Creator's Block

Can you imagine your life without a car? For most of us, it seems impossible. Of course there are large cities with quality public transportation systems, but I'm sure the 85% of Americans that commute to work by car probably couldn't imagine it being different.

This wasn't always the case, though.

When the first "vehicle powered by a gas engine" was patented in 1886, there wasn't the vast majority of people who would claim the invention to be a necessity.  

In fact, this often is the case with new technology. More times than not, new technology is met with fear.

Does our fear for new technology stunt its possibility?

It's unrealistic to just "let go" of your fear of the unknown so how can we use fear to help drive better designs?

Join Marcella and I as we dive into the affect fear can have on technology designs and how we can channel that emotion for good.

I'm back from vacation at the beach and feeling super relaxed and well rested… she said through clenched jaw.

It's the week after a vacation and LDW and I feel anything but relaxed (I'm sure many of you can relate). Work is quickly piling up and I'm struggling to barely keep my head above water.

Under the weight of the impending doom I turned to Medium, as I often do, to see a shining beacon of hope "How To Really Win The Afternoon". As I started reading, I quickly realized this was not the kind of help I was looking for, stating that "powering through is the worst thing you can do." 

But what is that's exactly what I HAVE to do.

Join Justine and I as we attempt to figure out how to get through this short week without totally losing our minds.

We've talked about purposeful website design before, but there is more to a great website than just a functional design. There are many strategic components that go into a great website that are simple yet efficient changes anyone can implement. Getting out of your own head, and thinking like your user is always a great place to start. What do they want from my website? What is the next logical step for them? How is my content speaking to their problems? How are they finding me? By focusing on your messaging, conversation path, on page SEO, and your content overall you can significantly improve the experience your users have with you website without touching the design of the site itself. In other words: theses are things you can do yourself. Join Justine and I as we talk about the simple oversights we see daily that could really improve the return you are seeing from your website.

...and if you need some help viewing your own site through a critical lens, reserve your own live website throwdown for free at the IMPACT Booth in Club INBOUND!

My dad is retiring from his job of nearly 32 years.

As my brother, mother and I sat around brainstorming ideas on what to get him as a congratulations present, we kept circling back to the Amazon Echo and its accessories.

Now, my dad has a serious love/hate relationship with Alexa. 

He loves that he can ask her to play pretty much any song at drop of a hat, but hates when she doesn't understand what he says and some of her other limitations. 

He doesn't just use the voice interface enough, so we ultimately decided against another Alexa product.

But the whole situation got me thinking about how I interact with voice and what the future for it holds.

According to Adobe, 91% of brands are already making significant investments in voice and of those, 71% see voice as improving the user experience.

I, like most people, tend to utilize a voice interface with my more tactical, day-to-day tasks:

• Driving directions
• Phone calls
• Texts
• Checking the weather
• Playing music

But if voice is truly going to make an impact, it needs to be able to adapt to the more complex items like online banking or booking travel.

So, how can we ensure the growth of voice interface? Through design.

Join Marcella and I as we dive into our thoughts on developing and using a voice interface and the obstacles many marketers will face.

When looking to improve ourselves, we often focus on the good habits we should strive to have to build or own success.

But, sometimes it can be tricky to really outline what that looks like.

This article by Darius Foroux makes that a little easier by looking at what things we should actually avoid to be more successful.

When I started reading his list I was looking at it from a career perspective, but part of what this helped me realize is that it's not just about shaping your career.

If you shape your life in a way that sets you up to be a better, more well-rounded person, that really helps you succeed in all aspects of your life.

Join Justine and I as we discuss these 10 habits to avoid!

In the nearly three years I've been at IMPACT, I've experienced four different company structures.

The latest iteration just launched last week where we moved individuals into teams based on their roles, with the intention to allow for a better learning environment and career advancements.

Personally, I'm excited for this restructure but I'm not naive in thinking it will go perfect and smoothly over the next several weeks (even months). 

As agencies continue to grow, company restructuring is inevitable.

What worked for us when I was hired on as employee (approximately) number 23 doesn't work for us as an agency of 65+ people. And what currently works may not as we continue to hire, which means additional organization structures are bound to happen.

This week, I had Director of Client Services Katie Pritchard join me to talk about how to survive a company restructure. 

Listen in and let us know your best tips!

As we all know Monday's typically go one of two ways for me. Either I'm super productive or riding leading the struggle bus. Today, with a much overdue blog post and a growing list of tasks at hand found myself unfortunately in the latter scenario. So, I did what I always do when I'm in a rut… turn to medium for help. Being attracted to all things Minimalist, I found myself on an article by Jennifer Chan, entitled "How Minimalism Fosters Productivity".  When I clicked in I expect a list of quick "hacks" I could do to my workspace to create a more work-conducive, minimal environment, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was more about changing HOW you actually work. Chan outlines the four main groups in which we should aim to reduce. Less Choice. Less Tools. Less Friction. Less Urgency. Join Justine and I as we discuss the ways to create more "space" in our workload and increase productivity.

I can't even begin to tell you how often I've seen -- or been stuck in -- "Empty Promise Purgatory" as a marketer.

Let me know if this sounds familiar.

You and your boss come up with a killer marketing strategy and seem completely aligned in what you need to do in order to get it done and see the leads roll in. At some point in the strategizing though, she or he says they need final approval on items -- and I mean any item. It could be something as small as the color of CTA buttons or as complex as the pricing page content, but regardless, your boss needs to review and approve before the item goes live.

Unfortunately, though, your boss -- who has countless other priorities and initiatives -- is not as available as you originally thought and does not seem to dedicate the time needed to approve the items you (and possibly your agency partner) have worked so hard on.

What then tends to happen?

Nothing.

That's right -- nothing goes live; the leads don't come rolling in.

This is what I like to call the Empty Promise Purgatory in marketing. And we've all been there before! You feel defeated, frustrated and like your energy is wasted.

In this week's episode of Creator's Block, Marcella and I dive into how you can better align with your boss to become unstuck and make your way to marketing heaven.

The word "perfect" may not mean much to some people, but for those like me (a perfectionist to the core) it can be paralyzing. I have struggled most of my life with striving for perfection in many ways. When it comes to my work as a designer we often use the term "pixel perfect", but striving for perfection can actually stunt achievement and growth. In an article I recently read by Thomas Oppong, he describes perfection as "an endless productivity loop." It can actually hinder the creative process and compromise your work. The desire to keep reworking an idea often stems from self-doubt or second-guessing your ideas. This ultimately could dampen your boldest, brightest ideas without giving them a proper exploration. Join Justine and I this week as we discuss why the search for perfection truly is a detriment to the creative process and how to get around it!

Over the past several months, IMPACT has fully embraced the They Ask, You Answer model and all client-facing employees have been educating clients on the practice because, frankly, it works.

Ultimately, it boils down to producing content that answers your prospects and customers questions. 

To help our clients succeed, we've grown our consulting side of services to empower clients to improve their marketing and sales alignment and rely less on outsourcing work to a marketing agency.

Because of this, some of our relationships with clients have changed over the past couple months. This made me think, when is the right time to re-evaluate your agency-to-client relationship and -- in some cases -- agree to part ways?

In today's episode, Marcella and I discuss this very question and give examples of when you will want to consider breaking up with a client for the better good of both parties.