Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension — and our creative thinking. So why do we still feel embarrassed when we’re caught doodling in a meeting? According to Sunni Brown, we shouldn’t.   In a presentation on TED.com  she makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen.

As anyone at Roundpeg can tell you, I always have a pen and pad in hand when I stroll into a meeting.  I draw and write all sorts of things . Most of which are useless to everyone, including me. But the process of sketching as I go through the meeting, helps me organize the information presented, and remember what I have discussed.  So for me me, doodling is a standard part of my creative and learning process.  And according to Sunni, it should be part of yours as well.

One of the most interesting parts of an interview at Roundpeg, is when we ask questions for which there is no right answer.  The purpose of the questions, is to simply understand an individual’s perspective.  This ability to “see the other side” can be extremely valuable for a marketer.  Once you understand there are other “right” answers, it is easier to try different approaches.

This topic of perspective was the subject of a video I found on TED.com.   Artist Raghava KK demos his new children’s book for iPad with a fun feature: when you shake it, the story — and your perspective — changes.  His real message … beginning with children, we should learn to shake up our perspective a little bit.

The video is short, less then five minutes, but definitely worth a few minutes of your time.

Look, I get it. You want to look cool.

But looking cool means nothing if no one finds you in the first place.

As an Indianapolis web design firm, as we work with clients, we usually get the same wishlist. Our clients want websites which:

• Look cool
• Look fresh
• Look up-to-date

While we agree it’s important to build sites with the fresh, clean, cool look our client desires, in the long run it is the words and content the site’s pages hold which will be far more valuable in the long run.

As the web has grown, search engines (which can make or break a site’s visibility) have placed a high priority on site content. Google wants to display the most relevant results possible to every user. Because of that, we encourage small business owners to focus on solid copy on each page and consistent blogging to generate new content.

While the old adage is true that 90% of communication is nonverbal, when it comes to your digital presence, what you say matters. Consumers have trained themselves to find fresh, relevant, reliable information. If you’re not providing it, I don’t care what your site looks like, you’re not cool, fresh, or up-to-date.

You’re living in the past.

Need to start developing your own content? Roundpeg, an Indianapolis web design firm, can help! Contact us here.

Today’s post is by our intern Stephanie Boyden who has been working closely with Jay to develop a number of client websites.

This past semester I took a class called “Creativity and Communication.” On the first day my professor stressed to us that everyone has the ability to be creative, but living in a world that caters to left-brainers, often we lose sight of that ability. She introduced us to a book called A Whole New Mind, which I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since putting it down. The author Daniel Pink emphasized that in an increasingly automated world of computers and outsourcing, it will be the right-brainers that rule America’s future, those that have the ability to think divergently yet relevantly.

So what does this have to do with web design? At Roundpeg, an Indianapolis web design firm, I’ve been working with WordPress for about a month now, and in doing so I’ve realized that creating a website through WordPress is the perfect combination of right and left-brain thinking. Picking themes, color schemes and layouts allows me to use my intuition and creativity. At the same time, finding the right plug-ins, altering code, and playing with SEO lets me use my analytic thinking and logic skills. I have never really considered myself to lean strongly one way, and taking evaluations for my class confirmed that split directly down the middle. This is why I have really enjoyed working with WordPress thus far.

No matter what kind of thinker you are,  when it comes to web design the great thing about WordPress is that it is set up to make creating websites easier for everyone. No matter what side of your brain you use, it will allow you to exercise a different kind of thinking.

If you are interested in learning more about this subject, check out Danie’s book A Whole New Mind:

http://www.amazon.com/Whole-New-Mind-Right-Brainers-Future/dp/1594481717/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307726910&sr=8-1

Today’s blog post is by our intern Stephanie Boyden.  It is fun to see how each of our interns is bringing lessons for small business owners from their individual passions.

I started playing tennis when I was thirteen, and haven’t stopped since. Although I am not as serious about it as I once was, I still enjoy playing recreationally when I get the chance.  When I started playing tennis I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Now that I do, I have found some valuable connections between business and tennis that can’t be taught in a classroom.

1. You must be able to function as an individual and as a member of a team.

There are two ways to play tennis: singles and doubles. When you play singles it’s all about you. If you win you get all the praise, if you lose you get all the blame. Doubles is different. You have to find the right balance- when to go for it and when to let your partner have his or her shot. Business is like this too. It’s absolutely crucial to be able to interact and work with others successfully, but at the same time, you have to be comfortable with the pressure that comes with working on your own as well.

2. Practice makes perfect.

This one applies to basically any sport, but I think it’s an important lesson that’s not taught at school. Even with the best education, when you start a new job, you have a lot to learn. You can’t become an expert at something from reading a book or listening to a lecture- you have to have real world experience. Tennis is the same way. Any tennis player will tell you the secret to a perfect forehand, backhand, volley or serve: repetition. Business skills are no different. The great thing about tennis, which I think applies to the professional world as well, is that once you get your swing down, your muscles will remember it.  Business and tennis are the same in the sense that if you put in the hard work to hone your skills, it will pay off for the rest of your career.

3. The sky is the limit.

It sounds cliché, but it’s true, and it’s something you don’t learn at school. When you play tennis, if you aim too low it will go into the net, but there’s no limit to how high the ball can go (unless you’re playing indoors of course). It is always better to aim too high than to aim too low, and this is also true when it comes to your professional career goals as well.

Passion supports learning. There is so much to learn about the business world that you can’t learn in a classroom. Nothing compares to real world experience, but if you think critically there are many lessons you can learn about business through doing what you love. What have your passions taught you about business?

Today’s post comes to us from Scott, Roundpeg’s summer interactive development intern. Scott started his own business a while back, and shares some tips about what he learned from turning his passion into cash flow.

I am a very curious person.  I like to ask lots of questions and it is important to me to see how something is done before I actually do it myself.  There have been times, however, when I have blindly rushed into something. For example:

Last summer, shortly after graduating from high school I was working Marsh Supermarket.  It was near the end of my shift, I was bringing in the last few carts from the parking lot and getting ready to go home.  I can’t remember my inspiration or thought process but I do remember the end result.  Standing in the parking I decided I should make a Frisbee!

When I got home I rushed to my computer to do some research.  I found a company that let me send them a design.   Before I knew it I had sold 20 of my frisbees to members of the community.  I learned a few things from this business venture.

Selling to a Specific Niche

Choosing a niche to sell to is key for any product.  The trick is to select a niche that is not too narrow or you will not sell much product.  Also, the item that is being sold, in this case a frisbee, has to appeal to the customer.  People won’t necessarily buy a frisbee for the heck of it.  There has to be a better reason.  In my case the audience I chose was attracted to buy my frisbee because it said “Panther Ultimate” on it.  The panther is the mascot of my high school.  It is also the mascot of another area high school.  Using this phrasing I was able to attract students from both schools.

Become an expert

I started playing Ultimate Frisbee a few years ago and came to love this unique sport.   My passion for Ultimate Frisbee drove me to learn more.  I attended a College Ultimate Championship and was overwhelmed by the amount of merchandise available.  After going home I quickly looked up the different brands and found out which companies were generally regarded as the best makers of frisbees.  Once I had a company in mind I got information on the most widely used frisbee weights and found the standard weight.  When I was satisfied I knew everything  I could possibly be asked about a frisbee I felt confident my researching was done.

Referral marketing is essential

Forming a network of people is important when trying to sell via referrals. I have played recreational Ultimate frisbee with different groups and people of all ages.  As a result, I have friends at multiple colleges who are on their school teams.  My friends know I am passionate about the sport and not just some random person.  If someone needed a new frisbee my friends would point them my way. Using my passion to start this business venture led me to the sale of frisbees.  This was a great experience and I would definitely repeat it.

Are you passionate about something?  How have you used this passion to enhance your business?

Recently, I attended the Business Marketing Association’s February event. The speaker  was John Luginbill of The Heavyweights, who discussed increasing your company’s value. One of the lessons I took away from his presentation was that all of us-CEOs, managers, and even entry-level employees-own our own company.

The real lesson is that we all have a personal brand, and it’s up to us to decide how much that brand is worth. Every time we learn a new skill, acquire knowledge, or exceed expectations, we add value to our brand. At the same time, just like with multinational companies, a personal brand can be destroyed in a matter of moments.

What is your personal brand? How is that brand viewed by others? Most importantly, how much is your own personal brand worth? As an informal study, I asked my Twitter followers for their feedback on what the “Jay Mattingly” brand represents. My responses ranged from charismatic and energetic, to friendly, to my personal favorite “Master of B.S.” Asking people I know how they view me gave me some great insight into which traits I need to hone and work on in order to continue to increase the value of my personal brand.

It is never too early to start cultivating your personal brand identity. Unfortunately, for many of us in the early stages of our career, we may not be sure how we want to define our brand. The good news – brands, both company and, evolve over time.

What’s your perspective on maintaining a personal brand? And what have you done recently to add value to your “company?”

Can your business run with no one in the office?

On days where inclement weather prevents members of the team from getting to the office, it’s easy to lose a day or two of productivity. But planning ahead, and leveraging available technology, can help limit lost time. In fact, the Roundpeg marketing crew has gotten so good at getting work done from different locations, we hardly skip a beat.  The ice storms a few weeks ago really tested our skill.

Here are a few tips to help:

• Send yourself key information: whether it’s passwords, contact lists, or graphics, that way you can get work done at home. If we know we might not be able to make it in the office, we email ourselves documents, put large pictures in dropbox, and take home our password database. Lorraine even makes a carbon copy of our server on portable hard drive, so she has all of our project work (past and present) at her fingertips.
• Use web based email on and contact management tools.   With gmail and other web mail tools, your contact list and email history follows you wherever you go.  At Roundpeg, we rely on our AddressTwo data base. In addition to contact information, we can track contact history.  That way, if Lorraine and I are both working on a call list, no one gets called twice, and no one gets left out.
• If you work in a collaborative environment, you don’t need to be in the same room: Skype and GoToMeeting are just two ways people leverage technology to get work done from wherever they are.
• Stay in contact: Our team schedules 2 or 3 brief 10 minute calls throughout the day to catch up and make sure we’re all on the same page.
• Have back-up work: Even if I forget something I wanted to work on at the office or lose power, I still plan tasks I can accomplish (like, say, writing blog posts)

These tips should help you remain productive, no matter where you decide to work from. What other “remote working” tips do you have?

On the last working day of the 2010 year, the entire Roundpeg crew took time out to  discuss where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. The company has grown over the past year, and we have several  exciting projects planned for 2011.

The end of year meeting was a time when we could all set company and personal goals, and challenge each other to grow and learn.  Quite often, it’s easy to get so overwhelmed with work you forget to step back and analyze the bigger picture. Are you still on the path to where you want to be? If not, what changes to you need to make?

Personally, I’m looking forward to teaching more seminars like Forget Henry Ford in the next twelve months. I’m also excited to work with our clients on more strategic, big picture projects.

2011 should be an even better year here than 2010. What would you like to achieve in the next twelve months, and how do you plan to get there?

When I first started Roundpeg, I wanted to focus much of my efforts on teaching managers how to improve their results with a bit of creative thinking.  One of my favorite techniques was kicking off serious brainstorm sessions with something very silly.

The purpose? To get people talking, feeling comfortable sharing ideas and taking risks.  We used this type of technique as a kick off to the activities at StartUp Weekend. Before we started the serious pitches and product concepts we held what is known as the “Half Baked Pitch Session”

The idea is simple, each team was given two nouns and five minutes to come up with a business concept.  The results were fun. They set the tone for the event and took much of the stress out of presenting to a room full of strangers.

These types of ice breakers make a huge difference when you are trying to get people’s creative juices flowing.   What is your favorite technique?