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Author Archives: Tara Hunt

I [heart] my mini ma.rker

What is it about mini versions of things that just make them so lovable? Our fabulous client, Ma.gnolia – which I know we go on about, but they just make us so darned proud (a 3-person 4-person team that implements fast and correctly and really, really gives a darn about community) – just released their [...]

Fear: a hat tip to 37 Signals

Another brilliant post at Signal vs. Noise…this one on fear and scaling… The flip-side is that you need to recognize genuine threats — even if they’re “boringâ€? issues. Things like these are a lot more likely to actually cripple your chances of success:Taking forever to launch Running out of money Not solving a real problem [...]

We could give a darn

We were asked the other day what happens if our clients’ Investors don’t like our open source and transparent approach to community. We replied: “They don’t hire us to be concerned about the investors, they hire us to be concerned about the community.” Same goes for all of the other aspects of the business. We [...]

Everyone needs a chandelier for their conference room

To go along with Citizen Agency’s emerging French classic (colonial?) brand, we purchased this chandelier to become the centerpiece for our soon-to-be-complete ‘Conversation Room’ in the Citizen Agency/Coworking South Park offices. Our new landlord is totally rockin’. The building is being slowly renovated, so we get to personalize our office. With the help of our [...]

Make something worth talking about

Kate* writes: So, our real job as marketers is to ensure that we’ve made something worth talking about. And so begins the dance between product management and product marketing (steps I’m learning to do). Marketers need to understand our products more than ever, but more importantly, we need to understand our customer and what they [...]

Spent the day with some Aussies

Had a vigorous brainstorming day with the brilliant team of one of our fabulous clients, Tangler, today. What were we brainstorming? Well, we were trying to decide exactly where to pinpoint the entrypoint to a long journey ahead. I know. I know. Secretive sounding. But we are excited about this smart team and where they [...]

No Adversaries Here

The reason I dislike the term ‘users’ or ‘consumers’ is that both terms denote an adversarial relationship with one’s community. As in, “I produce and you consume” or as in “I give and you use”. I much prefer the use of the term community member or even a customer. Neither feel adversarial. Instead, it feels [...]

What’s your business model?

[from Flickr] The other day, someone asked Chris, “So, what’s your business model?” Chris looked at him in disbelief and answered, “It’s this strange fangled new thing called consulting. You see, people hire us to spend time on their marketing and product design and then we bill them and they pay us.” Crazy. The valley [...]

The Trap of Being Nice

Chris and I both have an issue: We are nice. We don’t want to disappoint anyone. My biggest issue: I can’t say no. I mentioned before that we are all filled up client-wise. We are, at this time, working flat-out for the clients we have. Anything else could compromise that or our own sanity. However, [...]

Cebelrating

So…here we are at the end of, what? Like just over a month in bidness and we’ve maxxed out on clients. We’ve signed all of our ‘willing to do client work time’ (as opposed to volunteer, community, development and business stuff work) and signed all of the contracts related to that. We have deposits in [...]