So far this holiday season all that many of you got from us was a warning about upgrading your version of Wordpress to protect it from malware. I thought we should do something else to express our gratitude for your business, conversation, and support this year.

The idea we came up with was to pick one of our own non-profit clients, explain a bit about what they do, make a donation to them, show the link to you and tell you about it. This idea has a triple benefit: this non-profit gets a little boost, you learn about them, and we get to show you some of what we did for them and maybe this gives you ideas for yourself….  Read more

What is the difference between marketing and branding?

In a recent conversation with a very senior person at a financial institution my colleague was told, “I think private wealth managers will have a hard time seeing the value of branding—they see marketing as a cost center, not a driver of sales.”

Hold it.

How did we go from branding to marketing in one sentence like that?…  Read more

Yesterday we had Thanksgiving dinner at our neighbors house. The kids—who have all known each other since birth—piled up their plates with whatever they wanted most (including Brussels sprouts), and our host asked each of us to express in a single word what we were thankful for.

My eight year old blurted his out first: “food” he said—perhaps influenced by his immediate environment. My middle child—the most responsible—said, “friends,” and then amended that to “family,” again perhaps a response to the environment. My oldest, who is now 14, said “death.”…  Read more

Tronvig Group has launched the DiMenna Children’s History Museum website as part of the New-York Historical Society website. Featured on this new website is a kids section that showcases the first of three kid-friendly educational games: Sloppy Copy. Sloppy Copy introduces the New-York Historical Society’s wonderful and eclectic collection of objects and artworks to children by setting the kids on the trail of an entertaining villain: Finnias the Forger, a.k.a the “sloppy copier.”…  Read more

I am not a traditional sports fan. I follow no particular professional sport. I have attended few professional sports events in my life. And yet, I do in fact love sports, all kinds of sports. Perhaps this is why the Bill Shannon Biographical Dictionary of New York Sports that we created for the New-York Historical Society has become so dear to me in the short time we have been working on it. It is not an homage to any one sport, but rather to the idea of sport, and the role that sport plays in the lives of great and interesting people….  Read more

In August I took a two week vacation during which I was totally disconnected—off of emails, phone calls, any kind of electronic communication. I became (by the second week) very comfortable with my slowed down and uninterrupted life. I adjusted enough during that short span of two weeks that when I came back to the office I was—for a while—a kind of foreigner there.

It was hard for me to pay attention to my 250 daily business emails. I wanted to chat about possible future company retreats and the value of solitude. My colleagues looked at me bemused, and tried to talk about WORK. In two weeks away I had weaned myself of a communication addiction. I was even sleeping normally.

That was back at the end of August. Now it’s October, and I have fully recovered. …  Read more

One of our new designers is fresh out of school and exudes talent and potential. She also spent her first few working days instant messaging her friends and watching TV shows on Hulu WHILE doing her assigned design work. She was doing what might be called visual multitasking.

My art directors, who range in age from their mid 20′s to their mid 50′s, were shocked by these work habits….  Read more

What does a website want?

I was in a presentation yesterday and I explained it like this: For the first time user a website wants three things:

1. During the first 15 to 30 seconds that I spend on a website, I need to know that I have arrived at the right place. This is the brand establishment moment—a critical juncture—and the moment when I decide to stay or go. If the brand message—visuals, text, overall look and feel—are right, I recognize that I have, in fact, come to the right place, and I stick around long enough for number 2….  Read more

In my working career, I have taken many types of vacation. They have ranged in duration from a rather luxurious 6 weeks to nothing at all, and experience has shown that a contiguous period of at least two weeks is the most valuable….  Read more

Probably the two most valuable things that have happened to me as a business person were:

1) Being laid off from a corporate job, and having to start a business on my own, forcing the question of how to survive and support a family without a regular salary, benefits, or anything to rely on but myself.

2) My former business partner’s choice to walk off with all our clients, leaving me with the company debt and virtually no business….  Read more