I began tonight with a list of adjectives:

Clean, Direct, Un-Complicated, Provides Solutions, Knowledgeable, Funny, Experienced, Creative, Innovative, Technically-Savvy and Drop-Dead Gorgeous.

On the podcast interview I conducted on Developing a Mission Statement, Henning Fischer mentioned the sheer simplicity of Jet Blue’s mission statement, and I have to agree — it’s very straight-forward. It goes like this: “Jet Blue Is a low-fare, low-cost passenger airline, which provides high-quality customer service.”

I could “borrow” theirs:

Creative Component is a low-cost design consultancy, providing high-quality results.

But that’s too easy, right?

On the point of “borrowing”: When Macromedia MX first rolled-out, I attended a special roadshow event. I remember one presenter’s comment about stealing content. He said: “If you borrow it from the internet, and put it back-up on the internet, it’s not stealing.”
That’s a joke that will be stuck in my head forever, but I digress…

I thought something with Creating, Defining and Refining might sound cool, but that might be more of a catchy subtitle. I’ll probably use that as an in-line title a bit later.

We create clear, concise, productive results in any marketplace.

That one’s short, but not very tightly-focused. It sounds like I do everything for everyone, and while this could be a truth, it’s also something that needs to be fixed from a business stand-point.

Taking a closer look at the work I do, I considered a mission statement with a slant towards a partnership, as a large percentage of the work I do is to assist other design/development/marketing agencies.

We’re your creative partner. Together we’ll create visually-exciting, cost-effective marketing solutions for your business.

This one also sounds like a title or a catch-phrase of sorts, but I do like the uniqueness to the delivery.

I also do full-service design and development for small companies, which pushes me in this direction:

Creative Component provides a unique combination of experience, creativity, and leading edge technology to provide businesses with the solutions that match their needs and contribute to their success.

I think I’m going to sleep on it.

Here’s a short {somewhat corny, but poignant} video on developing an Elevator Pitch.

Grab the MP3 File | duration 29:24

During the interview, I asked the question: “Should small businesses have mission statements too?”

Henning responded:

“I don’t believe that any business has ever really suffered terribly from having a mission statement. They are incredibly good tools for an organization to help people focus on what they want to put out into the world — whether it’s products or services.

A good mission statement describes not only what you’re going to do, but the way that you’re going to do it. The way you’re going to do it is the key thing that any organization can benefit from. That in many ways is the essence of strategy. — The style that you’re going to do something is inherently different than the way anyone else is going to do it.

Mission Statements are tricky things to develop, but a tool that we like to use is something called The Elevator Pitch. It was developed by Geoffrey Moore and found in his book Crossing the Chasm. It’s a kind-of a fill-in-the-blanks way of putting together what the essence of your offering is to folks. It’s a very short statement that really gets to the heart of the matter.”

Every organization and every human being struggles with sticking to what it is they say they’re going to do.

To this point, Henning adds:

“A mission statement might be as easy as I’m going to lose five pounds. And that never happens. Mission statements are often-times easily tossed-off as this is what we’re going to do, and as long as we say it, it’s going to be a reality. A mission statement is a hard thing to execute-upon, and you need to be realistic about implementing one. If you’re not going to hold yourself to a mission statement, then what’s the worth of really having one? Not living-up to your mission is almost more harmful than not even having one in some ways.”

Based on the advice I’ve heard from speaking with Henning, I’m in the process of developing the Creative Component mission statement.

So what’s your elevator pitch?

• Do small companies need mission statement too?
• How do I create a mission statement for my company?
• What are the differences between a Mission, Vision and Value statement?
• Should a mission statement be specific, or simply a 30,000 foot view?

Show listener Anonymous asks this question about living-up to a mission statement:

“I’ve worked at many organizations that had mission statements straight out of Dilbert, and don’t live the values they espouse, they’re just words on paper that have zero impact on action. Why does this lack of vision-transfer happen from the C-suite down? How can you get companies to wake up in middle management and start walking the talk?”

On the topic of Web Design & Development…

• Why is scope important, or even necessary?
• How do you determine Project Scope?
• In terms of the visitors of a website, it’s probably best to know your audience?
• On planning, what about setting objectives? Does this come from asking the hard-hitting questions?

Listener Elbowroom Design in Calgary, Alberta asks this question:

“Sometimes we get great ideas for a website once we’re halfway into the development project. By that point, it’s not called a good idea, it’s just something that gets in the way of meeting deadlines and budgets.
– What are some ways to shake out the important epiphanies at an early enough stage?”

Join us next week, when we speak with Kate Rutter, a Senior Practitioner at Adaptive path, who will be speaking on EVALUATING YOUR CURRENT WEB SITE.

Learn more about Henning and Adaptive Path on their web site.
Henning Fischer’s bio: www.adaptivepath.com/aboutus/henning.php
About Adaptive Path: www.adaptivepath.com/aboutus

JERRY MAGUIRE’S MISSION STATEMENT
The things we think and do not say: thoughts of a sports attorney

Over the past several weeks I’ve had the great opportunity to speak with some incredible experts who have all given great advice on planning a design project. I’m putting the finishing touches on my planning documentation, and I’ll share this with you soon.

If you missed the podcast episodes, you can listen to the interviews here:

Michael Boyink on Site Architecture and the basics of building a site in ExpressionEngine. Blog Post | Podcast

Lea Alcantara about Branding for Designers. Blog Post | Podcast

Lorraine Ball on Branding for Clients. Blog Post | Podcast

Henning Fischer on Developing a Mission Statement. Blog Post | Podcast

Lorraine believes that the only way to be successful is for a brand to stand for something, and to own that position in a consumer’s mind.

Grab the MP3 File | duration 25:28

Visit Lorraine online at www.roundpeg.biz

Earlier, I posted a topic, asking the question of “Who is my Target Audience?”
On the topic of Designing a web site for site visitors or clients, Lorraine adds:

“…You need to design your site based on the objectives of your business. If you have a strong customer base, and what you’re looking to do is maintain and strengthen the relationships with your existing customers, you need to design for them. If you’re primarily in an expansion mode, and you’re looking to attract new customers, you still don’t design for everybody. My recommendation is that you think about your ideal client. You put a picture of that person on the wall in your office, and you talk to, and write to, and design for that client. The one thing I don’t think you should do is — design for other designers. It’s fun, but unless your business is about freelancing for other designers, then you need to impress them. Designers standards are high; they’re going to look for the pithy, the clever, the edgy. If your target clients are business owners, who tend to be a little more conscious, as it’s their money they’re spending, they want stable/interesting design. They’re not going to get your inside jokes or your humor, and so my recommendation is your core site is perhaps a little more straightforward, then it’s ok to have some fun & clever pages tucked in there; little surprises for the designers who will appreciate your humor…”

Specifically, if you have questions about “Setting Goals and/or Developing a Mission Statement”, I’d love to {literally} have your voice in the show. Get them to me ASAP.
Head over to the Contact Page for info.

Thanks!

Grab the MP3 File | duration 25:28

During the interview, Lea talked about CONSISTENCY, and how this is is the most important aspect of branding.

After doing some self-examination, I feel that consistency is one area I need to improve going-forward, both in presentation and site content.

Lea says:

Consistency is hard, weather you’re a big corporation or a small little shop. I think there is an idea with big companies that, while they have more resources and they can have someone focused on branding… it’s very difficult, but that’s part of the reason why brand guidelines exist, and you should have some sort of document, weather it’s a formal several-page document, or if it’s just a cheat-sheet. Keep double-checking to remind you of what your goals are and what kind of general scheme you need to follow. The big companies — they have a similar arsenal, they just have more people to help keep it in-line. You can just pair that down for a one-person shop too.

The biggest take-away in our discussion was the part about keeping things real with your visitors/readers.

On the Creative Component blog, I would often post anything that came to mind — the funny, the interesting and sometimes would even write articles on Web Design. I’ve come to realize that people were likely confused when visiting my site. These posts were definitely an extension of me, but I think the direction for the new site will be to carve-out a specific area for the ‘fun stuff’ and to make a distinction between all things business-related and wacky.

Lea says:

Some people {meaning: the better blogs} do a mix successfully, but when you really stop and take a look at their blog, it’s not really THAT much of a mix. It’s really focused on whatever their niche audience or articles are, and then occasionally, they put-in slices of life, but they tend to be really meaningful slices of life, as in “I just got married”, so for example, that’s a big enough thing that people wouldn’t mind you interrupting the flow of your general business/design talk. I think if people are going to your blog for a certain reason, then if you put-in the more-qwerky, less epic events in your life, that turns-off lots of visitors. They expect a certain type of quality, and consistency.

Always be aware of your visitors expectations.

It is a bit of a balance though. One reason why blogs are so appealing, and another strength of branding is you need to evoke and express your personality. Say you have a huge passion for food, but you only have a design blog. If you want to talk about food in your design blog, it needs to somehow relate to design.

Visit CreativeXpert.com for the rest of the show notes

Visit Lealea Design

I’m pretty excited to share some new ideas with you!

Tuesday PM, I’m recording a face-to-face interview with Lorraine Ball, a local Marketing expert from roundpeg. This should also be very eye-opening.

I am too busy to edit the show this week, so I will likely be posting next week.

It’s a Shaker quote posted by Ward Cunningham from Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc. — Home of WardsWiki, also known as the WikiWikiWeb – the original wiki that has been around since 1995.
{Its official name is the PortlandPatternRepository, the World’s first wiki!}

If it is not useful or necessary, free yourself from imagining that you need to make it.

If it is useful and necessary, free yourself from imagining that you need to enhance it by adding what is not an integral part of its usefulness or necessity.

And finally: If it is both useful and necessary and you can recognize and eliminate what is not essential, then go ahead and make it as beautifully as you can.

Genius, right? Read the rest here…