How to Conduct a Proper Design Review

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This may sound familiar:

You’re gathered around a computer with the project manager and two developers, evaluating and critiquing the current design work. However, everybody seems to have a different idea about what the outcome should be. The developers have some unrealistic vision about how the design should look while the project manager can’t stop comparing it to other products. After more than two hours of ideas ping ponging back and forth, you feel exhausted. Not only that, but you haven’t made any real progress.

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How to Conduct a Proper Design Review

Launching New Features without Pissing People Off

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Your alarm goes off. 8AM. Your coffee maker is already brewing, and you head to the kitchen to grab a cup. You’re bleary-eyed, but ready to start your day the way you always do—by checking Twitter to see what’s going on in your world.

However, when you open the app on your phone, it looks completely different. They’ve added a new section to the menu bar and moved the “Tweet” button. Instantly, you feel hurt and betrayed. Why would the company designers do this? Millions of users were already comfortable with the previous layout. You send an angry tweet about it and see dozens of others doing the same thing.

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Launching New Features without Pissing People Off

The Basics to Building a Better Website: Planning for Success

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You’ve decided that you need a website for your business. Maybe you are building one ‘from scratch’ or maybe you are updating an existing one. It’s easy to get excited about the beautiful photos, the great layout and the fancy features of your new site. This stuff is great to fun to think about. But to build a great website, you have to start by identifying its purpose, the site’s goals and who the target audience is. All too often, these planning steps are skipped and you end up with a great looking website that doesn’t actually help your business or the people who visit.

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The Basics to Building a Better Website: Planning for Success

6 Key Ways To Help Startups Be More Productive

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One of the biggest challenges when running a startup is being productive while charging through the mountain of tasks ahead. Though it may seem overwhelming at first, establishing a set of routines and building some discipline is the best way to stay productive through it all.

Rather than burning out halfway through your to-do list before tiring out, these steps will help ensure that you and your team remain on task, and keep momentum going while being productive.

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6 Key Ways To Help Startups Be More Productive

Launch Announcement: Pints and Pixels Meetup With Top Product Experts

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Are you someone who has a lot of unique product ideas ready to market, but have few ways to network to discuss trends? It’s often discouraging to link up with people in the industry without having to spend a fortune attending a large product development conference. While these are still beneficial, it’s a lot more challenging to link up with influential individuals there who can advance your career.

It’s often better to network with people in your local community for quality time discussing the latest trends in product development. Plus, it’s beneficial to meet more than once so you keep the networking going.

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Launch Announcement: Pints and Pixels Meetup With Top Product Experts

Building a Winner: The Anatomy of a Successful Product Team

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There is a saying that has made rounds in many different arenas and many different industries. It generally goes something like, You are only as good as your last…, and you can fill in the blank.

“You’re only as good as your last pass.” – Brett Favre

“You’re only as good as your last picture.” – Marie Dressler

“You’re only as good as your last story.” – Helen Thomas

Okay, you see where this is going. This saying has been applied to virtually everything under the sun, from business to haircuts (seriously, accredited to Fran Lebowitz). That subtle truth may be nowhere more evident than in the world of product development – and it may not be so subtle.

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Building a Winner: The Anatomy of a Successful Product Team

10 Comprehensive Tips for Building a Successful Agency

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Starting and running your own agency is a wonderful endeavor, but it’s by no means an automatic success. Even if you have all the right start-up resources, a great office location, and a strong initial team, profits and growth are not guaranteed. In fact, only a small percentage of young businesses make it passed the start-up phase no matter how good their launch may or may not have been. In order to truly succeed, you need excellent management, marketing, service, and customer satisfaction. Growth requires profits, referrals, and a stellar reputation. So how do you build a successful agency in the face of these challenges? We have ten expert tips that will set you on the right path.

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10 Comprehensive Tips for Building a Successful Agency

19 Attributes of a Total Badass Creative Director

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Many designers aspire to be a creative director at some point in their career. At some point, you’ll come into contact with some great creative directors, some bad creative directors, and some atrocious creative directors. The truth is, it’s genuinely hard to make that transition from designer to creative director. Heck, what if you don’t have any design experience, can you still be a great creative director. Probably not, but, the following points can help you ascertain that truly lofty goal.

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19 Attributes of a Total Badass Creative Director

The Definitive List: Books Every Tech Entrepreneur Should Read

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Do you find yourself constantly wanting to learn more about business? How to grow them? How to build them? How to make them thrive without you? Get capital to fund your next big idea?

As an entrepreneur, you have to be a business generalist in many ways. Not knowing a certain aspect of your business can be its peril in the early stages. Sure, you’ve got a fancy MBA and have been around the block a couple times. Unfortunately, few people truly know how to build a sales team that can drive $100 million in sales, or how to build a corporate culture that your employees can thrive in.

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The Definitive List: Books Every Tech Entrepreneur Should Read

The Secret Sauce Behind Building A Comprehensive Brand Strategy

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Do you consistently have a hard time building a framework for your customer’s brand strategy?

A brand strategy can take many forms depending on the stage of the company and its challenges. For example, a brand strategy for a startup may include information about the brand identity and go-to-market strategy. Whereas, a mature company’s strategy may be a bit more straight forward with a deeper dive into differentiation and brand positioning.

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The Secret Sauce Behind Building A Comprehensive Brand Strategy