The Boss of You

I went to Danielle Laporte’s blog this morning for a dose of inspiration — she’s a neverending source of it — and read a post that brought tears of recognition to my eyes, and a great big inner “Yes!”
My beloved, creative, entrepreneurial friends, if you read one blog post today, make it this one. So, [...]

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I mentioned last week that the movie Handmade Nation is coming to Vancouver next week, and we are delighted to announce that we have a free pair of tickets to give away! The screening is next Thursday, July 9th, at 8:00 PM and there’s a craft showcase beforehand which promises to be lots of fun, [...]

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I just finished reading “The 10 Secrets of a Master Networker” over at Inc.com — and before you gag on how cheesy that sounds, hear me out, because it’s kind of awesome.
There’s a lot in it I don’t relate to, because the subject of the piece, Keith Ferrazzi, is a relentlessly ambitious guy who has [...]

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There’s a fun movie night coming up soon for all you fans of indie, DIY, crafty stuff. Faythe Levine is bringing her film, Handmade Nation, to Vancouver. The film features some of our favourite artist-designer-crafters, like Jenny Hart (whom we interviewed for our book, The Boss of You) and Nikki McClure, among many, many others.
The [...]

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This smart, simple Venn diagram has been making the rounds on Twitter, and I like the way it neatly summarizes some great business advice. The creator, Bud Caddell, comes from a service firm perspective, but I think this stuff applies equally well to product-based businesses.
I was particularly delighted to read Caddell’s thoughts about the “Learn [...]

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The economic woes we’re facing right now feel awfully familiar.
See, Emira and I started our business in February 2000; by the end of that summer, our industry (and in fact all things web-related) had experienced the first big dot-com crash. Our friends and family wondered at times if we’d hitched our horses to the wrong [...]

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I’ve personally been really hesitant to comment too much on the economic downturn and its impact on small business. On the one hand, I feel very strongly that the kind of business we have always advocated for — sustainable growth, measured risk and frameworks for measures of success that don’t focus exclusively on ballooning profits [...]

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I love Danielle Laporte. She’s an awesome, creative, wicked-smart woman who we’ve been fortunate to know for many years. She’s the co-author of Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design, which she wrote with her former business partner, Carrie McCarthy; and now she’s working under the moniker White Hot Truth, writing, speaking, and working with [...]

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Ever have one of those moments when you come across something incredibly cool, and your initial reaction — delight — is followed swiftly by self-recrimination of the “Damn! I wish I’d made that” variety? That’s how I felt when I found FreelanceSwitch’s Guide to Making Passive Income. It’s a smart, pithy guidebook, available online in [...]

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Gina Trapani, one of my favourite writers on topics like work, productivity, and all-around geekery, has written a great post over on Freelance Switch (it’s aimed at freelancers, but I think most entrepreneurs, especially small-scale ones, can glean something valuable from it) about what she calls her Personal Business Model. The PBM is basically a [...]

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