by Jake Brenner

Beyond robbing a bank or being at fault for the Southern California black out; getting on the news isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Fortunately, Jacob Tyler’s recent implementation of the 16PF personality test administered by New Brain For Business Institute sparked the interest of Fox 5 San Diego. Check out the segment below and find out why the Jacob Tyler team is more like “Chocolate and Peanut Butter” than “Oil and Water”. Enjoy!

By Nicole Fletcher

After a long day at the office last night, my friend and I settled in for our weekly Bachelor fix…. (did I just admit that?) During this 2 hours of awesome, we happened upon this painfully obnoxious JC Penny Commercial  that literally had my pal covering her ears. I of course, took one look at the call to action – “2.1 facebook.com/jcp” and had to rewind and photograph. She looked at me and said, “good god Nicole.. at least mute it first“…that’s how bad it is.

Now mind you, I’ll never get that 60 seconds of my life back… and my ears are pissed about it- but I’m fairly sure we’ll know what all the hoopla is about tomorrow. I googled the concept to see what other people thought and instead of finding intrigued marketing minds… I found really really pissed consumers. Like really.

On one site, 24 comments were posted today and it’s not even 9am. One another, a whopping 240 comments were put up… none of them favorable. People are not digging this spot but it makes me wonder… does JCP have a method to their madness? Let’s hope so …. If I were to make a hopefully optimistic guess I’d say that they anticipated a boat load of intrigue following a nonsensical commercial and what they thought was a strong call to action. Turns out it wasn’t strong enough as no one … except me.. is talking about tomorrow. It’s either that or they watched the damn commercial so many times it magically became not the most annoying thing ever to them.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what they have up their sleeve on the target day- Feb 1… it better be good. Maybe it’ll be a big Banana Republic esque Facebook sale (the 50% off for facebook fans one they did a few months back) or something totally new and innovative. Including a social call to action to what is probably a more traditional demographic is a bold move. In this first phase of this promotion, they have successfully alienated their core demographic in favor of a new, younger, tech savvy one. Let’s hope they make magic happen and win back this super obnoxious blunder.

In case you want to watch it… turn down your volume first…

By Michelle Peck

It’s that time of year, when we all spend our free time thinking about what gifts to buy, decorating the house with festive lights, planning parties, and singing along to a favorite Christmas carol. The holidays bring love, joy, and excitement year after year and sparks the inner designer in all of us. Design and art direction are all about providing a strategic look and feel to tell a story which is much like the well-planned gift giving and ornate ambiance of the holidays. So follow Santa’s lead to designing the perfect holiday this season with a few simple guidelines.

Think About Your Audience

Before hitting the shopping malls to purchase all the gifts on your list, you need to sit and spend time thinking about your audience and developing a strategy. Think about what each person wants, what their interests are, and how they like to spend their time. It’s important to understand how to speak to your audience, whether it’s finding the perfect gift, or promoting your brand.

Spark Emotion

By relating to your audience, you’ll be able to create a personal connection through your gift giving. You give gifts to people you care about and the right choice will evoke an emotional response in your recipient. Good art direction is all about finding this emotion and tapping into it. Good gifts should do the same thing.

Tell a Story

Christmas carols don’t only provide a festive tune, they tell a story and invite everyone to sing along. They make you feel joyous and bring out the holiday spirit. Creating a voice to convey a story is crucial in marketing a product or service. Conceptual writing makes you feel something beyond learning the facts. A catchy tune doesn’t only tell you what the Christmas story is all about, but you also feel the love and giving the season captures.

Choose a Color Scheme

Yes, it’s true everyone thinks about red and green as the traditional holiday color palette, but bringing true design into your holiday requires so much more. It’s about creating the ideal look for bringing holiday cheer into your home. Define what colors fit your personality and give the vibe your going for. Do you want your home to feel fun, formal, unique or traditional when the family arrives? A color scheme can make a huge impact on the tone of your design and create the appropriate mood.

Establish Your Brand

Ever wonder why the holidays are filled with snowflakes, santa hats, presents, and decorated trees? Visuals are a key element to good design. They are used to support the branding and concept by providing a consistent look throughout all components of a campaign. Visual cues create a culture that is quick to understand in any language. Ornaments and candy canes represent the holidays even without any mention of Christmas. They are ownable elements that can only be used when speaking about your brand.

Check Your Work

Santa knows the value of making a list and checking it twice. The last step for any designer is to proof, test, and share your work with others. The critiques and feedback you receive will only make you a better designer. So, be sure to check those holiday cards before sending them out and have a family member taste your favorite dish before placing it on the table.

In the spirit of the holidays, everyone can be a designer. Know your audience to find the perfect gift, create bliss with a well-told story, and incorporate the right visual elements into your home. You’ll be sure to have a very happy holiday season.

I am currently a member of the Entrepreneurs Organization and it never ceases to amaze me how much I get out of being a part of their network. One of the small perks is receiving Octane Magazine which is chock full of interesting and informative articles relative to all facets of business. Recently my new LinkedIn friend Angela Randall (from EO Houston) wrote a great article about user experience that I felt obligated to share (with her permission of course). She says some pretty basic and very smart things we sometimes lose sight of and I think it makes for a quick and interesting read. Enjoy!

Want to know what really ruins a web site’s user experience?

Bending over backwards in an attempt to please each customer. Many eager Business owners conclude that the only way to satisfy a customer is to cater to his every whim. The result is ambiguous, be-everything-to-everybody customer experiences. Product teams try to incorporate every feature ever requested, while service teams try to be so flexible in their offerings that it’s no longer clear what the company specializes in. Of course, this ends up being counter-productive.

1. Reduce the amount of choices:
Choices give customers the illusion of being in control, but they’re actually a cognitive burden. having to decide between too many choices becomes work. Here’s an example: A design-it-yourself shades and blinds company couldn’t figure out why so few customers chose their feature-rich product line, when their competitors offered far fewer customization options online. After investigating, we found that the sheer number of available options overwhelmed and intimidated potential customers, making the competitor’s simpler experience more manageable. Removing the least-used options and hidings others under “Advanced Features” on their Web site helped the company streamline its offerings.

2. Tell your customers what to do:
Seriously order them about. When I tell my clients this, they look at me funny. Thing is, most people know what to do in a store, but on the Web, it’s not always obvious how to take the next step. Don’t expect customers to hunt around on your site for a phone number or e-mail. that’s too much work. instead, take the work out of navigating by using clear calls to action like “Learn more,” “Request a free evaluation” and “Buy now.” One of our client, a continuing education provider, didn’t understand why people weren’t signing up for their coursed. We added a prominent “Register now” button to the course-description page. Problem solved.

3. Observe, don’t listen to your customers:
What customers want and what they say they want are two different things. the only way to learn the truth is to watch their behavior. Basic analytics software will tell you you which of your site’s pages people visit most and how long they spend there. there are also more sophisticated tools that track user’ movements to give you an idea of what people are reading on your site, and where they’re getting stuck in forms. ultimately, sitting next to customer performing prescribed tasks on your Web site or application is the best way to discover reasons why users call customer support instead of searching the documentation, or why so many of them quite on the las step of the process.

For example, an African national oil company had built an oil-trading application that was intended to track US$160 billion worth of oil annually…but nobody used it. Since the users had meticulously described their workflow, the developers assumed the problem must be technical– “We need more servers!” User testing revealed, however, that the users’ workflow wasn’t really sequential as they had described. instead, they saved up all their orders for entry in a single batch at the end of the day. After modifying the interface to facilitate batch, adaption skyrocketed.

Of course, we would never advocate treating customers with anything less than dignity and respect. but we realize that an entrepreneur’s primary role is to be a steward, not a butler. We don’t pander…we lead. Customers will follow.