We often get asked how ConceptShare got started. Did we have a team of MBAs that produced fancy spreadsheets and reports detailing a big market opportunity for creative review and approval? No. The answer is pretty simple. Our founders were immersed in the creative process themselves (working on software designs). Suddenly, a light bulb (or two) came on and the idea of ConceptShare was born; that idea being how do we make it easier for a creative team to share, communicate, and collaborate on creative work.

While we love our own tool, there are also other tools and sources of information that help creative teams work smarter. We’ll be highlighting some of them in an on-going series of posts.

First up is Creative Public.

Founder and creator Jason Vaughn has over 20 years of experience in the graphic design industry. He has gathered a number of resources and useful tools for designers and made them available on Creative Public.

If you’re looking into starting your own successful business, Creative Public is definitely a website you need to check out. Jason highlights what to do and what not to do in the graphic design business, provides resources for freelancers and entrepreneurs, and the products you need to help your business grow.

In the past, Creative Public has featured ConceptShare as a useful tool for designers for creative review and approvals. Recently, Creative Public posted Creative Review IQ: Are You Part of the Mensa Set?, an article touching on the Creative Review IQ whitepaper that ConceptShare recently published. Here’s an excerpt of what they had to say:

“As agencies of all sizes increasingly focus on how they operate the creative review process is certainly an area that deserves attention.  Making it easy to share project work and capture feedback is something that is critical to making sure that projects get shipped on time and on spec.”

Read the full article Creative Review IQ: Are You Part of the Mensa Set?  and make sure to check out all of the great resources available on Creative Public to help creative professionals work smarter.

Rather then relying on tools like email that often make feedback cluttered, chaotic, and usually misunderstood, our customers use ConceptShare to make review and approvals a snap. Before requesting a formal approval, they can quickly work through the review stage where feedback and change requests are clear and actionable. Once at the approval stage, everyone from the designer to the client are all on the same and its easy for everyone involved to give a quick Yes or No; Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down.

Maybe we are taking this Fonz angle a bit far, but ConceptShare helps designers make sure they aren’t jumping the shark from design to production too soon. Get it? Jumping the shark! Like the Fonz did.

ConceptShare caters to a variety of industries, including the vehicle wrapping business. Generally regarded as the Godfather of vehicle wraps, Sergio DeSoto has been wrapping cars for years. After having started and led his own design shops, he wanted to build a business that focuses on giving other designers the tools to get into the wrap business. He has done that with The Bad Wrap. His latest venture has the world’s only patented photographic vehicle graphic design system. And they also have a library with thousands of car wrap templates that are updated daily.

Sergio has used ConceptShare at a number of design shops and through the years and has designed some pretty amazing wraps like this one: 

We always like hearing from Sergio. Sometimes, just to see a new design he has come up with. And sometimes he likes to call us up and rave about how ConceptShare makes it easy for clients to provide feedback and for designers to get approvals.

In fact Sergio did some back of the envelope math and figures that with ConceptShare he can have an entire wrap reviewed and approved in less than an hour!

“ConceptShare makes it really easy for your client to provide feedback. They can markup directly on top of your design. No special software or skills required. Giving feedback is as easy as it would be if they had a printout and a marker in hand. It also makes the designer’s life easier. The client’s feedback is clear and actionable.”

To read the full article Getting Approvals Fast click here!

Right now, graphic design students all over the world are working harder than ever to become the next big thing. Sacrificed weekends, mysteriously disappearing coffee pots and make-shift beds appearing at the studio – all part of the quest to create the best final project possible.

Time to give that project the recognition it deserves – submit it to the Behance Student Showdown. There’s an esteemed panel of judges waiting to review your work, and they’ll select their favourite projects based on quality and originality. And, there are awesome prize packs to help you start your career as a creative professional.

We have always been strong supporters of academic initiatives and this another great one. Thousands of students already use ConceptShare at schools like Full Sail University, Bournemouth University, Sheridan College and many others. For the Behance contest we’re including ConceptShare accounts as part of the prize packs:

• First place: 3-year ConceptShare Account, Group Edition, plus 5 accounts to give to your friends
• Honourable mentions: 3-year ConceptShare Account, Group Edition. You can find out more about our editions here.

The ConceptShare Office

We’re offering a $1500 Referral Bonus to anyone that refers us to someone we end up hiring.

ConceptShare is growing again! We’re seeking multiple talented developers with extensive DHTML/JS/CSS experience and a strong attention to detail to join our growing team. We’re looking for someone with a strong desire to produce the highest quality results and the ability to work well in a team environment. If that’s you, then you will find yourself working alongside a team of designers and developers that have created a collaboration application used by some of the top brands in the world, including Electronic Arts, Conde Nast and UnderArmour (and that list is growing every day).

Thinking about throwing your hat into the ring? Awesome! First, let me tell you a little bit about us.

This role is not for the faint of heart. We have an aggressive product roadmap that we have committed to delivering to our customers and partners. If you’re not afraid of hard work and thrive on trying to do the impossible, then keep reading.

As a small company that has bootstrapped its way to success, we are fiercely proud of what we have accomplished and how we got here. We intend on continuing to innovate and be the leader in our category. If you thrive in an environment where “good enough” is what the other guys do while we focus on “better, bigger and faster”, then keep reading.

We got to where we are today by always trying to find the best answer, actively listening to our customers and not being afraid of failing. If you thrive in an environment where independent thinking is necessary, debate is the standard mode of conversation, and if you are mature enough to accept that sometimes someone else has a better answer, then keep reading.

Our company has two offices (Ottawa and Sudbury). This role is based out of our Ottawa office. We have an open concept, loft-style office in the ByWard market – we’re close to lots of great restaurants, a couple of gyms (or so I hear) and access to most anything you could want.

As a small company (still under 15 people), everyone has a substantial impact on our success. We’ll be evaluating candidates on their skill set, attitude and how well we think they’ll fit into our culture.

In this post, I’ve tried to share a little bit about us. Below are some specific skills that we’ll be looking for.

If you think you match up well, then drop us a line at jobs@conceptshare.com. You can send us your resume, a short note with a link to your LinkedIn, Twitter or GitHub profiles, or whatever you think gives us a good idea of who you are and what you are capable of doing.

NOTE – we will be asking candidates selected for interviews to provide examples of their work for review. Heavy emphasis will be placed on your ActionScript skills.

Required Skills

• Extensive knowledge of cross browser DHTML, CSS, HTML5, JS, AJAX, XML
• In-depth knowledge of available JavaScript libraries and frameworks
• Knowledge of AS3.0, Object Oriented Programming
• Knowledge of software best practices, like test driven development and continuous integration
• Working knowledge of AS2.0 is also preferred
• Working knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript a must
• General knowledge of relational data systems (e.g. MSSQL)

“Think about this, you are working on a design and your team is scattered through different locations. It’s necessary that you have to collaborate their efforts and ideas so that everyone is aware of what others are doing and get inputs and ideas from each other.

Moreover, you need everyone going in the same direction and this becomes difficult when your team is situated in various geographic locations.

If your product or work depends heavily on design ideas and sending email and faxes back and forth, you might want to check this collaboration tool provided by ConceptShare®.”

Visit TechFlaps and read the full article ConceptShare – The Perfect Visual Collaboration Platform. TechFlaps is written by Binish Mathew where he writes on a range of graphic design and web design topics. You will find lots of great articles, tutorials, fonts, icons, tips, themes and more while you’re there.

Han and Chewie were joined at the hip, but sometimes the communication barrier made working together difficult. If you are part of a creative team – designer, developer, project manager – maybe you feel like this when it comes to working with your clients. Maybe they feel the same way. You and the client are joined at the hip, and you both want to produce the best possible creative work. It’s just hard sometimes.

It’s especially hard when it comes to the creative review process, and working together to agree on changes to get the project to the finish line on time and on spec. The work you create is more complex and harder to review (from websites, to interactive experiences). You and your clients are most certainly distributed across multiple locations and time zones, and there is a whole raft of other circumstances making it harder to review creative work and stay in sync with your clients.

ConceptShare’s observation has been that the majority of digital agencies score a low Creative Review IQ. That’s why, today we’re releasing our free white paper entitled Digital Agencies and Creative Review IQ. This looks at how digital agencies can achieve a high Creative Review IQ and:

• Reduce mistakes and revisions;
• Reduce risk to project timelines;
• Increase margins and creative capacity

And so, our final growth results… Altogether our boys have managed to raise $1695 for prostate cancer research!!!! Amazing!!

A big thanks to everyone who pitched in and donated to the cause; your support is much appreciated!  And because I just couldn’t resist… a small example of the high level of style our guys were sporting during this month of Movember…

Flash Master D'aoust

It doesn’t feel good to be on the receiving end of what The Jerk is saying (or sometimes screaming). BUT you know what? We need more jerks, not less. Speaking from personal experience I have benefited greatly from investors that have played The Jerk that helped me become a better CEO. I have benefited greatly from bosses that have played The Jerk that helped me reach past what I thought were my limits. Even friends who have on occasion had to play the role of The Jerk when I needed to be shocked into trying to do better.

And while the term Jerk is a great journalistic metaphor for getting a valuable point across, the reality is that I don’t consider any of those people that pushed me, a Jerk. Its easy to label them as such because in today’s world it’s shocking for someone to speak their mind and tell you something is crap. We expect to be coddled and told how awesome we are even when everyone knows we could do so much better.

The article got me thinking about our customers as well. I appreciate all of our customers. After all, each of them pays us and allows us to continue to re-invest in growing our company. BUT WE LOVE THE JERKS. The ones that push us to do better and won’t stand for anything less than what we know we are capable of. I go into their boardrooms to present a new feature expecting to be congratulated for another job well done, and 8 times out of 10 that is exactly what happens –the other 2 times they tear me and the company to shreds.  They won’t accept good enough. They push us to go back and do better, and we do. Even if that means throwing away a lot of hours of design and development work. We don’t like it, but it’s the right thing to do.

It seems contrary, but its those customers that we constantly seek out. To beta test new features. To share our road map with.

They push us to do better, and because of that we do better and deliver better product and services. We are nowhere near perfect (and we never will be), but because those customers are in our corner we are always striving towards it.

So, to all The Jerks out there, (especially those of you that we count as our customers), thank you.

Next week we’re hoping the donations are going to be EPIC! Again, if you would like to support our Mo’Bros in their quest to raise awareness for men’s health, please visit our page and leave a donation!