Being Lightweight: Planting the Right Plants
By leelefever on November 25, 2008 - 12:20pm
If you don't like yardwork, you have a choice. You can hire gardeners or you can plant things that don't require much care.
This is my way of saying that we all have a choice in how we grow. Because we want Common Craft to stay small, we look at new opportunities in terms of yardwork and ask ourselves - is this going to require gardeners in the future? If so, then maybe we should look for opportunities that are more likely to take care of themselves and allow us to focus on what really makes us excited and happy.
View With CommentsBeing Lightweight: Business Design
By leelefever on July 21, 2008 - 9:36am
This is the third in a series of posts about Being Lightweight. The first two were about Working with Clients and Tools We Use.
We are lucky to have a product that people like. Our challenge is to experiment and find the best ways to build a business around this product. To be successful we need the business to be profitable, but also work within the life we want to live.
Beachcombers and Making the Lightweight Choice
By leelefever on July 09, 2008 - 12:13pm
I suppose some would say it's downright un-American, but we worked on July 4th and 5th. It was our choice - a choice that enabled us to take the 7th and 8th and go camping without the hordes of people. It's something we do often - work when others aren't so we can play without crowds. It's a choice we make.
View With CommentsBeing Lightweight: Tools We Use
By leelefever on June 10, 2008 - 10:20am
This is the second in a series of posts about being lightweight. Our first was focused on working with clients and this installment is all about tools we use.
Tools, or the the wrong tools, become a risk when they create unnecessary drag in every day work. Often, we've found ourselves wondering if we're using a sledgehammer to drive a nail. If so, we look for alternatives.
View With CommentsBeing Lightweight: Working with Clients
By leelefever on May 11, 2008 - 2:34pm
It's a question we ask each other all the time - what is the most lightweight way we can do this?
We are a small company who is trying to do big things. In order to be
successful, we need to reduce drag - to remove the processes,
bureaucracies and commitments that slow us down and don't pay off.
Today we're kicking off a series of posts called "Being Lightweight" that will relate what lightweight means to us and hopefully help you think differently about how you focus your attention.
View With CommentsTwo Quotes on Simplicity
By leelefever on April 12, 2008 - 4:44pm
The first is by Antione de Saint Exupéry, author of The Little Prince and a pioneer in aviation:
Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.
The second is by William of Occam (1288-1347) You might know the name from Occam's Razor.
It is vain to do more with what can be done with less.
View With CommentsFree is the Future
By leelefever on February 26, 2008 - 1:11pm
Chris Anderson, the author of The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, has moved his focus to "Free". His article is the cover story of the latest Wired (Free!
15 Lessons Learned in 2007
By leelefever on January 02, 2008 - 11:04am
What a year. I can say with ultimate confidence that we never would have guessed, one year ago, that 2007 would be so transformative for Common Craft. Here are some things we learned:
OUR WORK
Video works. Text, graphics, audio, they all have a place. But video is a different animal. Nothing engages people like the dynamics of a video. Ever read about a car chase? It's not as fun.
View With CommentsLearning The Independent Lifestyle
By leelefever on December 14, 2007 - 4:56pm
I always wanted to be independent - I never, not once in my life, had the goal of working for someone else. It's not in my genes. In 2003 I founded Common Craft and in January of 2007 Sachi joined the company. Since then, Sachi has been the real force driving our goal of having a truly independent lifestyle.
And it is ALL about lifestyle. As I've written before, we make our lifestyle a huge priority. Why choose to be independent if you can't create a job and schedule that works for you? We've been trying to figure out what this means and I have a couple of examples.
3 Questions from a Reader
By leelefever on November 15, 2007 - 4:39pm
In a recent blog post, we asked for questions from readers. Thanks to Joan from High Contagious Marketing for asking these thought-provoking questions:
1. If your fairy godmother told you she would grant you three wishes for your business, what three wishes would you request.
Wish #1: An easy one. Stop ALL spam, effective immediately. This includes online spam, junk mail, front door solicitors, political calls, etc.
