Insights from Nebo

Over the last few years we have responded to the difficulties and challenges that face our world by becoming pessimistic. We've shrouded ourselves in an armor of cynicism and taken a negative outlook on everything from politics (it's broken!) to the economy (it's bad!).

There's a truth in pessimism, but it comes at a cost to our humanity.

Over the course of 2011, Nebo has shared blogs about everything from Google Analytics to cats stuck in trees. We've chronicled our growth as an agency, changes in the industry, and even shared some age old wisdom.

Here's a list of our most popular blogs of 2011, giving you a glimpse into the year that was.

Way back, in a previous blog post, we promised a video to our faithful followers of our own Chris Allison eating a ghost pepper, the hottest pepper known to man. Seeing Chris writhing in pain is no less amusing three months later.

When Kickstarter launched in 2009, it changed the way we looked at fundraising. Instead of going through traditional avenues such as banks and private investors, the projects are “crowdfunded” by people across the web. Not only had Kickstarter tapped the general public to fund projects ranging from indie films to innovative products – it had tapped into a new way of doing business. Liza Gansky refers to this new business model as “The Mesh” in her book of the same name (The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing).

Growth can be tricky. There are no hard and fast rules that explain how a business should grow. However, the collective wisdom of several Inc. 5000 companies (including Nebo Agency, represented by CEO Brian Easter) help suggest some areas to focus on that may be useful to entrepreneurs hoping to withstand recessions and grow despite economic fluctuations.

If you haven't heard, MC Hammer is starting his own search engine. Yes, that MC Hammer. His search engine, WireDoo, is a comedic reminder that there are other search options available besides Google and Bing. However, there are also quite a few interesting, alternative sites that are a bit different from the major, typical search engines. These places provide a more abstract, qualitative experience that, for some, is more interesting than the qualitative algorithmic search engines. Over the next few weeks, Nebo Agency will be exploring some of these niche sites that people use when they aren’t searching on Google.

First up: Pinterest!