Meet the Author

We were recently asked by a potential client to describe Nebo’s approach to innovation. Our answer should sound pretty familiar to anyone familiar with our brand:

We believe in putting the user first. Of course, part of our job is to stay on the cutting edge of trends and technology, but we’ll always be more interested in solving problems and making the world a better place. If pushing the envelope or breaking new ground helps us create a better user experience, we’re all for it, but innovation in and of itself shouldn’t be a goal.

With that said, we spend a lot of time examining some of the world’s biggest brands. We’ve talked about Coke and Tesla and New Belgium and extracted lessons from the decisions they’ve made, both good and bad. But when it comes to innovating in the name of better serving users, it’s important to understand that you don’t need a massive budget. Your brand may not have the R&D funding of Apple or Microsoft, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come up with simple, effective ways to better your business.

On a recent trip to my vet, I realized how the small, locally-owned practice was the perfect example of how user-first thinking can make a big difference.

In 1999, Jim Barton and Mike Ramsay saw a huge gap in the home entertainment market. People were growing frustrated trying to record their favorite TV shows and rewatch them. They either had to be home to man the VCR, which sort of defeats the purpose, or if they were really brave they could try to set the timer on the device and hope it didn’t cut off the first couple of minutes of their show. We all know the joke about how setting the clock on your VCR is about as intuitive as assembling a hydrogen bomb, so the results of this method were, unsurprisingly, mixed. Barton and Ramsay understood the problem, recognized the opportunity, and would go on to develop TiVo and forever change the home entertainment landscape.

That’s not the end of the TiVo story, but it might as well be. After enjoying a brief run of massive success, so much so that people still refer to recording shows as “TiVo-ing”, TiVo quickly found itself an afterthought in a crowded marketplace. The company that revolutionized television in the early 2000s today is nothing more than a tertiary player in the space. For reference, TiVo stock peaked at about $50 a share and today is worth about $13. Quite a fall for what was, not that long ago, one of the biggest brand names in the world.

So where did TiVo go wrong? It failed where so many companies before it have failed, and so many more since.

It didn’t have purpose.

Success is a difficult thing to quantify. It’s a lot like the present – it’s hard for us to really understand the moment that we’re in when the lines between what’s past and what’s future are so blurred.

So when people ask “How do you become successful? What are the steps I need to take to achieve success?” they’re asking the wrong questions. Their mindset is flawed. They’re trying to follow a roadmap to a singular destination, when success, like the present, is not a concrete moment in time but an ever-evolving process.

Writing copy for marketing campaigns is modern day poetry when it’s done right. Great copy engages emotionally. It persuades, entices, entertains, and informs. And nowhere is there more copy, or more important copy, to be written than on a brand new website.

Yet copy is the most overlooked aspect of many design projects. Copywriters all too often don’t get the respect or credit they deserve. The truth is that, when done right, a website is a digital novel. It invokes great storytelling to communicate a specific brand message to an audience.

Most clients realize they need help crafting that message during the branding stage. They realize they need help with design, development, and marketing campaigns. However, too many tend to think that they can write their own website copy. Whether they’re a Fortune 100 or an emerging start up, they all assume they can and should own this.

They shouldn't.

Defining a life well lived was simpler before the digital age. Things like happiness, providing for your family, integration into your community – and let’s face it, just survival & reproduction, could easily define success in life.

Many would argue these still define a good life, but the world has changed and is immensely more complicated.

There are seven billion people on the planet. We face digital and sensory overload, being exposed to over 5 million ads per year. We each watch 3000 hours per year of TV. We have weapons that could annihilate the entire world many times over. We send 400 million tweets per day. We “Like” something on Facebook over 30 billion times per week. The environment is disintegrating before our eyes. Consumerism is a like a sugar high for our self esteem. Factory farms ruin the environment and create hell on earth for our animal friends. Technology will soon outpace our ability to manage, understand, and co-exist with our own inventions.

Communities and families are fractured – especially in Western civilizations. Gone are the days and where communities were really communities. We’re a collection of houses with Wi-Fi connections.

We’re closer to our digital families than our real families many times – or we at least seek their approval more. Getting liked on Facebook or being retweeted carries more social equity than real life interactions.

I’m not criticizing digital or social media, but I am asking a question.