This blog is dead.
This blog will remain public, but will no longer be updated.*
Follow me at williac.tumblr.com for the same kind of content you’ve been getting here mixed with my photos, pop culture, etc. etc.
UPDATE: Follow me at FuckYeahOhio.com (Tumblr) for Ohio awesomeness.
*I’ve been separating my professional interests from my personal for a long time now, but I don’t have time or interest to maintain three separate blogs, so this one has to go. R.I.P. Brandcomments.com (formerly manage.tumblr.com).
Multitaskers experience emotional benefits despite decreased productivity, according to study
Hey, maybe you’re not more productive, but at least you’ll feel like it.
Source: theverge.com
Our world is less and less about the single pieces of intellectual property and more and more about the networks that help connect these pieces. The total stock of information used in these ecosystems exceeds the capacity of single organizations because doubling the size of huge organizations does not double the capacity of that organization to hold knowledge and put it into productive use. In a world in which implementing the next generation of ideas will increasingly require pulling resources from different organizations, barriers to collaboration will be a crucial constraint limiting the development of firms. Agility, context, and a strong network are becoming the survival traits where assets, control, and power used to rule.
Source: brycedotvc
Improving poor taste in upper leadership is almost as difficult as treating severe paranoia: people who don’t value taste and design will rarely recognize these shortcomings or seek to improve them. With very few exceptions, companies that put out tasteless, poorly designed products will usually never change course.
Source: marco.org
In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is now dominated by a smaller set of larger even more powerful tech conglomerates. And their hold on the business seems to be getting stronger.
If most of the value is now in the initial creative act, there’s little benefit to traditional hierarchical organization that’s designed to deliver the same thing over and over, making only incremental changes over time. What matters is being first and bootstrapping your product into a positive feedback spiral with a constant stream of creative innovation. Hierarchical management doesn’t help with that, because it bottlenecks innovation through the people at the top of the hierarchy, and there’s no reason to expect that those people would be particularly creative about coming up with new products that are dramatically different from existing ones – quite the opposite, in fact.
Michael Abrash - Valve: How I Got Here, What It’s Like, and What I’m Doing | Valve
(via Kottke)
Source: blogs.valvesoftware.com
But here’s the truth: most companies can’t innovate because everyone is paid to maintain the status quo.
This is the single biggest reason companies fail to do anything new or exciting. You and everyone else are maxed out making sure your company is doing what it’s supposed to do; innovation is what the weekends are for.
If your employees are stretched to the point that they never get to be creative or dabble outside their typical day-to-day, you risk not only losing a valuable player, but also falling behind in business.
Stop Blabbing About Innovation And Start Actually Doing It | Fast Company
(via amexopenforum)
Source: amexopenforum
Disruptions: Innovations Like Instagram Are Tough for Large Companies - NYTimes.com
File Under: Required Reading
Source: The New York Times
Company of giants, muhfcka! (via WAY OF THE DAVID on the Behance Network)
Click through for more beautifully illustrated David Ogilvy quotes.
Replace every “motivational” business poster with one of these.
Source: behance.net
It’s all too easy in our society to mock a person who forms brand relationships. Many charge that brand connections are dysfunctional in that they promote materialism, self-indulgence, and selfishness; and that consumers who engage in them are illogical, irrational, misguided and misinformed. This critique denies the very culture in which we live. Ours is a culture that is very much defined by consumption. In the U.S., the number one export is branded merchandise, both in the form of products and celebrities. We can critique this and lament the consequences, or we can embrace it and understand it for what it is.
Source: The Atlantic
