Welcome to our site

Hi. I wanted to drop a quick note to say that this week I’m in New York attending ad:tech, an interactive marketing conference. Charlie and Doug are up here too, so if anyone’s in the area and wants to hang, drop me a line (we’ll be hanging with Ron Shevlin, anti-marketing-guru marketing guru, this afternoon).

The opening keynote is about to start so I have to split. Keep your eyes peeled, there’s going to be lot to talk about this week.

Introducing Make My Logo Bigger Cream.

If you design, watch this video. If you buy design, watch it twice.

An actionable note on awesome videos

If you make an awesome video that you’d like to have passed around and blogged (Make it relevant. No Viral for Viral’s sake.), offer an embed option so people can watch it right in the blog post where they may well have heard about it first. Run your URL modestly at the end of the spot to tie it back to you if you’d like, but if the rest of your site offers other content, it will most likely get linked back to anyway.

In this case, had an embed option been available, I still would have linked it and directed you to visit the actual site to see it in context.

However, embed tags or not, this video is truth. So, watch it, or watch it twice according to the prescription above.

Several months ago we decided it was time to grow up. In less than a year our team grew from three to seven and moved from one location to four. Not only were we trying to figure out how we could keep in touch long-distance, but we were also trying to figure out what each of us was supposed to be doing. This used to be easy—Brent was the designer, Trey was the blogger and site content writer, and I was the developer and CEO (usually in that order).

Now we had two designers, two developers, a guy to help us keep projects on track, an office manager, and a speaker/blogger.

So we did what most companies do at some point. We gathered around a whiteboard and started drawing boxes. Trabian needs to make more money than we spend, so we needed a Finance Department to keep an eye on that. If we don’t produce anything for our clients then we don’t get paid, so obviously we need a Production Department. Who’s going to buy anything from us if we don’t sell it to them? That’s where the Sales and Marketing Department comes in. And of course, we always need to be innovating—so we need a Research and Development Department. Oh, and somebody needs to be in charge of everything.

Alright, now all of the bases are covered. Doug has the most management experience, so he’s in charge of Finance and Production. Trey is the closest to our clients and potential clients, so he’s in charge of Sales and Marketing. I’m always getting distracted by some crazy idea or new-fangled programming language, so I’m in charge of Research and Development in addition to my role as CEO.

Two levels. Check. Production obviously depends on Development and Design. Brandon is a developer—that’s an easy one. Brent and Charlie are both designers, but Brent’s been with Trabian longer and has more experience designing websites, so Brent it is. Kelly helps us all in some way, so she’ll be off to the side and be connected to everyone in a support role.

Awesome. Everyone finally knows what they’re doing and who to go to if they have a question. If I need to know where we are on a certain project, I go to Doug. If Doug needs to know whether we’re staying on track with our revenue goals for the quarter, he talks to Trey to check on sales.

We finally grew up. And it almost killed us.

I’ll tell you why and what we did about it in my next post. Here’s a spoiler: we’re all incredibly happy now and know what our roles are. And our roles rock.

Last week was incredible and surreal. The Symposium brought with it droves of insightful sessions, great conversations, and deep belly-laughs. Click here to check out photos from the conference. We can’t say thank you enough to the speakers, to all of you who came out, and especially to FORUM Solutions – Kristi Lowell and Doug True especially – for making it happen.

To quote Trey: “This was the best week I’ve ever had at Trabian.”

We will be releasing the sessions as podcasts on Open Source CU starting (Update 10/12) later this week next week (we’re still waiting to hear “okays” back from some of the speakers).

After the fact

Friday was a refreshing day for all of us at Trabian. We were able – for the first time since doubling in size – to have a pow-wow with the entire team in person. It was a perfect reset button for all of us: We realigned with core values, voiced and addressed frustrations, reinforced individual roles, and were reminded why we love what we do so much. And all in one afternoon.

We also agreed that we really need more flesh & blood time – both as a full company and with clients as we work together on projects.

I’m heading home to Dallas today. Matt, Kelly and Trey just dropped me off at the Indianapolis airport. We aren’t sure when we’ll all be under the same roof again, but hopefully it won’t be long.

PS: Happy Canadian Thanksgiving.

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