Where Goldfish Come From

A couple of months ago, I presented a 5 minute presentation at Ignite Seattle called "Where Goldfish Come From" that is based on my experience growing up as a son of a goldfish farmer in North Carolina.  The Ignite series happens around the globe and each presenter has 20 slides that display for 15 seconds each, and auto-advance.  It's a challenge to make it work, but I enjoy it.

Here's the video:

Learn more at BlueRidgeKoi.com

View With Comments

R.I.P Amos, Our Faithful Mascot

It's a sad day at Common Craft headquarters.  Our 15-year-old dog Amos passed away today. 

I picked him from a litter of puppies in the back of a pickup truck in Boone, NC in 1994. Since then he was a constant source of love in our lives.  They don't make 'em better than him - we were lucky have him for so long.

Amos, September 4th, 2009

See Having an Old Dog for a bit more about Amos.

View With Comments

Editors in Brief: Common Craft Article in Seattle Magazine

A few months ago, we spent an afternoon with Jamie Friddle, a writer for Seattle Magazine, who was putting together a story on Common Craft. We were so excited. A few weeks later a photographer came to take pictures.

As Sachi will tell you, the process added a layer of anxiety to her day over the next few months. What would the article say? What photos would they use? I'm happy to report that the anxiety was all for naught. The 4 page feature appears in the May 2009 issue of Seattle Magazine and we love it. Jamie's writing captured, in a compelling and interesting way, what we're all about.

Read the article.

 

 

View With Comments

18 Lessons Learned in 2008

It's time for our 2nd annual Year-End Lessons Learned post. 2008 was a great year for Common Craft.  While we published a number of videos that we're very proud of, 2008 was all about building a foundation for the future of our business.  Going into 2009, we're feeling confident that we have a solid foundation in place - and now is our time to put more videos into the world.

Here are a few things we learned: 

Overall Business:

View With Comments

Happy Holidays from Common Craft

View With Comments

What A New Dentist Taught Me About Explanation

Over my life as a dental patient, dentists have told me to pay close attention to brushing the back of my bottom front teeth. Unfortunately, this piece of professional advice had a hard time getting into my daily routine.  That changed recently - I'm now much more likely to brush these teeth - and it's because a new dentist took an extra 30 seconds to explain something important - why.

View With Comments

You've Spoken: Common Craft and Politics

Through nearly 50 comments and 15-20 emails, you have spoken. You don't want to see politics on Common Craft. I agree that it is the right move - political discussions will not appear on the Common Craft web site. We may make videos about events that relate to government, but these will not reflect personal/partisan views.  A couple of things:

1) First, wow.  We are both so excited to see such amazing comments. The thoughtfulness is inspiring. Thank you so much for being involved - we are lucky to have people like you around us. My Mom even got involved via email (thanks Mom!)

View With Comments

Not Talking Politics is Hard

Sachi and I have an ongoing discussion that I want to share with you, dear reader, because I want to hear your feedback.

When I was a consultant, people would ask me what subjects are appropriate for a blog.  Inevitably I would say that it should reflect the person behind the blog and what is important to them. It should be multi-faceted and provide personality along with on-topic content.  I would also say that context matters - company blogs deserve special care, for instance.

So here I am with the Common Craft blog and there are two things that are very important to me right now:

1. Making videos

2. The Presidential Elections

View With Comments

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

1000+ items.  That's what Google Reader told me I need to read to catch up with my RSS subscriptions.  It's intimidating.  My RSS feeds were mocking me. I could see them with sneaky voices "hee hee, you'll never read me, you don't have the time. ha ha."  The sad part is, they were right.

View With Comments

Assuming Too Much About The Web We See

I wouldn't call it disappointment, but rather a dose of reality.  I spent the last week in Las Vegas at the Community 2.0 conference and with my family thereafter.  Coming back, I must say that the trip gave me some much-needed perspective. Let me explain.

We work from home.  We make videos, we put them on the Web, people watch them.  We track our views, our Technorati links, our mentions in Twitter, our blog comments. A good percentage of people we see in social situations in Seattle are aware of our work.  Most of the email we receive is about the videos and of course, it dominates our discussions at home.  This is all misleading and a bit unhealthy.

View With Comments