http://svenigson.com/blog Design, Business & Everything in Between. Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:41:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Social media is not about what you have to say, it's having a tolerance for what people have to say about you. — Merlin Mann A great talk from Merlin Mann and John Gruber about finding your niche and becoming the go-to guy for the stuff you care about the most. Recorded at ... http://svenigson.com/blog/social-media One of the things I always tell startups is a principle I learned from Paul Buchheit: it's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy. Then I thought: what would the other 9 be? When I made the list there turned out ... http://svenigson.com/blog/startups-in-13-sentences Smart design from Logitech on the MX Revolution. Even while using the mouse you can check the battery status just by looking at it. An even smarter detail, when the battery needs a recharge the green icon turns to red, and you can't help but notice it. Smart. http://svenigson.com/blog/smart-design-from-logitech Ultimately, though, every business needs revenues—and advertising, it transpires, is not going to provide enough. Free content and services were a beguiling idea. But the lesson of two internet bubbles is that somebody somewhere is going to have to pick up the tab for lunch. — The Economist, March 19th 2009 Finally the ... http://svenigson.com/blog/the-end-of-the-free-lunch Great talk by Alex Lee at the 2008 Gel conference about universal design and how by identifying the problem and phrasing the right question you got 70% of the solution already. http://svenigson.com/blog/alex-lee-at-gel-2008 Garrett Dimon from Sifter has a great point on why it's important to take time to really think about and give detailed response to every question and feature request: It’s easy to tell someone “No”, “Just because”, “We’ll think about it”, or “It’s complicated”, but that doesn’t do much for either ... http://svenigson.com/blog/open-for-feedback-open-for-change Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farms nails it with one line: If you got a superior product, that's your marketing. In this video, recorded at the New York Times Small Business Summit Gary tells about how he gathered significant market share and attention in 3 days with just a fraction of the costs of ... http://svenigson.com/blog/thank-you-for-riding-the-train There is no doubt that you are the most productive when you are working alone, and there is no one distracting you. As I just discovered you can even boost that with going offline. The other day some construction workers accidentally cut trough some cables in my neighborhood, which resulted in a day of ... http://svenigson.com/blog/get-more-done-offline Bad design from BMW: The steering wheel completely blocks the view of the clocks and very important status lights. Being average tall, this can't be just me. http://svenigson.com/blog/bad-design-from-bmw If I had to pick one piece of marketing advice to give you, that would be it. Now. Make something happen today, before you go home, before the end of the week. Launch that idea, post that post, run that ad, call that customer. Go the edge, that edge you've ... http://svenigson.com/blog/make-something-happen