Finishing Well

May 9, 2019

For so many creative businesses, particularly those with significant seasonality, there is an effort to get to the next and the next without really stopping to debrief, discuss and regroup.  To be analogous to athletics, to study the film and learn from what just happened. Check out this video from The Blue Angels.  Yes, it […]

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Mansplaining, Fear And The Beauty Of The Feminine

May 1, 2019

We all have those moments.  Whether it is a personal interaction, or you watch, read or see something.  The thing just stops you and makes you have a look at yourself and ask what it is that you can do to be better.  Maybe it means you need to stop being a jerk, but mostly […]

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Pretty Pictures Or….

April 23, 2019

I spend an awful lot of time looking at the digital media of creative businesses of all kinds.  First, the positive.  As a general rule, the quality of images that I see has dramatically improved over the last ten years, exponentially better over the last five.  The value of Pinterest’s IPO speaks to the power […]

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Stealing The Light

April 17, 2019

I wrote a column for The Business of Home this week on plagiarism and how to deal with it.  To summarize, I said that there is mostly no point in screaming that it is yours but rather a quiet confidence in knowing what you have (and have not) done as an artist.  The response I have gotten […]

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What About Those That Care?

April 10, 2019

All things being equal, the tie should go to the one that cares the most.  About themselves. There is no question that amazing customer service, with a focus on being responsive to your client, proactive with your process and diligent in maintaining the flow and management of the relationship will do wonders for any project […]

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Signaling, Activism and Creative Business

April 4, 2019

It is too easy to dismiss the work of creative business as only a reflection of the wishes of the patrons who hire them.  If a designer is hired to transform a residence, what bearing does that have on society? Does the designer have not only an impact on the perspective of her clients, but […]

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Scale and Leverage

March 29, 2019

There is a ton of discussion these days about how to scale your creative business.  Dane Sanders does a great job of distinguishing solopreneurs from entrepreneurs.  The first is always dependent on the core artist and the second is where the organization serves the art.  Typically, a solopreneur is not scalable where an entrepreneurial enterprise […]

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The Subtleties of Power

March 21, 2019

Many of my clients have been and will continue to be women, people of color and gay men.  Overarching all, including straight men (and women), is the stereotype of the flighty artist.  No matter the size and scale of any project, the prevailing bias is is that the creative business is not “serious” in the […]

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Ghosting

March 14, 2019

Maybe it is a sign of the times.  We are all inundated with people who want to communicate with us. Email, text, private message, phone and, yes, even snail mail. Even as I write this post I am simultaneously texting and emailing.  With all of the bombardment, I suppose it is a natural outgrowth that […]

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It Is Hard Because It Matters

March 8, 2019

We all want to take short cuts.  Sometimes those shortcuts are actually really helpful and make our lives better.  Most often though, shortcuts excuse the hard work and let us be the “regular kind” as Seth Godin is fond of talking about.  Except. If you are truly in the business of being creative, by definition, […]

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