Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

Wed, 05/13/2009 - 00:31 — Susan Starting a business can be daunting and scary, but also very exciting and empowering. Being a small business owner, I attend many networking events and meet many other small and medium-sized business owners of all different “levels.” I often encounter others trying to “cold call me in person” by pitching me services I don’t need, people who aren’t that serious about starting their own business and trying to get my firm to do design work for them for free (or what I like to call a “percentage of nothing”) or worse yet business advisors and coaches that I wouldn’t trust to coach or advise my cat. I sometimes even run across the the latter two characteristics paired together in one person at these events. It’s painful to watch, kind of like a slow-motion train wreck. I don’t think that enough people who attempt to be “entrepreneurs” ask themselves the right questions, underestimate what’s involved or are honest with themselves; And hence, wind up spinning their wheels and wasting time, money and energy.

The Culture of Constant Distraction

Mon, 05/11/2009 - 12:02 — Susan

In recent years there has been a proliferation of various channels of communication, but little or no public debate about how to use these new channels wisely — the result being these new channels controlling us, instead of the other way around. Me personally, I have four different email accounts, a cell phone, a home phone, an office phone, a fax number, a Facebook account, a Myspace page, text messaging, a Skype screen name, two IM accounts and of course this blog here. I am outright refusing to get on Twitter. A large part of this is because of the business I am in — communication design. It’s my business to be in the know about these sorts of things, but I have made some drastic changes in my work flow and communications processes in the last year that are rather unorthodox in order to save myself from a complete mental meltdown and dissolution of any shred of an attention span!!!

I first starting thinking about this topic about a year ago when an article came out in The Atlantic Monthly, “Is Google Making us Stupid?”