According to Wikipedia:

Design by committee is a term referring to a style of design and its resultant output when a group of entities comes together to produce something, particularly in the presence of poor and incompetent leadership. The defining characteristics of “design by committee” are needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and the lack of a unifying vision.

I couldn’t put it better myself really. While I wear many professional hats these days–creative director, project manager, HR, office therapist, etc.–when I started this whole wild journey I was primarily driven by a love for art and graphic design. This evolved into a desire to bring this high-tech art to the web in order to facilitate and enhance the user experience. I care about aesthetics. I care about color, composition and how these subtleties resonate with the intended audience. What may be a home run for one client’s website audience could easily be all wrong for anothers, as evidenced by the broad range of designs in our portfolio, from a Russian beauty product site to a Twilight enthusiast social network.

I’ve run into a few frustrating “design by committee” situations with clients. One organization actually showed our initial layout mock-up to a room full of complete strangers who were renting their conference room and sent us their feedback. Hmmm. Frequently some of our start-up clients pass our designs around their circle of friends and family, and while certainly everyone is entitled to an opinion, not everyone is tapped into the big picture of what we’re doing, which is integral to giving quality feedback. (more…)

Warning: This is probably extremely offensive to both sexes. Sorry, it’s just the way I feel.

As a young female in a professional role  typically occupied by men (C.E.O.), in a male-dominated industry (web/software development and technology), it would be fair to say that in order to get through my day I have to be a bit mannish at times. I also work mostly with men on my staff, and I’d say 90-95% of our clientele and service providers are also male. Now, I’m not the type of feminist who feels the need to de-feminize herself to excel professionally in a “man’s world.” I do religiously wear pants and mundane colors to work, but trust me, I celebrate the sisterhood! There are times, however, when I have exchanges that leave me thinking, Holy Trump, where are your cojones? And why are mine bigger than yours?!

Moodiness, wishy-washiness, whininess and above all dramatics are all qualities that I have a hard time accepting in my male or female counterparts, especially when I’m the one with the triple progesterone levels on a daily basis. (Thanks, baby!) In fact when it comes to women, I realize that I may have even higher expectations for attitude, management and professionalism, because of my role and the responsibilities I carry with it.

It is certainly odd to think about gender roles in our particular professional environment. For all intents and purposes, I am “the man” at work. Decision-maker, bread-winner and even at times defender. And while I sometimes bring the boss mentality home with me, truly, I’m more than happy to come home to my two little babies who love me for being their mommy: the nurturer, meal-cooker and house-cleaner. The way going to work can save my sanity at times, coming home to my domestic role can do the exact same thing. (more…)

For the first time in several years, I did not actually sit down to write my list of 2010 resolutions, which typically includes both personal and business goals. The way the first few weeks of the year have been going, I now understand why. Everything is just moving too fast, and yet positively forward, so opportunities for progress and positive change arise almost daily, and thankfully we are almost always ready to meet the challenge.

One example of this has been my personal reaction to the earthquake in Haiti, and how Pearse Street has decided to do its part in the relief and rebuilding effort. In addition to donating to the Haiti relief effort, I along with so many others wanted to know how I could possibly do more. We often think, what can I possibly do to help the devastation that is so far from me? Sadly last year I had little time and no significant budget for pro-bono work which I was always able to make time for before. In the back of my mind I knew that this had to change this year, and when the opportunity arose, it took me literally seconds to say yes  when the social network junkie part of me had an epiphany and realized that building a social network could actually make a difference in this travesty. JoinHaiti.org was quickly born. (more…)

I’ll kick this off by saying that it has literally been years since I’ve legitimately blogged. While this is certainly not for lack of internal commentary– which makes its way to bite-size Facebook updates multiple times a day–the long silence is primarily a result of two time-consuming factors in my life: motherhood and entrepreneurship. In seven years of business, I will have become a mother thrice! This March Pearse Street will celebrate with some childish delight it’s turning 7, and all things as they should be, I will celebrate the arrival of our third child (a girl, FINALLY!) a few short months later.

Why, you might ask, would I suddenly have time for blogging? Thankfully 2009 ended with progress, positive transitions and a long overdue wave of stability that has allowed me just a wee bit more spare time. This means I might get to take more than 2 weeks maternity leave this time! And if I can stick to it, I hope to also blog here more regularly on topics ranging from social media news and projects to mommy-preneurship. I welcome questions and comments, as that will no doubt motivate my maintenance of the site with the hope that some of these random ramblings are helpful or informative to others.

Thank you, and good night!

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!

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