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When you hear the word “leadership,” do you think of a particular person?

If you’d been asked that question anytime before the 1900s, chances are you’d think of an accomplished politician or a battle-tested general. These were the people leading society for most of recorded history. Today, you might have someone else in mind.

Since the industrial era, the US has birthed a pantheon of founders who’ve arguably led our society as much as any statesman or president. We put Rockefeller and Ford right next to Lincoln and Jefferson. Think about it; these guys haven’t just changed the US; they’ve changed how the entire world lives and does business.

Founders of successful companies today command even larger amounts of capital and power than JD and Henry. With the rise of social media, they are often thrust to the forefront of their brands and the public, whether they like it or not. Some manage the responsibility better than others.

In my opinion, the best businesses use all that capital, manpower, and name recognition to do more than simply make a profit. By leading with authenticity, inspiring positive action, and influencing their brand’s vision for innovation – they try to make a change.

I wanted to take a minute to reflect on some modern founder-led brands I think are doing a killer job of creating unique, world-changing businesses and company cultures. I also want to discuss the lessons I have learned from them.

Elon Musk – Tesla

When talking about founder-led brands of the 21st century, it’s hard to pass over electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and its outspoken CEO, Elon Musk. Love him or loathe him, he belongs in any conversation on influential founders.

While Musk isn’t technically the founder of Tesla, he is one hundred percent responsible for the company’s direction over the past decade. I think two of the strongest leadership points for Musk are his focus on branding and innovation.

Tesla created showrooms and charging stations long before his business had the sales to justify the expense. People saw the name Tesla everywhere, got curious about it, and now that’s paying off big time. Tesla today is at the forefront of the EV industry while all the other car companies play catch-up.

Behind the scenes, Tesla was also early to create a vertically-integrated supply chain – giving it almost complete control over its product and logistics. That’s another feature with a hefty upfront price tag but paid off when the pandemic hit. Now the biggest automakers in the world are rushing to copy that model.

Musk arguably even convinced China to deregulate foreign ownership of automotive companies. That’s hard to prove. However, China changed its rules around foreign ownership of EV companies shortly after he refused to enter the country.

Arguably, Tesla today is one of the frontrunners in redefining how traditional companies run. Musk is known to hate bureaucracy and traditional hierarchies. He hires other people to take care of bureaucratic processes for him.

Musk is also known for hiring relatively young, hard-working employees into high-power management positions in the company and letting them prove themselves. That inspires extreme loyalty from his employees from an early age. Musk’s focus on efficiency and rejection of traditional hierarchies has sparked a small revolution in tech companies.

Finally, I respect Musk because he has goals beyond showing year-over-year growth to shareholders. That’s hard to do day in and day out.

Sara Blakely – Spanx

Sara Blakely is an example of a founder with her hands in every part of her business, from product creation to sales. Most importantly, she created an authentic company culture with values she felt the business world lacked.

For those who know her story, Spanx very nearly didn’t happen. Blakely pitched her slimming undergarment to multiple women’s brands run by men. Most told her it would never work.

It might seem silly now, but men used to think they knew women’s fashion better than women. It wasn’t until one executive gave Blakely’s product to his daughters to try out that he agreed to start stocking Spanx. It’s a great example of how businesses can make a lot of money by listening to their customers.

Besides founding a women’s clothing company that sells products women want, Blakely strived to bring “feminine energy” into the workplace. I saw this poignant quote from her in an article:

“Twenty-one years ago when I started Spanx, I ended up in the paper in Atlanta, and I was at a cocktail party and a couple of guys came up to me and they said, ‘Sara, we read about you. Congratulations! We heard you invented something.’ And I said, ‘Yes I did, I’m so excited.’ They said, ‘Business is war,’ and then they pat me on the shoulder and they kind of laughed at each other. I went back home to my apartment that night. I was 29 and I just thought, I’m not going to war. I’m going to do this very differently. I’m going to honor a lot of feminine principles — intuition, empathy, kindness. Just allowing myself to be vulnerable through this process. And of course, a lot of the masculine energy has helped me also — it was a balance. But I wasn’t going to do it by squashing the feminine.”

Blakely worked hard to create a sales-oriented company culture that was purposely welcoming from that point forward. She regularly scheduled “oops meetings” where employees could stand up and say how they messed up and turn it into a funny story. At Spanx, it was okay to make mistakes and learn from them.

Blakely wanted everything about her product to be fun, including the way it was sold. She created a mandatory boot camp for salespeople, which, among other things, requires employees to perform standup comedy. Little things like that resonated with people and made Spanx synonymous with “fun.” Even famous actresses were flashing their Spanx on the red carpet.

The lesson we can all learn from Spanx and Blakely is that fun and positive energy are great marketing tools for any business. Many companies try to push a fun culture publicly without any authentic leadership that genuinely exemplifies that narrative, they won’t have the same effect. Blakely’s story of Spanx is not just a story of the brand but a story of her life and the experiences that shaped her vision and goals.

Jack Dorsey – Block (FKA Square)

While better known for founding Twitter, Jack Dorsey has recently been in the news for his move to solely running payment processing business Block. I admire Dorsey because he radically encourages his teams to think differently about how they work.

Dorsey is known for optimizing ways to stay productive and focused throughout the day. He manages through unconventional tactics like communicating only through voice memos on his phone that he runs through transcription apps. He says this prevents him from being sidetracked by distractions on his computer. I think that kind of mindfulness is necessary now more than ever.

Dorsey tries to bring this level of focus to his interactions with his employees too. I saw a great quote from him in this article discussing computer-less meetings at Block.

“When phones are down and laptops are closed, the team can discuss any issue at hand without distraction. We can actually focus and not just spend an hour together but make that time meaningful — and if that time is 15 minutes, then it’s 15 minutes and then we move on with our lives.”

Besides limiting distractions, Dorsey is known to walk five miles to work daily, theme each day, and create detailed agendas and goals for each team meeting. In his former company, Twitter, the culture was frequently described as a space where employees could speak freely to management about things they wanted to change.

On that subject, Dorsey has been known to push hard for employee control in his companies. Perhaps ironically, he was also quoted saying he wants Twitter to break away from its co-founders’- vision and control, calling founder-led companies “severely limiting.” However, it still seems he has some sort of vision for the world that he wants to bring around via Block.

His business goals are visionary, pushing the boundaries of innovation in the financial world.

Dorsey is a known cryptocurrency enthusiast but had pushback from the Twitter team, including his CFO, about making a crypto-centric product. His move to payments processor, Block, seems to be a bid to follow his passion and exert his vision on the world.

Block has since made headlines for being extremely bullish on cryptocurrencies, while many have expressed doubts. Dorsey even changed the business’s name to Block to better reflect its focus on blockchain and famously purchased $50 million worth of Bitcoin in 2020. All the while, Dorsey has been quietly creating arms of his business in the hopes of improving BTC’s usefulness. That may pay off down the line.

Melanie Perkins – Canva

I identify strongly with Melanie Perkins, co-founder of graphic design SaaS, Canva. Besides being roughly the same age, we both came from nondescript beginnings with no background in entrepreneurship or tech.

Canva is an excellent example of a business created by becoming intimately familiar with a customer problem and executing. Perkins spent years teaching people how to use design platforms like Adobe Creative Suite because they were so complicated. Taking that knowledge, she started a simple product to help customers create high school yearbooks. That expanded into a super app covering every aspect of design.

This super-app has unlocked a way for millions to learn design and produce high-quality content at any skill level. The cost to use Canva is many times lower than anything else on the market.

While Canva is an amazing product, what I like most about Perkins is that she believes business serves a higher purpose than maximizing profits.

When she was suddenly thrust into the limelight with a $40 billion valuation, people were even more impressed by Perkins’ philanthropic goals. She vowed to donate a 30 percent stake in Canva to a charity dedicated to eliminating poverty (about $12 billion). She is also known to regularly fundraise for 25,000 different nonprofits through her app. She doesn’t just inspire people with words, but by actions, she’s actually taking.

Canva is very public about its ethos. I like their values because they are general yet avoid the jargon many companies fall into. They are:

  • To be a force for good and empower others;
  • Pursue excellence;
  • Be a good human;
  • Make complex things simple;
  • Set crazy big goals and make them happen.

Besides revolutionizing how modern businesses design and harness goodwill marketing, Canva was also one of the forerunners of the remote work trend.

Most of Canva’s “Canvanauts” worked from homes worldwide even before the pandemic. Canva showed a lot of tired old businesses that you could still run a successful company without having employees in the office 24/7.

How I Try to Learn From the Best

Finally, I want to talk about what I am trying to contribute to my team and society with my current business, startup acquisition marketplace, MicroAcquire.

As I’ve mentioned, I think it is very much on myself as a founder to set the tone of my business – and that starts with who I hire. When I’m searching for new employees to join the “#Micromafia” I not only look for productive workers, I look for people I genuinely enjoy spending time with. It’s the best feeling in the world to go to meetings where you leave thinking, “That was really fun.”

Besides creating a great team, I’ve tried to address another problem I see again and again at major tech companies: employee burnout. There’s a reason the average tenure of a tech employee is three years.

I love working on startups. It’s like playing a video game for me, and it’s probably why I’m a founder. That said, I know my employees don’t always feel the same way. As CEO, I make sure my team knows I want them to live their lives outside of MicroAcquire.

On the business side of things, I take cues from the best. Like Musk and Dorsey, I want to preemptively create features that I know our customers will love. I knew people wanted an easy way to sell their startups because I wished I’d had one back when I was doing it.

Like Spanx and Tesla, I also strongly believe in the power of innovative branding – and I make sure we spend in areas that will give us significant returns down the line.

For example, we’ve made it easy to get MicroAcquire merchandise online completely free. The extra exposure we get from tech people rocking MicroAcquire t-shirts is more than worth the cost. We also created our own media publication Bootstrappers.com to tell the founder stories we thought major publications had missed. That’s been a huge hit with our customers, who also happen to be founders. These people traditionally have had to spam inboxes and pay for press because they didn’t raise billions in funding.

Finally, like Blakely and Perkins, I also want to actively listen to customer feedback and make sure we create a necessary and desired product. That’s why I make sure we’re constantly engaging with our community both on our website and social media. Many of the features we’ve added are just things we’ve heard mentioned multiple times from customers.

So far, I love the community we’ve created online and in the office. I don’t claim to have the winning formula, but I feel we are making a real difference out there. We’re lucky to live in a world with so many smart people getting their ideas out and making a positive change in the world.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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A press release is one of the most valuable tools in a marketing team’s arsenal. Though press releases have been around for decades, they remain one of the best ways to reach new customers, improve your brand reputation, and generate awareness. 

Press releases are also wonderfully cost-effective. Unless you’re using paid distribution channels, all you have to spend is your time to create your press release.

So, how do you get started?

What is a Press Release?

A Press Release is a short, simple, and compelling news story designed to promote the goods and services of a business. You’ll usually see these pieces of content published on industry websites, news channels, social media platforms, and even on the company’s blogs looking for awareness. 

The idea behind a press release is you provide a publication or group with all of the most valuable facts and insights into your latest newsworthy story. You might use a press release to announce a new product or to tell people about your recent partnership, for instance. 

A press release post then delivers this information to a wider potential audience by distributing the content in a range of different places. 

Why Should My Business Send Press Releases?

Why not simply tell people about your latest products and sales on social media, and leave it at that? The simple answer is Press Releases help you to gain the attention you might not get from your own media channels alone. With a press release, you can:

  • Set the record straight: In the middle of a PR disaster, a Press Release can give people the information they need to make their own decision about who’s right.
  • To improve your brand reputation: Launching press releases through well-known publications immediately boosts your credibility. The right publication shows you’re well-connected and professional. 
  • To gain media coverage: When launching a new product or service, a press release helps attract potential customers to your business and gives you more opportunities for sales.
  • To improve SEO: In the digital world, a press release allows you to earn backlinks from high-authority websites, improving your ranking.
  • To find new customers: Press publications and websites will reach a wider audience than you can find on your own. In addition, publishing press releases gives you new eyes on your business for minimal cost. 

You can send a press release for various reasons, including announcing breaking news, talking about newly launched products, discussing upcoming events, confirming partnerships, and more. It’s also worth creating a press release when new people join your executive team when you receive an award, or even if something bad happens (for crisis management)

What’s Included in a Press Release?

A press release will include different information depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. In general, PR posts feature:

  • A headline: This is where you share the most important info of your story
  • Contact details: How the media can get in touch with you
  • Location: Where you are and where the news event is taking place
  • Body copy: Information about the news event
  • Quotes: It’s common to see quotes in a press release from high-level staff
  • Boilerplate: Insights into what your organization is about

How to Write a Press Release (Step by Step)

Now you know what goes into a press release and why these tools are so valuable, it’s time to start planning your big announcement. 

Here are our top tips for creating an amazing press release.

1. Choose the Right Story

Press releases are focused on sharing valuable news with a specific audience. It would be best if you had something important and new to say, or you risk not getting your story published at all. You can’t just talk about a product or service that’s selling well (unless it’s breaking world, or brand records). 

Think about whether your PR topic is:

  • Timely: Is the event you’re talking about just about to happen, or has it happened recently? If something happened weeks or months ago, press groups aren’t going to be interested. Aside from ensuring your message is timely, make it topical too. Ensure this story is going to give something valuable to your audience. 
  • Relevant: Before you send a press release to anyone, make sure it will be relevant to the audience you’re targeting. Who does the story affect, and why is it important? What kind of benefits or opportunities will it deliver?
  • Unique: What’s unusual or unique about this story? You don’t want to comment on the same things that everyone in your industry is already talking about. 
  • Engaging: What about your story is going to make readers stand up and take notice? Is there any trouble or tension you’re going to overcome? Look at this press release from Target as an example. How can you frame your story in a way that makes people want to learn more about your business?

When asking yourself what your PR story should be about, consider whether you want to publish it if you were a publication leader. From an objective perspective, does this story have value?

2. Answer the Right Questions

A press release doesn’t just provide information. Written correctly, this content will also answer essential questions for your audience. For instance, let’s take a look at the questions you should answer, with an example. 

For this example, we’ll be looking at a social media marketing firm partnering with an SEO brand:

  • Who is doing this? What’s the name of the social media marketing firm and the SEO brand? Where do they come from? Which executives are involved?
  • Who is affected? This news would probably affect the stakeholders and shareholders for the business and the customers by providing access to new services.
  • What have the companies done? They’ve joined forces in a partnership, but which sectors and teams are actually going to be working together?
  • Where is this happening? Which area will these two companies now serve? Who will be able to access the service?
  • When did it happen? When is the partnership going to start when will customers see the first major changes?
  • Why has this happened? In this example, the why might be to offer customers more services and helpful products. 
  • Why does this matter? Why is it so important that this event is taking place for your target audience? How are they going to benefit?
  • How will you be implementing this change? For example, if you’re partnering with a new business, will you change your brand name and leadership team? Will you have a new headquarters?

3. Target the Right Sector

Like most pieces of great copy, a press release should generally be written with a specific audience in mind. The interesting thing about a press release is that you’re not just writing for the people who might be interested in your products and services. You’re also writing for a specific publication, journalist, broadcaster, or editor. 

When you’re writing your content, you’ll need to keep both audiences in mind to ensure that you get your message across. Focus on the kind of crucial messages which will appeal to your end-users and customers but address the preferences and needs of the editor too. Many publications will have guidelines to follow if you want a chance of getting your content on their site. 

If you’re sending your press release to multiple locations, you might need to look into doing several different versions of your press releases, each with slightly different wording and information, based on your target publication.

4. Get the Headline Right

There are few things more important in a press release than an amazing headline. 

A good headline will immediately attract the attention of your publication, as well as anyone who might end up reading your article. The media uses headlines to determine whether stories are worth reading or publishing. This means that you need to get attention quickly. 

Most press release headlines don’t try to be clever. There isn’t a lot of fancy language to worry about. Instead, your focus should be on sharing the main point of the press release fast.

For instance, if you’re announcing the arrival of new security measures in your business to protect hybrid workers, you might have a headline like:

  • [Company] implements end-to-end encryption for hybrid workers
  • [Company] uses new encryption techniques to support hybrid work
  • [Company] invests in encryption technology for hybrid employees

5. Use the Right Structure

Structuring a press release can be tough.

Some companies have specific requests on how your press release should look. For instance, you might have to place the date and time in a specific place. For instance, CNN always puts the date of the release before the headline:

If you don’t have to follow a specific format, you should stick with the inverted pyramid structure. This strategy involves placing the most critical information first and moving down the hierarchy to less important info – like contact details. 

When structuring your press release, make sure the headline immediately tells your customers and readers what the story is about and presents immediate value. The opening paragraph will then summarise the main factors and elements of the story, giving a fuller explanation of what the story is about. For instance, for the “[Company] implements end-to-end encryption for hybrid workers” example, the first paragraph might read:

[Company] recently announced an investment in the latest encryption tools for information at rest and transit for hybrid employees. This new security strategy is rolling out immediately to new and existing customers of [company], with access to extra features available for premium subscribers.

The second paragraph then follows up with contextual insight into why this story is important. For instance, in the example above, the second paragraph might say:

This new investment comes at a time when more employees are moving into the hybrid working model. [Company] believes that higher encryption is crucial for teams working in a cloud environment, even with access to VPNs and other security measures available. 

The third paragraph then presents details on the story, including information on who’s involved, how this story came about, and anything else that business leaders might need to know. If there is an additional paragraph, you might include some quotes from business leaders or industry authorities to add credibility or opinions. 

6. Perfect Your Writing

No matter how short or simple, any press release is an insight into your company and brand. Don’t rely on the publication company you choose to do all the editing for you. Make sure you proofread your content and ensure everything sounds fantastic. It’s also worth double-checking any details to ensure that stats and facts remain accurate. 

When boosting the writing of your press release, remember:

  • Address the topics that your readers will find most interesting: Choose relevant topics with obvious benefits and repercussions for your target audience. Don’t get bogged down in fluff, and don’t be overzealous with patting yourself on the back. It’s best to avoid too many adjectives like “world-leading” and “fantastic” when describing your brand.
  • Write in the third person: Third-person writing is common for press releases, even when you’re talking about yourself. For instance, you might say, “Dell’s marketing team recently shared information on a new computer series.” 
  • Keep it simple: Stick to one focus story per press release and try not to overwhelm your audience with too much information. Press releases are short, focused, and easy to read. If you have extra information to provide, you can make a note at the bottom of the release. The close of your PR is where you can provide contact details, links to products, and backlinks to further articles. 

Remember, a compelling, human quote can really make a difference to your press release too. This is a chance to allow the executive voices in your business to shine through. Make sure you highlight exactly why you’re so excited about the press release in the quote while using emotive language to connect with customers. For instance,

The company CEO said: “We’re proud to be offering our current and new customers access to this new security service. After working with the best encryption professionals in the industry, we’re confident we can reduce data breaches and security concerns for hybrid workers.”

7. Double-Check Your Press Release

Before you send your press releases to anyone, it’s best to do a quick check to ensure that everything sounds great and that you haven’t left any annoying errors unaddressed. Use this quick checklist to examine your content:

  • Is the release date and publishing date correct (make sure you’ve included information on any embargos)
  • Is the contact information correct and in the right-hand corner of the page? This includes the name of the company, phone number, and email address.
  • Does the formatting match the outline requested by the publication?
  • Is the boilerplate at the bottom of the template?
  • Is the headline eye-catching and meaningful?
  • Are all of the relevant details included throughout the press release in order?
  • Are names and information spelled correctly?
  • Is the press release free from any grammatical issues and complex jargon?

Make sure you include information on how to reach out to you if the publication notices anything wrong with your site’s performance. 

Where To Send Your Press Releases

Once you’ve worked through your press release (and double-checked it for quality and accuracy), you can think about where you’re going to send it. For example, you may send multiple versions of your press release to different companies and publications. Ideally, you’ll create an entire press kit, which might include pictures of your team, product, or service, as well as contact details and extra brand information. 

Some companies prefer to approach press relationships by pitching their story to a few carefully selected editors and publications. This is often a good idea if you’re trying to reach a particular audience or you want to improve your reputation by connecting with a certain brand. 

Alternatively, you can use PR wire services to send your information to multiple companies at once. There are various services online to help you get your press announcements to the right people. Options to look into include:

  • Industry publications for specific sectors (like technology or medicine)
  • Local newspapers and online news outlets
  • General news sites like Google News and Apple News
  • Blog sites that attract your target audience
  • Influencers and industry partners

Start small and gradually build a list of contacts to help you get your voice and business out there. Eventually, you’ll find it’s much easier to get publications to accept your press releases. You might even find that people start approaching you to find out if you have any upcoming news. 

Go and Get Published!

Now you’re equipped with everything you need to know to create a fantastic press release and attract new eyes to your business. The only thing to do next is to get out there and start sending your press releases to the right people. Remember, once your press release is published, make sure you promote it through your social channels, email, and website. 

 

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Does it ever cross your mind that praise can be negative? I guess not. After all, it looks harmless and seems to be quite effective. Conventional wisdom says that if you praise people, they are motivated to do better.
People who have been praised throughout their life by their well-meaning parents, friends, and teachers for their talent and smartness or those who have experienced extreme focus on talent and smartness throughout their childhood learn to value only intelligence. No wonder when these people enter the workforce, they continue to seek approval and demand praise every step of the way.
Every opportunity is a measure of their intelligence — do I look smart, how will I be judged, what if others find my ideas dumb. With a single-minded focus on validating themselves, all their actions are rooted in establishing their worth. Every mistake hurts their reputation and every failure is a reflection of their competence. They care less about learning and more about proving themselves. Their sense of morality sometimes takes a hit as they resort to brutal behaviors — demeaning others by yelling, insulting, controlling, or taking undue credit — all in an attempt to boost their self-esteem.
Carol Dweck, professor of Psychology at Stanford University summarised this unfortunate reality from Morgan McCall’s book High Flyers:

People often like the things that work against their growth. . . . People like to use their strengths . . . to achieve quick, dramatic results, even if . . . they aren’t developing the new skills they will need later on. People like to believe they are as good as everyone says . . . and not take their weaknesses as seriously as they might. People don’t like to hear bad news or get criticism. . . . There is tremendous risk . . . in leaving what one does well to attempt to master something new.

What Do Organizations Do with Such People?

They feed and promote this mindset. They praise people for their brilliant ideas conveying the message “we value talent and smartness.” They shower people with rewards and bonuses for their achievements communicating to everyone else around “all we care about is success.”
What happens when these people take on a leadership role? Their mindset of valuing brilliance above everything else amplifies leading to disastrous results. History is full of leadership fiascos with great promises that turned out to be the biggest disasters. This article from Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker is as valid now as it was 18 years ago. Describing the talent mindset at Enron and the consultants at McKinsey who wandered the hallways at the company’s headquarters, he points out “They were there looking for people who had the talent to think outside the box. It never occurred to them that, if everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.”
He also talks about the impact of an environment that values innate talent and what happens when times get tough and that self-image is threatened “They have difficulty with the consequences. They will not take the remedial course. They will not stand up to investors and the public and admit that they were wrong. They’d sooner lie.”
Really, is praising people for their intelligence and achievements the only way to develop people who will be the leaders of tomorrow? Is there a better way out?
What if we praised people for their hard work, for their ability to persist despite failures and setbacks, for taking initiatives to build new skills, for standing up to their mistakes, for believing in their growth, and implementing the right strategies to overcome their shortcomings. What does this kind of praise tell them?
It tells them the value of effort in building abilities. It teaches them the importance of implementing the right strategies to solve problems. It encourages them to seek help to make progress on their task. It creates a passion for learning that’s not driven by the need to look smart, but with a desire to cultivate skills, to stretch themselves to grow.
When these people take on leadership positions, this mindset guides them to put the well-being of the company and its people before their own needs, to place value on teamwork over individual accomplishment, and to foster growth and development of their people.

As growth-minded leaders, they start with a belief in human potential and development — both their own and other people’s. Instead of using the company as a vehicle for their greatness, they use it as an engine of growth — for themselves, the employees, and the company as a whole.
– Carol Dweck

Unlike leaders who pull their companies down with their focus on brilliance, these leaders lead their companies into greatness and gratitude filled in their own hearts and those of the people around them.
Choose your praise carefully as you will see the tremendous benefits in praising for growth over brilliance.

When Leaders Focus on Brilliance

They live in a world of personal greatness and entitlement, vie for labels, and will do anything to boost their image. Instead of building a long-lasting company, they spend time and money on enhancing their image.
With the constant need for validation, they use people in the company to feed their egos and showcase their superiority. Everything is about pleasing the boss. They surround themselves with people who boost their self-esteem. Agreement earns them admiration and disagreement is an attack on their intelligence. Instead of hearing people out, they punish dissent and shut people down.
They pounce at the less talented for their lack of intelligence and find those who are more talented than they are as threatening. They mistreat employees, yell, insult, control and abuse them into their way of doing things. They feel better about themselves by making other people feel worse. Employees worry about being judged all the time. When people are ridiculed for mistakes, they soon learn to keep their heads down, stop putting their critical thinking skills to use, and give in to groupthink.
Their belief in their superiority blinds them to see reality. They turn a blind eye to complaints, ignore warning signs, and fire people who tell them what they don’t want to hear. Their decision-making criteria are based on what would make them look good as opposed to what’s good for the company long term.

What happens when a leader refuses to confront the brutal facts? “The minute a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts.
– Jim Collins

Since success and failure are a part of their identity — success means they are smart and failure means they are not — they find excuses and blame others for failures instead of taking personal responsibility. Instead of investing in the future growth of their company, they play safe with fear of failure, become less responsive to challenges from competition, go with what’s tried and tested, and refuse to take risks. Why take up the challenge that can hurt their reputation? On the other extreme, they may not shy away from crossing ethical boundaries to beat the competition at all costs. Success is what they are after and it doesn’t matter how they get it.
With more focus on talent and less on potential, they do not invest in mentoring and coaching employees. Instead of putting practices in place to develop employees and help them collaborate together, they make them compete against each other.
Carol Dweck sums up their brilliant mindset “My genius not only defines and validates me. It defines and validates the company. It is what creates value. My genius is profit. Wow!”

When Leaders Focus on Growth

They operate with a learning mode. They don’t claim to be genius but promise to invest in development, their own development, and the development of their people. The drive and enthusiasm to grow their companies make them adopt long-term strategies over short-term tactics. They aren’t in the game to boost their ego or establish their self-esteem. It’s the pure joy of shaping the future of their company that excites and motivates them. More than prestige, they are in it for the challenge.
They understand that the path to success goes through failure. Why lose the opportunity that can drive their future growth? So instead of hiding behind their failures, they face them head-on. Failures don’t define their competence, they are glaring moments of self-reflection. They are opportunities to build skills, explore possibilities, experiment, and invest in the promise of a better future.
They lead with vulnerability. They accept mistakes to shift the focus in the organization from hiding mistakes to finding solutions. When they don’t know something, instead of pretending to hide their ignorance, they say “I don’t know”. These three powerful words show humility and self-confidence. To make decisions, they invite others to share their opinion which promotes the culture of constructive criticism. Since they do not connect their identity to their opinion, more value is placed on seeking the right answers which require open disagreements and championing flexibility of opinion over their sense of righteousness.
Difficult situations make them uncomfortable, no doubt. Instead of letting their discomfort get in the way of meaningful conversations, they embrace it. They choose to look past their discomfort in the value that these discussions provide — saving a lot of time that can be wasted due to stress and anxiety that comes from misalignment of expectations and lack of clarity of purpose.
They are tough but compassionate. They do not shy away from giving critical feedback while also challenging the people in their organization to step outside their comfort zone. They empower people to make decisions with the right channels of feedback to assist in better decision-making in the organization.
Leaders with the growth mindset operate with what Lou Gerstner, who turned IBM’s fortunes around by saving it from near bankruptcy said “Hierarchy means very little to me. Let’s put together in meetings the people who can help solve a problem, regardless of position.” Not blinded by reality, they focus on finding solutions that will push their company forward. This requires keeping an open eye to change in market trends, identifying and investing in future growth areas, and taking calculated risks.
With a focus on potential and growth, they invest in identifying and building future skills of the organization — skills that will be useful during difficult circumstances giving them an advantage over the competition. They foster productivity through coaching and mentoring, place value on teamwork by encouraging collaboration and defining shared measures of success.
Warren Bennis, a scholar, author, and widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies, writes in Organizing Genius:

Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream.

His most admirable view on leadership says:

Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organisation. When that happens people feel centred and that gives their work meaning.

What kind of leaders think like this — those focused on brilliance or the ones driven by growth?
Previously published here.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

Ten years ago, people began talking about the “Independent Web.” Although we don’t commonly use the term anymore, that doesn’t mean that it’s not still as vital a topic of discussion today as it was a decade ago.

Today, I want to look at where the term came from, what it refers to today, and why it’s something that all of us in business, marketing, and web design should be thinking about.

What Is The Independent Web?

The Independent Web is a term that was coined back in 2010 by John Battelle.

In “Identity and The Independent Web,” Battelle broaches the subject of internet users losing control of their data, privacy, and decision-making to the likes of social media and search engines.

“When we’re ‘on’ Facebook, Google, or Twitter, we’re plugged into an infrastructure that locks onto us, serving us content and commerce in an automated but increasingly sophisticated fashion. Sure, we navigate around, in control of our experience, but the fact is, the choices provided to us as we navigate are increasingly driven by algorithms modeled on the service’s understanding of our identity.”

That’s the Dependent Web.

This is how Battelle explains the Independent Web:

“There is another part of the web, one where I can stroll a bit more at my own pace, and discover new territory, rather than have territory matched to a presumed identity. And that is the land of the Independent Web.”

In 2010, this referred to websites, search engines, and apps where users and their activity were not tracked. But a lot has changed since then, and many websites that were once safe to peruse without interference or manipulation are no longer.

What Happens When the Dependent Web Takes Over?

Nothing good.

I take that back. It’s not fair to make a blanket statement about Dependent Web platforms and sites. Users can certainly benefit from sharing some of their data with them.

Take Facebook, for instance. Since its creation, it’s enabled people to connect with long-lost friends, stay in touch with distant relatives, enable freelance professionals like ourselves to find like-minded communities, etc.

The same goes for websites and apps that track and use visitor data. Consumers are more than willing to share relevant data with companies so long as they benefit from the resulting personalized experiences.

But the Dependent Web also has a darker side. There are many ways that the Dependent Web costs consumers and businesses control over important things like:

Behavior

If you’ve seen The Social Dilemma, then you know that platforms like Facebook and Google profit from selling their users to advertisers.

That’s right. They’re not just selling user data. They’re selling users themselves. If the algorithms can change the way users behave, these platforms and their advertisers get to cash in big time.

Many websites and apps are also guilty of using manipulation to force users to behave how they want them to.

Personal Data

This one is well-known thanks to the GDPR in the EU and the CCPA in California. Despite these initiatives to protect user data and privacy, the exploitation of personal data on the web remains a huge public concern in recent years.

Content and Branding

This isn’t relevant to websites so much as it is to social media platforms and Google.

Dependent Web platforms ultimately dictate who sees your content and when. And while they’re more than happy to benefit from the traffic and engagement this content brings to their platforms, they’re just as happy to censor or pull down content as they please, just as Skillshare did in 2019 when it deleted half of its courses without telling its course creators.

What’s more, while social media and search engines have become the place to market our businesses, some of our branding gets lost when entering such oversaturated environments.

Income

When algorithms get updated, many businesses often feel the negative effects almost immediately.

For example, Facebook updated its algorithm in 2018 to prioritize “meaningful content.” This pushed out organic business content and pulled regular user content to the top of the heap.

This, in turn, forced businesses to have to pay-to-play if they wanted to use Facebook as a viable marketing platform.

Access

The Dependent Web doesn’t just impact individuals’ experiences. It can have far-reaching effects when one company provides a critical service to a large portion of the population.

We saw this happen in November when AWS went down.

It wasn’t just Amazon’s servers that went down, though. It took out apps and sites like:

  • 1Password
  • Adobe Spark
  • Capital Gazette
  • Coinbase
  • Glassdoor
  • Roku
  • The Washington Post

And there’s absolutely nothing that these businesses or their users could do but sit around and wait… because Amazon hosts a substantial portion of the web.

Innovation

When consumers and businesses become dependent on platforms that predominantly control the way we live and work, it’s difficult for us to stand up for the little guys trying to carve out innovative pathways.

And that’s exactly what we see happen time and time again with Big Tech’s buy-and-kill tactics.

As a result, we really lose the option to choose what we use to improve our lives and our businesses. And innovative thinkers lose the ability to bring much-needed changes to the world because Big Tech wants to own the vast majority of data and users.

How Can We Take Back Control From The Dependent Web?

Many things are happening right now that are trying to push consumers and businesses towards a more Independent Web:

Consumer Privacy Protection: GDPR and CCPA empower consumers to control where their data goes and what it’s used for.

Big Tech Regulations: The Senate held tech regulation hearings with Facebook’s and Twitters’s CEOs.

Public Awareness Initiatives: Films like The Social Dilemma bring greater awareness to what’s happening on social media.

Ad Blocker Adoption: Adblocker usage is at an all-time high.

Private Search Engine Usage: Although Google dominates search engine market share, people are starting to use private search engines like Duck Duck Go.

Private Browsing Growth: Over 60% of the global population is aware of what private browsing is (i.e., incognito mode), and roughly 35% use it when surfing the web.

Self-hosted and Open Source CMS Popularity: The IndieWeb community encourages people to move away from Dependent platforms and build their own websites and communities. This is something that Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, talked about back in 2012.

“The Internet needs a strong, independent platform for those of us who don’t want to be at the mercy of someone else’s domain. I like to think that if we didn’t create WordPress something else that looks a lot like it would exist. I think Open Source is kind of like our Bill of Rights. It’s our Constitution. If we’re not true to that, nothing else matters.”

As web designers, this is something that should really speak to you, especially if you’ve ever met a lead or client who didn’t understand why they needed a website when they could just advertise on Facebook or Instagram.

A Decentralized Web: Perhaps the most promising of all these initiatives are Solid and Inrupt, which were launched in 2018 by the creator of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee.

As Berners-Lee explained on the Inrupt blog in 2020:

”The Web was always meant to be a platform for creativity, collaboration, and free invention — but that’s not what we are seeing today. Today, business transformation is hampered by different parts of one’s life being managed by different silos, each of which looks after one vertical slice of life, but where the users and teams can’t get the insight from connecting that data. Meanwhile, that data is exploited by the silo in question, leading to increasing, very reasonable, public skepticism about how personal data is being misused. That in turn has led to increasingly complex data regulations.”

This is something we should all keep a close eye on. Consumers and businesses alike are becoming wary of the Dependent Web.

Who better than the creator of the web to lead us towards the Independent Web where we can protect our data and better control our experience?

 

Featured Image via Pexels.

Source

The post What Is The Independent Web And Does It Matter In 2021? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

No-code and low-code technologies have been making inroads for years but have never quite delivered on their promise as reliable alternatives to traditional software development for complex, business-critical applications. Then COVID-19 forced a new, expedited timeline for moving analog in-person processes to semi- or fully-automated online ones. At the same time, IT and engineering roadmaps have been thrown out the window as technical teams scramble to adjust to new distributed working conditions while juggling multiple "hair on fire" problems. As a result, operations and business teams have been left with urgent needs for new business applications and scant developer resources, creating the perfect storm for no- or low-code solutions to emerge as the savior of productivity. But decision-makers should be wary of treating these platforms as a panacea to avoid costly failures and lost time.

What Are No-Code and Low-Code Technologies?

To understand how no- and low-code solutions fill the gap between business demand for development and supply of technical resources, it is helpful to understand what those terms mean exactly. No-code platforms allow people with no technical knowledge to stand up complex, cloud-based business applications using simple, drag-and-drop tooling. Relatedly, low-code platforms are also based on the concept of abstraction through pre-built software building blocks oriented towards accelerating time to development by reducing the amount of “original” code that needs to be written in any given application. Perhaps because of their shared DNA, there is a trend towards convergence; as no-code platforms become more powerful and versatile with add-ons and application marketplaces, and low-code platforms build features to require less coding. Given this trend, we can collectively refer to these platforms as Low-code Development Platforms.

Source de l’article sur DZONE