Author: james

  • The Essentials: Consistency

    If you want to succeed as a business or organization, consistency is crucial. Last week one of the blogs that I follow had a post that was different than the type of content they normally publish. The blog has a strong following in its specific niche so after reading a post that didn’t have anything…

  • The Essentials: Stories and Relationships

    My current working theory of marketing says that there are two core elements, stories and relationships. Stories Stories are the threads that tie all the pieces together. Packaging, distribution, pricing and advertising are all parts of a story that is being created about a brand, product, organization or person. Relationships Relationships are how people see…

  • Results Only Work Environment

    In 2006 Business Week magazine published an article entitled, “Smashing the Clock.” The article detailed electronics retailer Best Buy and a new work environment they were promoting – Results Only Work Environment (ROWE). The basic premise is companies and workers are tied to a old mind set of a forty hour work week. The mind…

  • Only the Best – The Concept

    Have you ever walked into a consumer electronics store only to be overwhelmed by all of the choices? I have. You want to spend your money wisely.  But,  this sea of products seems to ensure you can never be certain about your purchase.  If you’re like me, you probably walk away from your purchasing experience…

  • Collecting Botts Dots

    Walking our dog twice a day gives us plenty of time to look around our local streets. Lately we’ve started collecting what we call speed bumps. They are the little plastic pieces glued to the concrete that seperate lanes. We later learned through the marvels of the Internet that these bumps are officially called “Bott’s…

  • Coming up with an idea

    My first task for my “Starting a Business” class was to think of a business I wanted to work on for the entire semester. I brainstormed for about a week and half about potential ideas. I found the most useful formula for plausible ideas came from combining three things: Something I’m interested in Something I…

  • Up Coming Series: A Business Plan

    I’m getting an MBA at night and this past semester I took a class called Starting a Business. The bulk of our work focused on writing a business plan for a theoretical business that we might start. Since I put a good deal of work into the class I thought I would share over the…

  • Posterous: Posting Anything via Email

    Posterous is a service that should appeal to people who want to post things online but don’t want to deal with the technical details. It works by simply emailing what you want to post to post@posterous.com. You don’t even need to create an account to get started, just email them. The contents of your email…

  • Unrequited Love: Linux and the Geek

    I want to love Linux but it doesn’t share my feelings. To be honest, I think it’s hurt that I’m only looking for a fling; a trophy of geekdom to casually flaunt at parties. “Yeah, I”ve got a Linux box at home.” We both know that when I’m done experimenting I’ll head back to the…

  • Merry Christmas

    Even in Texas it’s getting to be Christmas time so I thought I’d pass along some holiday greetings in the form of the Christmas card we sent out this year. Merry Christmas to you.