haven’t been attentive to this in 2011, start in 2012. Twitter is another channel that you should appraise and consider whether your efforts there are adequate or if they can stand improvement.

3. Attack your budget. We do this at the end of each year, and it is critical that you look closely at your budget as soon as possible. Track last year’s expenses and compare actual expenditures with budgeted amounts. Do a reality check and see where there is fat to be cut or where you are underestimating the true costs. An focused look at your costs will help you to keep them under control in the new year.

4. Try some experimentation. Resolve in the new year to set specific goals for your business, define strategies to achieve those, and then develop a short list of experimental tactics to execute. Perhaps you haven’t tried email marketing, social media, public relations, special events, or other marketing  methods and some or all of these may prove effective if you try. Be sure that you are able to effectively measure the results of any new tactic you engage in and be ready to quickly kill those that are not working and increase your efforts with those that are.

5. Gather your data. The new year is the perfect time to reconsider the business data you gather and whether you are measuring what is truly important. Resolve to measure effectively, develop useful reporting, just be careful that you don’t waste your time or the team’s on measurements which will not move your company forward.

6. Ask your customers. The one person who can help you the most when it comes to improving your business and increasing revenues is your customer and the best way to get help from her is to ask. We use short, simple, and regular surveys to ask our customers about key aspects of our business: new features, pricing, customer service, even marketing efforts are great topics for surveys. Make a resolution to put that customer list to work for you and listen hard to what they tell you.

7. Clean up  your website. Or your storefront. Or your office. The point is that your places of business can use a little tidying up, whether it is just to make it more attractive, to feature new products or services, or to help your customers more easily find you. Study up on current bet practices for your industry and resolve to make some tweaks in 2012.

8.  Improve your customer service. If there was one most meaningful resolution you could make for your company in the coming year it would be to upgrade your customer service. A simple audit can tell you how effectively you are helping your customers; what channels are available for them to reach you? How quickly do you respond? How effective is your team at answering customer’s questions and solving their problems? Answer these questions and look hard at how you can improve on each – great customer service leads to great word of mouth, the most effective or least expensive marketing tactic on earth.

9. Delegate more. Take the time to identify all of the time that you spend every day doing things that others can do for you. Your time is best spend developing strategy, experimenting, listening to customers, and generating actual revenue. If there are actions you perform, which are not directly contributing to the growth of your business, you should look hard at how you can push those off of your desk and onto the desk of a subordinate or a vendor. Make a resolution to free up more time to think and your business can grow.

10. Thank your customers. Finally, resolve in the new year to thank your customers more often and in more meaningful ways. They are the life blood of your business and you should be letting them know that every day!

Related posts:

1. Lean Marketing: Public Relations strategies for small businesses and startups
2. 5 great viral marketing campaigns (and what small businesses can learn from them!)
3. Saying “thank you” – why startups and small businesses should listen to mom.

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!

The image above is a print ad for the WWF. The ad, created and designed by Contrapunto BBDO (Madrid, Spain), educates people about desertification, which destroys approximately 6,000 species every year. More creative ads in the Social Media & Marketing section below.

Converting to Square for credit card processing – http://bit.ly/s2KhpP

Using crowdSPRING’s crowdsourcing site for design and editing projects – http://exm.nr/vkc3BD

Small Business and Startups: End-of-Year Mishegoss, 2011 Version – http://bit.ly/t8NGzy

Bosses, Stop Caring If Your Employees Are At Their Desks – http://awe.sm/5bRhp

Clear Indications That It’s Time To Redesign – http://bit.ly/sbKjcB

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Flightwise/ MyRadar Mobile Apps – http://bit.ly/rRa3Cu

Bosses, Stop Caring If Your Employees Are At Their Desks – http://awe.sm/5bRhp

Small Business and Startups: End-of-Year Mishegoss, 2011 Version – http://bit.ly/t8NGzy

Clear Indications That It’s Time To Redesign – http://bit.ly/sbKjcB

Using crowdSPRING’s crowdsourcing site for design and editing projects – http://exm.nr/vkc3BD

The trap of social media noise – http://bit.ly/sg8SBn

The 50 funniest tweets of 2011- http://funni.ly/vid1iG

The Real Story Behind Apple’s ‘Think Different’ Campaign – http://onforb.es/ujER41

Mobile Users Split on Check-In Services – http://bit.ly/t0BIEG

40 Fresh And Creative Print Ads – http://bit.ly/rEIfja

The Illusion of Choice – the mega-companies behind 90% of media, in an infographic – http://j.mp/vbWwSP

Send in the other you – http://bit.ly/rwEOhh

Infographic Of The Day: All About The Mobile App Market – http://bit.ly/uspgHV

25 Most Creative Typography Designs In Advertisement – http://bit.ly/tB1BnJ

23 Beautiful and Inspirational Fashion Print Ads – http://bit.ly/u1l7E2

20 Best Free Fonts From 2011 – http://bit.ly/sgcMHQ

Freelacing vs Agency Life – http://bit.ly/sKxAx8

Best Of 2011: Ultimate Collection Of High Quality Photoshop Tutorials – http://bit.ly/sgO7AA

50 Useful and Free Seamless Pattern Sets – http://bit.ly/rSoW3K

25 of the Best Photoshop Tutorials in December – http://bit.ly/tJHF3Y

The Funniest T-Shirt Designs of the Decade – http://bit.ly/tmeCR4

The Psychology of Fonts – http://bit.ly/u9vFwn

Designing for the mind – http://bit.ly/sDp2L3

35 Creative, Funny & Awesome Poster Print Design Inspirations – http://bit.ly/rM57aM

How to Use Script Fonts in Design Projects – http://bit.ly/vEnC9v

23 Beautiful and Inspirational Fashion Print Ads – http://bit.ly/u1l7E2

25 Most Creative Typography Designs In Advertisement – http://bit.ly/tB1BnJ

25 Groovy Cover Up Tattoos – http://bit.ly/setAIe

40 Fresh And Creative Print Ads – http://bit.ly/rEIfja

Designer interview: 12 Questions: Meet Roman Faiman – Northridge, CA (USA) – http://bit.ly/vsUJxv

Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template tco use today) – http://bit.ly/1ySfi

Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – http://bit.ly/XTLkS

Pro Tips for Stepping Up Your Logo Designs – http://bit.ly/vkP3M1

20 Artistic Logos Inspired by Line Art Technique! – http://bit.ly/sTPAnx

20 Best Free Fonts From 2011 – http://bit.ly/sgcMHQ

The Psychology of Fonts – http://bit.ly/u9vFwn

Popular Web Design Trends in 2011: Over 50 Inspiring Examples – http://bit.ly/w4rw3u

40+ Must Have Cheat Sheets For Web Designers – http://bit.ly/utE4vL

Showcase Of Game Sites Design – 37 Examples – http://bit.ly/uV5NE3

70+ Fresh and Creative Single Page Website Designs – http://bit.ly/vUqWdJ

40+ Creative Contact Forms That Will Inspire You – http://bit.ly/rQ6sNX

Top 10 “Must Follow” JavaScript Best Practices – http://ow.ly/7VnMZ

An Introduction To Object Oriented CSS (OOCSS) – http://bit.ly/rtxR0N

13 CSS Button Tutorials and Techniques – http://bit.ly/uMcEYw

14 Unusual Websites To Kill Time With When Bored – http://bit.ly/trt9UG

The 50 funniest tweets of 2011 – http://funni.ly/vid1iG

The 30 most expensive, elegant and crazy watches ever – http://bit.ly/v8cKx2

Apple Stores earned $481,000 per employee in 2010 – http://bit.ly/vEWa72

Seriously? I can’t connect my brain to the Internet until 2076? – http://nyti.ms/rUyM7h

For The 3d Week, Kindle (Incl. The Fire) Sales Have Surpassed 1 Million Per Week – http://tcrn.ch/uOkeYF

I hope you enjoy these links! Please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Link Roundup #106 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
2. Twitter Link Roundup #92 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More
3. Twitter Link Roundup #99 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Flightwise is a mobile app, developed by ACME AtronOmatic, that might be able to help you as you start your holiday traveling. The app can track any flight that applies to the IFR. This definitely includes commercial flights, you can track full fleets.  Originally developed for aviation professionals, it’s caught on with the commercial traveller. You are also able to tweet flight updates.

Another app by ACME AtronOmatic that might be helpful during any travels is MyRadar, which provides you with an update of what the local weather radar looks like, based on your GPS location.

Andy talked to me a little bit about flying wiser and the business of app development:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

ACME AtronOmatic develops web applications as well as  apps for mobile smartphones, like the iPhone, Windows Phone 7, and Android phones.  Our biggest focus on the web-side of the spectrum is Flightwise, an aircraft tracking website geared towards aviation professionals and enthusiasts – as opposed to commercial flight tracking, which tends to be geared towards the airline traveler.   On the other side of the coin, our most popular mobile app is MyRadar, which is a simple, single-use app that just displays nearby weather radar.  People seem to love it!

What made you use crowdSPRING? 

We needed to have a number of logos and icons designed for our various apps, but it was difficult figuring out where to in order to find good design talent.  We started scouring the web to help point us in the right direction and came across a number of web articles about crowdSPRING.  From our very first experience, we were hooked!

What was your biggest learning curve/experience?

From a personal standpoint, my greatest difficulty was growing from a geek-minded individual who wanted to have fun with technology into the “geek-minded individual who wanted to have fun with technology while managing a business properly”.  It wasn’t enough to just have fun with what I do for work, but I also needed to keep it all in the perspective of earning money from the work we do in order to ensure that the people who work with me are able to collect a paycheck.

What are some industry specific challenges you faced?  

Well, finding great talent was one of the hurdles we faced.  In a small company, its often not enough to be simply experienced in what you do.  You also have to have the passion and drive to contribute to the overall aspirations of the company, and folks like that can be hard to come by.  Couple that with high demand for technical employees like programmers and engineers, and you’re faced with a difficult hurdle that can require some elbow grease to overcome.

What’s the craziest story you have from starting your own business?  

Well, as with any new business there are probably tons of stories an entrepreneur would find crazy… one of the things that sticks out in my head from early on was when we bought a crucial, expensive piece of equipment on credit.  It was a $2,500 hardware box that we couldn’t do without, and $2,500 at that time was a fortune!  I remember going through weeks of sleepless nights trying to figure out how we were gonna find the spare cash for it.  Ultimately, we managed to land a big contract within short order, which managed to easily cover the cost of the box.  The funny part is, within just a few short months, that $2,500 seemed like such a paltry sum, in comparison, and I would often look back on that stress-laden event and laugh.

Six words of advice to those looking to start their own company.  

Let’s see…

a.       Make sure you’re passionate about the actual subject matter you choose to get involved with;  you’ve got to love your work, otherwise you’ll burn out very fast.

b.      In the early stages, focus on just making the greatest product or service you can.  If you’ve already covered the first point, and you follow through with this one, it’ll really show in the end result, and you’ll stand out in the crowd and be recognized for the things you’ve created.

c.       Be prepared to handle the rough times in the early stages – things don’t always go as planned, but it’s not the end of the world.  Stay focused and resolute, and you’ll learn to better navigate through or around any troubles you might run into.

d.      Make sure you surround yourself with good people, and try to seek advice from others more experienced than you… recognize that you can learn from OTHER peoples mistakes and avoid them yourself.

e.      Make sure you hire people to work with you who share your passion and enthusiasm… it really helps everyone stay on the same page and keep focused, and it definitely shows in the end product.

f.        Don’t be too afraid to take risks – but don’t bet the farm!  Starting a small business is always a challenge and inherently risky, but be careful not to get in over your head… try to take those risks in a managed, scaled pace, and you’ll likely find them easier to tackle.

If you could go back, would you do anything differently? If so, what and why?

I would definitely go back, if I could!  With years come experience, and you learn so much from your mistakes along the way.  The only bad thing about learning from your mistakes is that you have to make the mistakes to learn from them.  I think everyone would love to be able to restart something while retaining the knowledge you gain from your journey.  But since none of that’s generally possible, according to Einstein and a few other smart people, it’s just best to take what you’ve learned to avoid similar pitfalls in the future. Specifically, for me, it would have been to rein in spending and keep it balanced properly with revenues.

How do you see your company growing in the future?

Comfortable and steady!  We’ve just recently opened up an office in Portland, Oregon, which we affectionately call the “Developers Den”, where we continue to churn out innovative and useful apps for people.  And, in a bit of a plug for crowdSPRING, we hope to leverage the capabilities of the site to help us grow – we have an upcoming project to help us design another new logo to go along with a sign for the new office!

What’s your working relationship like now with the crowdSPRING designer’s project you chose?

Great!  Both our Flightwise logo and the icon for MyRadar were projects we initiated through crowdSPRING, and both developers have been invited to participate in various other projects along the way, especially whenever we have other offshoots from their respective designs.

ACME AtronOmatic has hosted five projects on crowdSPRING, the most recent being the MyRadar mobile icon.

Interested in having your small business featured?  Email smallbiz@crowdspring.com!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: SpotHero
2. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: DressRush.com
3. Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Volta

We’re very proud to feature Roman (crowdSPRING username: Romasuave ) today. Roman lives and work in Northridge, California.

1. Please tell us about yourself.

My name is Roman Faiman, I am 37, husband to a wonderful woman and father to 2 amazing children, Ben who is 7 and Olivia, 4. We reside in Northridge, a suburb of Los Angeles and I do all of my designing from the comforts of my home studio/Kids play room.

I have a full time job, an Art Department Manager for a printing company, I handle all of the work that comes in and I prep it for printing, which is at times an arduous task since many so called graphic design gurus don’t really know how to set up their files for proper printing. On top of that I also spend a good 30-40% of my day creating designs for our clients. Our biggest account that I am involved in designing is The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, for whom I have designed anything from brochures to presentation folders to event books.

After my work day is over it’s time to work for my company, 4-8 Designs, my main focus at the moment is photo retouching, with print design, including logos, stationary secondary. My website is www.4-8designs.com

2. How did you become interested in design?

I actually never had any formal training in design, but I always had fun using graphic design software to create. I remember first using photoshop around 1995 and all I did was cut and paste people’s heads and paste them on other people’s bodies, that made for some very interesting company posters around christmas time, most memorably all the women at work posing in scantily clad outfits for a Lowrider Auto show. After starting in the printing industry in 1994, it took 3 years for me to be placed in the art department and I had to learn the software on the fly, from practice, to training to reading literature I became very interested and comfortable in my line of work. Even though I’ve been doing this for a while, I started designing logos around 5 years ago, and in that time I developed a keen sense of a clean and visually appealing style.

3. Which of your designs are your favorites and why?

I have many designs I like, however I narrowed them down to 4. Equitas Media might top them because I like the symbol I created and the type treatment is one I am proud of, notice the fusion of E and M and the creation of an Equal sign in the negative space. Blueprint Software was my first ever win in a Crowdsource world (a different site) and the first time I used 2 or more letters fused together to make a graphic. Obbuna I like, it was one of my first wins on cS, and after multiple alterations I created a nice, clean and simple gear logo. Youth Marketing again fused the Y and M and created a sort of person’s torso appearance.

4. Who/what are some of the biggest influences on your design work?

I am really in awe of some of the designers on crowdSPRING, they come from all reaches of the globe and all offer a wide array of style and creativity. Some of their designs are simply insane and something I will probably never be able to imitate, not to worry though, I like to live in my simpler, clean design style existence. One of my favorites who has also written a biography is Denis Wong (aka entz). I love his style and visually appealing designs, and at one point we had a friendly competition to see who could get more wins, once we were tied at around 20, he has since blasted past me, I stopped counting at 100.

5. How did you manage to become without a doubt the best designer in your house?

That might not be true for long, my son has taken an interest in creating his own logos in illustrator, maybe I should stop giving him pointers or else he will dethrone me from the Design King seat!

6. Mac or PC?

Mac, tried and true. Since the early not so glamorous days of the Macintosh I’ve used primarily Macs at all of my jobs in printing. I will dabble on a PC once in a while, but I do so with a serious pout on my face every single time, to me, PC’s are not optimized for Graphic Design Applications and the shortcuts always mess me up with a PC. I use a 24″ iMac running CS5 and OS 10.6.

7. How do you promote your work?

I get a lot of my work from repeat clients and their referrals. Some clients whom I worked with in my 9 to 5 jobs have contacted me privately after I left my job, since I was their primary designer for the companies I worked for, I guess I was able to leave some lasting impressions. In addition I try to promote my website using SEO and social network sites like Facebook and Twitter. I also advertise at times on Craigslist.

8. In what other ways do you use your creativity?

Along with my visual prowess, I have an affinity for humor, which I try to use quite a bit, and while it works most of the time, sometimes it comes across as being over the top and immature and bites me where the sun don’t shine. That never deters me though, making people laugh and keeping their spirits high reflects positively upon me and in turn makes me feel good all over.

9. Please describe your typical work day.

I come to work around 6 a.m., welcomed by a pile of work that is left over from the night before with some needless minor fixes. Once I finish that and chomp on my Granola bar and sip on my Coffee I go through a slew of emails and address them soon after. Then I arrange the orders by their due dates and start cranking through them. The majority of my day is receiving art from clients, reviewing it, modifying colors, layout and fonts to specs, sending an email proof, printing a hard copy proof, waiting on an approval and then lay it out for an offset press or a digital press. As mentioned, about a 3rd of my day is spent designing print material for our clients. I leave at 2:30 and after getting my kids, come home around 4 and depending on the day I start working at home, around 2-3 hours a day.

10. What are the most challenging and rewarding aspects of being a graphic designer?
Most challenging – creating a niche for yourself and making your work stand out from the crowd. There are tons of Graphic Designers out there, while some are truly talented, some are just saturating the market and preventing other more talented designers from being visible to the clients who seek them. Also getting a fair compensation for your work, due to the economy and people’s desire to get the quickest and cheapest design makes it difficult to earn your dues.

Most rewarding – Finding that client who truly appreciates hard work and creativity and compensates for that, also receiving very positive compliments makes your work worthwhile.

11. What advice would you offer to someone considering graphics design as a career?
Make sure it is something you will enjoy doing and something you have a natural talent for. Realize that is is a very competitive field and you have to be very skilled and know the right people to make a good living at it.

12. What do you do with your free time?
Don’t have too much of that lately, between working, doing every day household work and raising the kids (ok my wife does the majority…)  I am also involved in promoting my wife’s Speech Therapy business through website development, online ads and of course creating her business cards and flyers. I do enjoy playing with my kids, rough-housing is part of my repertoire which the kids don’t seem to mind. I also enjoy watching movies, TV shows and play video games, and recently I’ve taken up running, doing a 5k run next weekend in the Universal Studios Backlot which should be fun. Oh, and the occasional night out with the Mrs. is something I enjoy and look forward to, we love to eat out, go to movies and see live comedy shows.

Thank you all for reading, happy designing!

Roman
__________________________

Thanks so much, Roman!

Related posts:

1. 12 Questions: Meet MJ (USA)
2. 12 Questions: Meet Anna Nadler (USA)
3. 12 Questions: Meet Angus Griffin (England)