New Vision, New Communities, New Offerings

Matt and I just spent the day in retreat to do what we always ask our clients to do: work on our business, and not just in it. 

Our new vision:

Causeit, Inc. is committed that human beings realize their full potential.
  • We cause loving, powerful teams. 
  • We work with technology which amplifies and 
extends human capacity.  
  • We help humankind experience higher consciousness through awareness of our profound connection with others. 
Through our life-long work, we contribute to a world where people are loving, connected, effective and peaceful.
Our Values
  • We are committed to the transformation of the individual in all aspects of their lives. 
  • We live lives of service and work with people who contribute to the world. 
  • We are committed that our clients and their teams 
are unstoppable. 
  • We are committed to individuals being responsible for their lives. 
  • Our conversations are about what works or doesn't work in service of world-changing, important visions. We don't dwell in the old paradigms of right/wrong, good/bad, blame, fault, guilt or shame. 
  • We know that our clients are able to cause any result they want for themselves, their communities, and the world. 
  • We are committed that people know themselves as 
perfect just as they are. 
  • We love all people.

In the coming year, stay tuned for great new changes: 

CauseTalks

Causeit will be hosting CauseTalks, a showcase series of powerful, succinct, community-sourced meetups about everything from the architecture of teams to diversity to transformational communication. All that cool stuff we're always telling you about? We'll bring it to our new community space in Southeast Portland and will podcast it (and maybe even vodcast it) for you, as well as provide whitepapers online.

New offerings

Causeit will be unveiling new offerings in the realms of team development, cyborg anthropology, content strategy and community-building. They're top-secret for the time being, but we'll tell you more soon.

 

Causeit facilitates Historic Mississippi Business Association After Hours event

A little over a month ago, I headed over to the Historic Mississippi Business Association's After Hours event to meet the business owners and facilitate a sharing event. Dubbed "Speed Networking", business owners would have chance to get to know each other better, and then another, and then another, and then another. . .

Personally, I dislike the idea of speed networking, and not because there's a problem in the interaction itself. We have useful interactions all the time in the bus, elevator, across retail counters that are simple, fast, and cursory. Whether asking for directions, gathering more information in order to make a buying decision, or just asking for clarification, these types of interactions have a useful purpose, but one which is not the goal of 'networking'.

I have a problem with how some people relate to 'speed networking'. This is not a sales opportunity. This is not a time to talk about yourself (surprise!). No, you did not learn everything about this person in the 5 minutes you had to speak. If your goal is to 'know' these people after the short interaction you had with each of them, then you're probably falling short. Like any twitter post, speed networking is really just a means to an end. Exchange contact information, find some points of common ground, and… well, by then your time is almost up.

So why did I accept the request to facilitate a speed networking event? So I could change it, of course! Now, don't get me wrong, it's not my style to deliver something other than the agreed-upon outcome, we still came out knowing each other better, and having met new friends. It's the methodology that I changed.

As a group, we all gave our undivided attention to each person as they recounted not only how they got into their business, but how what they were doing aligned with their passions. Community sharing, after all, is a tradition that dates back far beyond most forms of communication technology we use today, and it's lasted this long for a reason. Ask any person present that evening if they remember each other, and I'll bet you'll hear a lot more details than you can recount of your last 'speed networking' event!

In-house, full-time Portland web developer wanted

Spot Color Studio is looking for a full time developer to join our creative agency. Most of our custom-designed sites use CMS, specifically WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Many include shopping carts, databases and/or animation.

Responsibilities

  • Build out sites
  • Set up email
  • Manage hosting
  • Transfer sites
  • Perform daily maintenance on existing client sites
  • Handle office technology needs

Soft Skills

As a small –but rapidly growing– agency, we wear a lot of hats. The ideal candidate will be flexible, positive, friendly and have an excellent attitude. We pride ourselves on completing work on time, so the ability to manage multiple projects and swiftly shift gears from one client/project to another is essential, so you must be well-organized and detail-oriented…with a great memory!  We’re looking for a:

  • Creative thinker who can problem-solve many different website solutions
  • Strong communicator who can interact with clients in person, via email or over the phone
  • Accurate estimator who can write up specs and provide realistic timeframes

Hard Skills

  • Wordpress Skinning, theming, Plug-ins
  • PHP, XHTML, SEO, advanced CSS
  • LAMP and WIMP
  • Bonus points for Drupal, Joomla, SQL, Ruby, coldfusion
  • Even more bonus points for fluency in Javascript, AJAX and the DOM

Experience Requirements

  • At least 5 years experience
  • Comply with best practices
  • Have built dynamic websites from scratch, including ecommerce sites
  • Be familiar with unit testing and continuous integration
  • Be able to meet deadlines
  • Work well in a team environment

Pay depends on experience. This is a full time job with benefits and a lot of growth potential. Please email your resume, cover letter and examples of work and salary to jobs@spotcolorstudio.com.

Looking forward to meeting you!

First Round Capital's Fall Party: Who's-Who

Causeit, Inc. had a blast at First Round Capital's [@firstround] Fall Party at 230 5th in NYC. We met a lot of great folks—and enjoyed showing off our project company Fliptography's event entertainment. 

Our first sampling of the many interesting companies we met:

Socialbomb

Socialbomb provides an API for the social web, and helps companies engage their audience, advocate their brand, and measure their social success. Read more on their site.

Knewco

Knewco's KnowNow! is a Content Discovery bubble that delivers semantically relevant links from your website to your readers, along with rich related content, video, and shopping choices, all without leaving the page.

CJ Jouhal

CJ is a bright and engaging entrepreneur and technology strategist. He works with companies needing direction and expertise when selecting technology solutions. Are you an e-commerce-dependent business but know little (or care little) about e-commerce? CJ can help you. Find out more at jouhal.net

Tag Man

The crew from Tag Man was there for the event—all the way from the UK—and excitedly explaining their tag-consolidation software. If you create dynamic, data-driven and higlhy-analyzed sites needing a container supertag to decrease load times while increasing efficiency and reliability, check them out. If not, you'll probably end up using a site powered by their software without knowing it. 

We're running a million miles an hour today with all of the great contacts we made, so we'll add more to the post later!

Anti-trust settlement could pave the way for more accurate, yet more confusing credit card fees.

Back in 2008 the Justice department began to probe both Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc over policies intended to prevent "steering", the act of influencing customers to use cards that have low interchange fees so as to reduce the cost of taking those cards to the business. This could be in the form of incentives or discounts which the Justice Dept argues "impose a competitive straitjacket on merchants, restricting decisions by them to offer discounts, benefits and choices to customers that many merchants would otherwise be free to offer," Currently, this is illegal. In fact, I had a friend send me this picture just the other day.

How one business deals with credit cards.

As you can see, some businesses are pretty aggressive in steering their clients, sometimes to the point of completely disincentiving the use of cards. Most businesses don't realize this, but Visa and Mastercard have put a lot of money into making sure that this is illegal, until the settlement just days ago, which has yet to be approved by a court before going into effect.

Before this settlement, cards were a form of legal tender in the USA. That means you can't reject them for any reason in your business. If someone wants to pay with a card, it's as good as cash. What's the downside? As a consumer, you were well within your legal right to say, "I refuse to pay your fee or meet your minimum credit card limit just to use my card."

With the settlement of this lawsuit, now businesses can disincentivize you from using a credit card. "The settlement this past week means that about 4 million merchants nationwide that accept only Visa and MasterCard are now free to steer customers to different credit cards or forms of payment by offering discounts, rebates or other special treatment, the Justice Department said." That means now it's legal to charge you .25 to use your card, or have a minimum charge before they accept cards. Good or bad? You can weigh in by commenting below.

This lawsuit is just the beginning of a long conversation into how non-cash payments will function in relation to businesses. Many businesses feel oppressed by credit card fees. My heart sinks everytime I hear a business owner say, "I might as well give this pack of gum (or other small ticket item) away if someone wants to buy it with a card, it's cheaper!" If that's the case, they're actually not setup correctly.

Visa and Mastercard have programs specifically for businesses with average tickets of less than $15 just for this reason. If your business is not making money due to accepting credit cards, it's time to find a new merchant processor. Would you stay with your insurance agent if they had the wrong limits on your home or auto? The sad part is, many people don't realize where they stand in relation to these issues. Stay educated, or find someone you trust who can manage it for you. It will improve your bottomline!

Other links for news on this topic:

http://usat.ly/cBmQk9http://bit.ly/bTtxpXhttp://bit.ly/9XvgmYhttp://bit.ly/cQDzBG

http://bit.ly/bgzLtvhttp://reut.rs/c7ORYg

Matt Koren is the President of Priority Payments Northwest, a Merchant Services Provider located in Portland, OR. He runs his company in addition to his management consulting practice as an Associate with Causeit, Inc. You can contact him by filling out the Contact Us page, or by calling 503-493-7332.

Job Opening: Development Project Manager for Design Firm

One of our clients, a web & graphic design firm, has recently opened a Development Project Manager position. E-mail devpm2010@causeit.org with your resume and a cover letter, along with links to at least 3-5 sites you have project-managed with a basic explanation of what you did on the project.

This position is hiring very soon, so don't hesitate to send your information over.

---

Growing creative agency is looking to hire a full time project manager to manage all aspects of our development department.

As Project Manager you are responsible for defining the project scope, developing estimates & plans, contract negotiations, delivering project documentation, vendor selection process, and ensuring activities occur according to plan. The Project Manager will interact with the creative team, developers, and clients on an ongoing basis.

Responsibilities:

  • Act as project manager for multi-varied website projects; write functional specs, create project plans, calendars, lead kick-off meetings and manage budgets
  • Provide strong vendor management skills to ensure that multiple vendors work together and provide quality deliverables on-time and on-budget
  • Work effectively with other departments ensuring a smooth and productive flow of work
  • Manage and orchestrate quality assurance
  • Communicate regularly with clients: gather information from them, show progress, suggest enhancements or items that will make their site function better and get them more traffic
  • Play an active role in re-evaluating current processes and recommend and implement improvements

 

Requirements:

  • 5 years of Website / Development & Project Management experience for a creative agency or web firm
  • 3 to 5 years of managing websites on various CMS platforms, ability to manage an e-commerce
  • implementation from start to finish
  • Excellent communication both verbal and written
  • Ability to explain technical specs to clients in a way they can understand, and be able to train clients on their CMS system
  • A development background would be extremely helpful. You won’t be doing any programming, but being able to explain the steps to the client, write up the specs, estimate correctly, and manage all aspects of multiple websites with various degrees of complexity is required
  • Knowledge of SEO and Social Media
  • Have basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

 

job openings: fliptography

A Causeit, Inc. project company, Fliptography, LLC, is hiring flipbook-makers and shift leads. Fliptography's mission is to create joy and create jobs—which they do by making awesome instant flipbooks live at events. Like a photo booth (but with video), the Fliptography crew records a short seven-second clip of guests at an event, and then quickly constructs a paper flipbook as a great memento and party favor. Fliptography staff work in Portland, Central Oregon, Seattle and the Bay Area. Our team is full of interesting folk, such as students, part-time small business owners and/or non-profit staff committed to having fun with a great time.

Pay ranges from $12 to $15 per hour, and work is generally part-time. Applicants' exact availability can vary from week to week, as long as evenings and weekends are generally available. A brief cover letter and resume can be sent to jobs2010 [at] fliptography [dot] net. Customer service experience is a plus. No specific photography experience is required. Diverse applicants of all backgrounds and groups are strongly encouraged to apply, including women, people of LGBTQ communities, people of color, and more. 

Job Opening: Operations Assistant/Project Management Rockstar for Public Speaker and Brand Innovator

One of Causeit, Inc.'s clients is in need of an amazing operations assistant/rockstar. You would work closely with Causeit's amazing team (in our Southeast Portland, Oregon office) to remotely support one of our clients in building their business.  Our client creates innovative, participatory brands for major companies and organizations. If you are interested in being on the leading edge of social media, online interaction, and brands which have more value than just hawking wares, this might be the job for you. You should possess the following:

  • Strong written and verbal communication skills (no surprise there)
  • A knack for merging the inspirations & stream-of-thought of an innovative professional into the systems of a well-oiled business
  • A working knowledge of marketing and branding, especially as it relates to interactive/social media
  • Experience creating order out of chaos through use of powerful collaborative tools such as Google Docs, Remember the Milk, Batchbook, Freshbooks and online project management systems
  • "Natural" fluency with technology
  • Daytime availability (morning to mid-afternoon)

Contact pmrockstar at causeit dot org for more info.

Job opening: Senior Account Executive for Northwest Technology Firm

One of Causeit, Inc.'s recruitment contacts, Janet Brumbaugh and Associates, is seeking a Senior Account Executive for an award-winning Pacific Northwest technology firm.  This is a great opportunity at a “family-focused” technology company that’s at the cutting edge of the blossoming field of cloud computing as well as being a leader in developing green solutions.  The position is a “hunter” type sales role which will primarily entail developing new accounts in the medium to large market, making presentations to “C” level clients.  The successful candidate should have several years of sales experience in the telecommunications/internet or IT related industry.  This company offers a highly competitive compensation package, including excellent benefits. 

Please contact Janet Brumbaugh and Associates directly at (503) 697-7992 or janetbrumbaugh at comcast dot net. We’re moving quickly to find the right person! 

Daily dose of imagery

I've long been a fan of Daily Dose of Imagery. Photographer Sam Javanrouh walks the beautiful streets of Toronto. I'm constantly impressed with his use of color, character and composition to move me to see new sides of everything from architecture, found objects, celebrity appearances and political rallies. I am cautious with what I let into my mind in the background, but Daily Dose of Imagery has earned its way onto my screensaver. 

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/10/09/04/

Check it out.

You are why we do what we do.

Causeit is about having businesses be a form of self-expression. We're here to help people have their innate desire to be of service to community happen every day, not just once or twice a month at a volunteer position. The desire to be creative doesn't need to be encapsulated in dusty art supplies or a forgotten guitar. The desire to use the word love in regular conversation needn't be at odds with a 'day job.' Causeit is about finding your vision, making it happen in the real world, and building a team around it to make it bigger than it ever was going to be before! We exist to be of service of your dreams. We know you have a vision for the world and for your life—and we're here to make sure that your dreams happen. We bring the best of coaching, consulting and branding to bear on the real work of your life: making a difference.

Black tea: networking drink of champions

Before I forget: I love black tea when networking. I just do.

  • It freshens your breath, quite unlike its darker counterpart. The tannins make the bad guys go away. (This trick only works if you don't have sugar in it). 
  • It has lower caffeine than coffee but enough to make your eyes track a little clearer. 
  • It's cheap and everywhere.
  • You can have it as zero calories and it is uniformly better than tap water in just about every city except Portland.

 

Living a truly ethical life

Living a truly ethical life in which we put the needs of others first and provide for their happiness has tremendous implications for our society. If we change internally—disarm ourselves by dealing constructively with our negative thoughts and emotions—we can literally change the whole world. We have so many powerful tools for creating our ethical and peaceful society already in place. Yet some of these tools are not reaching their full potential. […]

When we are committed to the ideal of concern for all others, it follows that this should inform our social and political policies. I say this not because I suppose thereby we will be able to solve all society's problems overnight. Rather, it is my conviction that unless this wider sense of compassion which I have been urging the on the reader inspires our politics, our policies are likely to harm instead of serve humanity as a whole."

—The Dalai Lama

Made of awesome? Know .net well? Need work/a job?

One of our clients is looking for someone with 3-5 years of Microsoft .NET development experience (VB and/or C#).  Experience with any or all of: WPF, LINQ, relational database programming, CSLA Business Objects, Web-Services and XML/XSLs is highly desired.

You need to be made of awesomeness, as our project manager puts it, and be both extremely reliable and easy to work with. Don't bother if you know you're kinda flaky—it won't be fun for anyone, and you will be let go. If you are reliable and easy to work with, great! Extra-special brownie points go to Seattle folk, as the client is based there.

E-mail your resume and cover letter to dotnetjob2010@causeit.org. Please do not call—we are not screening developers for this client, just forwarding on your information.

How to Win With a Project Manager in Your Small Business

When does it make sense to bring a project manager into your small business?

People have different roles for project managers within their business. In my business, I have about eight hours of meetings with project managers per month. In those meetings, I process the tasks in my inbox and triage them into Remember the Milk, have conversations with the project manager about the feasibility of the commitments I have taken on/will be taking on/would like to take on, and start to get in communication with anyone I need to repromise to, revoke promises to or reschedule with. I also have higher-level conversations about processes for efficiency, total workload capacity and balance between different types of work.

For some small business people, the project manager also does a bit of cat-herding—checking in on tasklists and duedates, especially those which are past due. When they spot something which is lagging behind or flat-out has not been done—especially if there is a recurring theme of delay on that type of task—they have a conversation with the team member to see what they need to be effective. Sometimes that conversation looks like coaching to uncover any emotional or contextual roadblocks, and sometimes it is a process conversation to see what would make it easier to complete that task consistently.

Project managers also are likely to assist in the scoping/estimating process of bids to make sure that time conflicts, logjams and cost overruns are prevented wherever possible. For example, Causeit worked with one of our project managers in the process of constructing a bid for a large flat-priced graphic design project to ensure we met a minimum hourly pay rate and, thus, profitability.

In a smaller business, the project management accountability often falls on the business owner, general manager or an account manager. First steps for additional project management support, with a generally effective team who sometimes get overwhelmed (rather than a team with systemic problems around accountability, self-discipline and communication) are to implement some simple, low-cost solutions centering around reminding people of the promises they made. Technology solutions like Remember the Milk automate some of this process, and work particularly well when paired with a meeting with an outsider or other strictly-accountable team member who gently causes the conversation to come up on a regular basis (once or twice a week is best) and to stay on track.

In short, project managers serve to make sure the actions of your games get moved forward by ensuring actionable promises are made, recorded and managed. Contact us to have us facilitate an introduction to some of our favorite project managers, like Jodi Sweetman and Amye Scavarda!

Why the Love Affair with Gmail?

Gmail—everyone seems to know what it is, and a huge number of people use it. Hands-down, it's recognized as the best 'deal' in the free webmail scene. But why?

A screenshot of Gmail's conversation view in action A screenshot of Gmail's conversation view

In short, it comes down to Google's core values. Among them are "Focus on the user and all else will follow," and, paraphrased, "don't be evil." Running with this direction, Google's team (and a huge user community) turned on email on its side by acknowledging two core things: 1) people have conversations, not messages, 2) humans don't always think linearly and 3) keep powerful features easy.

Staying in the conversation

Gmail offers something few other email clients have been able to touch: effective threaded conversations. What is a thread? Imagine passing a note back and forth in class—writing a reply on the same page that you received a message on. Gmail pieces together the messages going in and out of your address to provide a cohesive view of a conversation—even if the messages are weeks apart—so that the context of messages is clearer. This way, instead of wading through pages of 'quoted' messages, which are often hard to read, a user can collapse and expand messages which came before and after whatever message they are reading. Often, this makes each message shorter, too, as introductions and conclusions are less necessary.

Needle in a haystack

Gmail also acknolwedges another truth—it's often easier to search than to sort. Since one conversation (Gmail parlance for a collection of messages) may reference multiple topics or a couple of different people, Gmail leverages its class-leading search technology to make it possible to effectively search all of the conversations in an account. That way, users don't have to try and remember when a message came in or even who sent it—they just search like they would Google. Searching email isn't new—but having instant results with miniatures 'teaser lines' of each message (much like a web search) was groundbreaking when released and is still basically unmatched in other clients.

Powerful, easy features

Gmail also does something almost no other mail client or service does successfully—it keeps its powerful features out of the way, but still accessible. Gmail offers a feature that many users may not be aware of: Labels. For example, all messages I receive from certain domains or addresses get labeled 'Clients'. Some of those same messages, depending on their content, might get labeled 'Deadlines.' Unlike most email applications, which would take these messages and move them into another folder, Gmail tags them—so that I can see the message both in my inbox, or when I look only through the lens of 'Clients'. An unlimited number of Labels can be combined, so that 'Finance' and 'Response required' can be independently or jointly applied to a message.

In another stroke of genius, any search you perform can become a filter or saved search—in other words, if you search for messages from clients which include attachments, Gmail offers the option to save that search as a filter so that you can then apply actions, such as labeling all of those messages automatically when they come in in the future (eg, 'Client Files').

Signal to noise

Perhaps the most powerful bit about Gmail is that it allows you to reduce the clutter and excess you view. First, Gmail has perhaps one of the best spam filters in the market. I have never had a conversation marked as spam accidentally, and I see maybe one spam message every three days in my inbox. One click of 'Report Spam' and I will never see that message again. Google combines the input of all of its users to have one of the most up-to-date anti-spam services anywhere.

Using a tool Gmail calls archiving, conversatons can be removed from your inbox without deleting them. This allows you to complete old conversations (which will come back into the inbox automatically if a new message is added to the conversation). For example, when I'm done conversing with my insurance agent about renewing my policy, I can click archive. At that point, I can still find the conversation through search or by clicking on the "All Mail" tab. From there, I can always bring the conversation back to the inbox if I want or need to. As a productivity tool, archiving is indispensable—it allows users to remove the clutter in their inbox and be clear about what emails still need to be managed or replied to.

Using the filters function discussed earlier, newsletters and other 'sometimes I want to read them' emails can be automatically archived, so that they are not in the way but can still be referenced. This is great for managing email subscriptions and listservs which can otherwise dominate an inbox.

In short, Gmail is the web app with the single biggest positive impact on its users—and absolutely no hit on their pocketbooks. The time it saves and the reliability it provides make it the first technology shift we recommend to our clients who don't already have it. Try it today!

Remember the Milk: Powerful Task Management for Free

Remember the Milk (or RTM for short) is a powerful, flexible and simple tool for managing tasks. Small business owners (and busy folk everywhere) know that having a mere to-do list is insufficient. Remember the Milk works by helping you quickly enter and triage your tasks so that you can get back to doing whatever it is that you do best without worrying about, well, how to remember to get the milk. And, like so many great web apps these days, it's a free service.

Remember the milk accomplishes sorting of tasks through a number of criteria:


  • Due date (and time)

  • Repeat (e.g. a reminder to send your mother a card every six weeks)

  • Time estimate (estimated duration for the task)

  • Status (completed/incomplete)

  • Tags

  • Location (the location where this task needs to occur, such as your preferred grocery store or the post office—as a plus, this serves to automatically alert you of the tasks due at a given location when paired with a GPS-enabled iPhone)

  • URL (great for putting a direct link to the relevant site, especially if it's hard to remember)

  • Postponed (a very revealing counter which lets you know how many times you've postponed, say, balancing your checkbook or cleaning the garage).

  • Sharing (others who you have shared the task with so that it shows up on their to-do list—great for small teams/delegation)

  • Notes (a place to add clarification of a task so that your list doesn't get cluttered with lengthy titles)

  • Priority


The core service is free (save for certain reasonably-priced special features such as the iPhone app)—and it's a lifesaver. Every week I review my calendar and my task lists with a colleague, and we enter new things into the list while checking in on overdue tasks. Little to nothing falls through the cracks now, and if it does, I know about it quickly. While inputting all my work into Remember the Milk was sobering as I dealt with the amount of tasks I have every week, Remember the Milk allows me to know exactly when the tasks for the day are done and when 'someday' projects like updating business plans will be picked up next. Most importantly, it lets me say yes (or no) to requests from colleagues with complete knowledge of my project load.

For further reading, check out this excellent summary of David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology

Photo courtesy .fabio under Creative Commons license.

Economist: Reading Online Reviews, and Why They're Important

Just saw a great article on the importance of online reviews for products. According to the author, there are a couple of interesting bits of info for those new to the process:

  • After about 20 comments, search engine rankings and click-throughs increase.

  • Retailers needn't be afraid of a few bad reviews if they are confident in their product: "...a handful of bad reviews, it seems, are worth having. 'No one trusts all positive reviews,' [Google's retail industry director John McAteer] says. So a small proportion of negative comments—'just enough to acknowledge that the product couldn’t be perfect'—can actually make an item more attractive to prospective buyers."

  • For products with a large volume of reviews, a ranking system for the helpfulness of reviews increases trust and allows for a blend of 'most recent' and 'most relevant' reviews to be aggregated into a glanceable area.


Read the full article in The Economist's 5 Mar 09 print edition "Fair Comment" column, or here.