The Mechanism's Founder and Design Executive Officer, Dave Fletcher is an awardee of the Silicon 100 for 2017. In the article, Dave talks about The Mechanism and how the company has survived and thrived over the past 16+ years in New York City.
We will remain human-focused and technology-mindful well into our foreseeable future. We can never forget that on the other side of our client’s device, there’s a human being – looking to be astonished and wishing to be connected to something bigger than themselves.
As we are stepping into digital age. Local Brand Advisor is helping thousands of new business to get off the ground. Dave Fletcher, Founder and Executive Director of The Mechanism was interviewed for the Cover Story in the latest issue of The Silicon Review.
Some highlights:
“Over the past 16-plus years, we’ve seen significant changes in the visual design/development sector and the clients we serve. Business (r)evolutions are occurring at a much faster rate than in the past, especially in technology. Deliberate and unintentional disruptions to the way businesses communicate with their chosen audience have ushered forth new ways of thinking about the direction and definition of branding in the digital age.”
“In many ways, these disruptions are a good thing,” says Dave.“For example, entrepreneurs, previously adverse to launching a new idea or service, are becoming increasingly unencumbered by many of the early financial risks included with a product launch. If an idea is remarkable and surrounded by a modicum of social media outreach and localized enthusiasm, the audience will not only help to fund a useful product or service, they will evangelize it to their personal social networks. This is the Kickstarter model – an upending of the business mindset – where anyone can present an idea to the marketplace, extricated by corporate interests or expectations. Brand “fans” are rebuilding the markets by themselves, not just the corporations anymore.”
Fletcher on using the email marketing services offered to promote The Mechanism and its experience:
"Our experience is a differentiator which strengthens our ability to predict changes in the diversified, evolving business ecosystem. We closely follow futurist interpretations because we are engaged with its endless possibilities to enhance and help the planet and society at large. Also, our ability to work directly with any type of corporate entity or personality comes with our collective experience and fearlessness to take on any project that presents itself. I prefer to build relationships for the long-haul. Executives always move on to new endeavors and projects and have built a comfortability level directly with either me or my colleagues. These very intimate relationships, forged through trust, have served us well."
Fletcher on the challenges in the industry
"One of our crucial jobs as digital creative consultants is to help company leadership and their marketing teams understand as much as they can about the human beings they are reaching out to with their brand identity. No matter the size of our client engagement, their audience is always the gauge and the most important thing to focus on. First, we need to know what the audience wants and expects, and not what the leadership expects. It is a tough pill to swallow at times, because when you are working with large companies, there tend to be large egos involved at the top. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. It is definitely a large part of how they achieved success in the first place. Once we understand their audience fully, we can then examine industry trends and data, understand the CEO’s vision and investigate all of the things that are a part the brand or company. By looking at the audience first, we tend to find very useful information."
Founder Dave Fletcher was recently featured in the technology section of CIO Review. His thought-piece, "Throughout this Big Idea" offers a perspective on the history of manipulation through advertising and the importance of taking the time to absorb multiple viewpoints in the age of "Alternative Facts". Written before the 2016 Presidential election, the article presents a stark and vital viewpoint about the dangers of media manipulation from a technology industry veteran.
Modern technology and network-based communication contains and amplifies the desire originally facilitated by the print, radio and television mediums. As the internet continues to evolve, we must recognize that the quality of information is crucial. Groups of humans have always preferred to gather where people share the same beliefs, and without careful deliberation, we may continue to separate humanity into tribes of singular opinions. It's one of our great flaws, and keeps a vast majority distant from truly understanding those who oppose them. Viewpoint is religion and technology is the church. Right and wrong are blurred thanks to the internet's delivery mechanism, which facilitates quantity over quality. One could even argue that a younger generation has become accustomed to perceived communication patterns predominantly through text entry rather than actual speech - internalizing our thoughts and espousing complexity through emoji. It's faster, but certainly is a means to impede advancing our brains to their fullest potential. Wide-eyed, yet lacking wisdom, we coast dangerously close to only consuming what we understand implicitly. This is how technology captures us and how we lose our humanity; our ability to reason and the desire to better ourselves through healthy disagreement, knowledge and discourse.
Humanizing the Machine
If we learn one thing by examining the past of any medium’s evolution or any technology revolution, it's that as time goes on, we expect things to get easier. Interface design has always been about humanizing the machine - cleanly separating us from the bits and bytes; from the tedium of engaging with an electronic contraption by creating a natural interaction without falling face-first into the uncanny valley. The interfaces of the next generation of devices will follow the engagement rules perfected by the veterans of the digital era, but complexity will be undercut by the passive introduction of vocal dialogue with our device. As Artificial Intelligence improves, we will learn from and mimic the personalities of our devices. And likely, vice-versa.
Event Management basically means any service offered to the consumers that contain planning, advertising, company or presentation of different events. The scope of an event includes various activities connected to arts, sports, enjoyment, business or family functions like the wedding or joyful events, learn more about hybrid event production.
Hire a Qualified Event Manager!!!
Dealing with an event can turn out to be a difficult task for you if you plan to handle all factors of the same by on your own as it needs a lot of time, strength, and money. So choosing a professional Event Management Companies in Delhi that is needed in managing such responsibilities is a sensible move.
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As pointed out earlier, the best event management company will turn out a profitable event for you within your price range. Furthermore, their flawless coordination and performance will save a lot of time as well.
Considering how can they do that? It’s very simple genuinely. They are well-acquainted with every person concerned in the event management market. From caterers, support team, venue owners/managers, performers, and artists to providers of audio-visual equipment, flowers and other arrangements, they are particularly connected.
So, they discover the very best people and make a deal the best costs for your event. They can recommend alternatives if anything isn’t working for the event, which in any other case you will be spending time on Search engines searching.
Relation Between Business And Events
Making an event to market a company among the community is an experimented with and tested strategy that can help a company to get concentrate as well as popularity. A successful event not only allows a recognized company to regain its importance in the customer’s point of view but it will also help a budding company to create interest in its services among popular people.
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Choosing The Right Event Management Company
Hire A Company That:
Comes after all the techniques: Some of the very important steps that make an event achievements are: innovative conceptualization, venue selection, event production and final but not the least error-free execution, so select a company that includes all of them.
Helps you from getting started to Finish: Decide on a company that helps you by; starting and finishing the event in an innovative manner by using its skills as including innovative parts in an event would help the event to be more remarkable.
Is Reliable: Planning an event with the help of an event management company that has proven its power is a great step as you would know what to expect from the company you are selecting.
Advantages of a Successful Event
• If you follow all the previously mentioned recommendations and the event turns out to be a success then you would not only have the needed exposure for your company but there would be a particular increase in the overall impression of your company.
• Creating a positive brand image for your company would additionally assist you to get the focus of more and more prospective consumers and it would also support you develop a beneficial image in the industry that may support your company to maintain for a long period of time.
• This is a confirmed truth that if a brand is well-known then people would not think twice to try out a new product or service being provided to them without having concentrated on the threats related with the same.
• As your company progresses, you should try to get more and more of events organized as this would support you to maintain in touch with your clients/ likely consumers.
Building a smart company requires all the traits they teach you in school: personal persistence, vision, acumen and inner confidence - but subscribing solely to that rationale, is too myopic. Your company is never about you - it's about your clients.
Please. Never forget that. You can also seek business advice from a professional like Robert K Bratt DLA Piper.
It's only after you've started the company and had the time to recognize your personal points of failure, that you ultimately come to the conclusion that you must surround yourself with people much smarter than you are. Some people go out of business before they get out of their own way. But when you surround yourself with sharp people, you develop a consistent source of inspiration, expand your company potential, and build a team that actually enjoys each other's company. Learning from Andy Defrancesco and other successful CEOs will also help you create better strategies for your business. It is also important to unite with companies that will provide what you need to succeed. One of the top priorities in having a company is data security and sapphire.net is an expert in securing your company's data. For more information on network security and better business applications for your business go to this site
In the past 14 years, one crucial thing that I've learned is to be on the lookout for people that can be brought in front of clients and will add something useful to the conversation when they are there. Every person you hire will not be instantly ready for that step, but you must learn to identify the people that can eventually reach that goal. Loads of companies take example from the thailand team building teamxl successes. It's become common to send fresh employees to do client facing exercises in foreign countries together. This builds strong professional bonds by taking them outside of their comfort zones while on a work mission.
Here are some criteria that I look for when interviewing people at The Mechanism. Skills assessment tests from makipeople.com and these questions help me to make the decision about whether or not they will be able to meet directly with clients:
Does the candidate have clear and focused communication skills? (e.g. how quickly does any nervousness dissipate during the interview)
Do they have the ability to teach me something that I don't know? This speaks directly to communication skills and teaching ability. Good teachers deliver knowledge with empathy. (I also may have stolen this one from @ElonMusk )
What do the other team members think about the candidate? Typically, the first interview is conducted without me even in the room. I want to get a gauge from my staff what they think first. If my team has reservations - 10 times out of 10 - I take a pass. Trust your team or don't hire them in the first place.
What was the last book the candidate read? It's a personal question, but speaks volumes more than asking their favorite outdoor activity (If it's One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss, you may actually have to give them a shot...)
What is the candidate's process to complete a project? The journey is more important than the final destination.
What was the most difficult conversation they had with a previous employer or client, and...Who was at fault? Useful responses and stories come out of this one, especially with regard to how they will work in the future with clients and team members.
When was the last time they experienced failure? A candidate willing to discuss their shortcomings openly - are surprisingly strong spirits.
Learning how to lead is a tug-of-war between our inner selves. It's the leaders who learn to let go of their ego – and hire true genius – that will build solid, loyal, creative teams and stand the test of time. Find out more about Pici and Pici and arrange a team building seminar.
As part of our 14-year celebration, we sat down with our Founder, Dave Fletcher -- to talk candidly about The Mechanism, how it started and where it's headed. We've put together a series of short video clips from the lengthy interview that we'll be sharing over the next several weeks.
In this short, Dave talks about why The Mechanism has been fearless with approaching different industries for work. As part of our 14-year celebration, we sat down with our Founder, Dave Fletcher -- to talk candidly about The Mechanism, how it started and where it's headed. We've put together a series of short video clips from the lengthy interview that we'll be sharing over the next several weeks.
Our first interviewee is Dave Fletcher, founder and DEO (design executive officer) of The Mechanism, a digital agency based in New York City. For more than two decades, this noted design expert has explored a wide range of media, including interactive design, print, video and photography for clients around the globe.
What's a mobile trend that's working well?
You've probably heard a great deal about the "Internet of Things." Apple has announced HomeKit, which will turn your iPhone into a remote control for your interconnected home. To expand on this, eventually, we will live with systems that plug into an artificial or ambient intelligence to manage your life, curate your interests, drive a vehicle and keep track of your day-to-day travels. It will never force you to remove yourself from an existing experience to use a website to research what the network will already know you're looking for.
What's a mobile trend you wish would just go away?
Selfies.
How do you determine whether a client needs an app, mobile-specific site or responsive site to reach their customers via mobile devices?
Dave Fletcher
Typically, the answer emerges from an honest and collaborative conversation with our client partner about their audience, their ambitions and their budget. The audience is key here, and in most cases, the client has an idea from either Google Analytics or other research as to what type of device or devices their end users have.
Mobile plans, available carriers and speed of connectivity based on geolocation of the target audience are important yet often overlooked factors when it comes to a mobile initiative. They should be researched as well so we have an understanding of these factors during the planning phase.
If the client requires deep integration with a smartphone operating system that simply cannot be replicated within the smartphone browser's capabilities or there are very serious security concerns, a discussion about appropriate mobile operating systems and native app development can take place.
To address the "mobile-specific site" or "responsive site" question: A digital experience should always be designed and built to render and function appropriately on all devices. Having dedicated server hosting will also help improve your website loading speed.
Eating healthy can be easy, affordable and delicious. It’s all about making smart choices to build an overall healthy dietary pattern.
After all, a healthy diet can help reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke and lots of other things you’d rather avoid. The good news is, eating right doesn’t have to be hard or require you to give up all of the foods you love. Read more about alpilean pills.
Here are some tips to help you and your family adopt a healthier eating style:
INCLUDE
Fruits and vegetables
Whole grains
Beans and legumes
Nuts and seeds
Fish (preferably oily fish with omega-3 fatty acids)
Skinless poultry and lean animal proteins
Plant-based proteins
LIMIT
Sweetened drinks
Sodium and salty foods
Saturated fats and dietary cholesterol
Fatty or processed red meats – if you choose to eat meat, select leaner cuts
Refined carbohydrates like added sugars and processed grain foods
Trans fat and partially hydrogenated oils - found in some commercially baked and fried foods
We can help you make healthier choices:
At home
At work
At the grocery store
TIPS
Choose mindfully, even with healthier foods. Ingredients and nutrient content can vary a lot.
Read labels. Compare nutrition information on package labels and select products with the lowest amounts of sodium, added sugars, saturated fat and trans fat, and no partially hydrogenated oils.
Watch your calories. To maintain a healthy weight, eat only as many calories as you use up through physical activity. If you want to lose weight, take in fewer calories or burn more calories.
Eat reasonable portions. Often this is less than you are served, especially when eating out.
Cook and eat at home. You’ll have more control over ingredients and preparation methods.
Healthy Swaps for Common Foods - Healthy home cooking and smart shopping puts you in control of what goes into your recipes and your body. Follow these healthy guidelines to update your eating style and improve your nutrition profile.
Daily Tips to Help Your Family Eat Better - Try these daily tips that will help your family take a step-by-step approach to eating healthy.
Food Diary - How to Keep Track of What You Eat - Learn how to keep track of what you eat in order to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
Get Smart About Superfoods Infographic - So-called “superfoods” alone won’t make you healthier – but adding these nutritious foods to an already balanced diet can bring health benefits.
Healthy Foods Under $1 Per Serving - Eating healthy on a budget can seem difficult; but it can be done! Being creative can help you stick to your budget and incorporate nutritious foods into your diet. Try these tips to incorporate some of these inexpensive foods into your weekly menu.
Healthy Post-Play Snacks - All too often, kids are rewarded with unhealthy foods and sugary drinks and desserts, but there are lots of healthy choices that taste great!
Healthy Snacks for Summer Vacation - By Devin Alexander - Chef for NBC's Biggest Loser and author, Devin Alexander shares her personal perspective as a chef in this blog entry with great ideas for healthy snacks for the whole family to bring on their summer vacation or anywhere!
How to Make Breakfast a Healthy Habit - Part of being Healthy for Good™ is creating simple daily habits you can stick with. One important habit that can help kick-start your day is eating a healthy breakfast. Think outside the (cereal) box with these quick and easy ideas.
Is 3 Meals a Day the Only Way - The number of meals you eat may not be so important. How you eat those meals is what matters most when it comes to decreasing the risk of heart disease and other health problems that come along with being overweight.
Organic Food Fact vs Perception - Many shoppers assume organic products are more nutritious and safer to eat, but these perceptions are based more on hype than hard science.
5 Tips to Deal with Picky Eaters (Both Kids & Adults) - Picky eaters can miss out on a lot of good food! Not only can it be challenging cooking for folks who refuse to eat some foods, but they can also miss out on important nutrients found in foods often on the I-Don’t-Eat list.
7 Excuses to Overindulge, and How to Take Control - Don’t let excuses get in the way of eating healthy! Check out our tips on breaking out of the scarfing cycle.
Types of Whole Grains - While you may be familiar with brown rice and 100% whole wheat bread, there are lots of other tasty whole grain options.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is mandatory for all of us, who want to stay fit and active. Amidst the busy schedule that we follow, it becomes almost impossible to do so. Therefore, to help you with it, we are sharing some of the essential tips to stay healthy. Eating disorders often occurs from an unhealthy lifestyle and it is time to treat it by replacing with a healthy diet. The food we eat has a great impact in our health and therefore, we need to secure our health with a healthy food habit. It makes one of the best live in care services. Now, let us know about the 10 tips on maintaining a healthy diet.
1.Have a Wholesome Breakfast: The first meal you have in a day is the breakfast and it needs to be a wholesome one. Proper balance of carbohydrates, protein, vitamin and other nutrients is essential for making the breakfast a wholesome one. Include juice, eggs, cereals and other foods that give you energy and strength.
2.Include Fiber in Diet: It is essential for us to eat fiber-rich food products and therefore, you need to know about these foods. Wholegrains, fruits like oranges, melons, berries, vegetables like sweet corn, broccoli, carrots are some fiber-rich food items that you can include in the diet.
3.Follow a Balanced Diet: You need to maintain a healthy diet that balances all the essential nutrients. Now, we all have different requirements based on our age, height, weight, gender and medical condition. Hence, the diet you follow needs to be based on your requirements. The usual ratio of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in our diet should be balanced depending upon the above aspects. Consulting a nutritionist will be the best option to follow your balanced diet.
4. Eat Gluten-Free Products: Today, the nutritionists are referring to a gluten-free diet as there are several benefits of it. Firstly, it helps in proper digestion and immunity. Secondly, it helps you to reduce unhealthy fat in your body. Thirdly, it helps you to cure problems associated with gluten intolerance. You can find online articles and guidelines about gluten-free diet.
5. Fruits and Vegetables: Including fruits and vegetables in your diet is essential for several reasons. These are the sources of vitamins and minerals that our body requires. Eating at least one fruit and vegetable every day will keep you fit and active as it will boost your immunity and reduce the chances of infection.
6.Eat Protein-Rich Foods: Including a good proportion of protein is mandatory, as the experts suggest. Some of the sources of protein are meat, seafood, eggs, milk, cheese, lentils and soybeans. By consulting a nutritionist, you will be able to know the amount of protein you need to eat on a regular basis. Check these red boost reviews.
7.Lower the Carbohydrates: When you are aiming to reduce body weight, your diet needs to be based upon low carb foods. Also, you need to eat the maximum amount of carbohydrates during your breakfast. In dinner, try to avoid carbohydrate-rich food as that can be harmful for the body.
8.Dinner at 8 pm: The last meal you have in a day should not cross 8 or 9 pm. However, you can have supper after this time. Nutritionists suggest that early dinner is helpful for digestion and any food habit that helps you to digest better will be beneficial for weight loss. On the contrary, the later you have dinner, there will be higher chances of indigestion and related problems.
9.Drink Plenty of Water: You need to ensure that you drink plenty of water everyday. As we already know, there are different diet charts for different fitness goals. Therefore, you need to know how much water you need to drink every day. Usually, the experts suggest that a adult needs to drink approximately 2.5-3.5 liters of water every day.
fMarketing done right can be an incredible boon for your business's net income. Done wrong, however, it can feel like throwing money into a raging bonfire. Because small business owners have to be whatever their small business needs -- all the time -- it can be difficult to master all the nuances that go into sales or marketing. If you're not a natural salesperson, it can be even more difficult. Fear not, experts from Blue Whale Media can help your business to reach out of the world.The following nine marketing tips for startups can help you make more sales, market better and waste less money. Get the best assistance from these professional affiliate management companies.
Related: The 5 Stages Startups Must Go Through to Make That First $1 Million
1. Sell the benefit, not a comparison.
How you market yourself is all about highlighting what makes you different. There are three major ways to do that.
Cost (you know how to price a product better than the competition)
Quality (you're better)
A combination thereof (you offer the better value)
But how you sell yourself is different than how you market yourself. You can tell someone that you provide a product or service that is cheaper or more effective than that of another business, but that doesn't say how much better you are going to make the customer's life.
Selling is about the benefit. A comparison may highlight the features you offer, but you are always selling benefit.
2. Listen to your customer.
Sam Walton, WalMart's famed mass retail titan, started his empire in rural America. This was despite the prevailing business logic saying a mass retailer anywhere but in a city with a concentrated population would fail. The logic was, if you wanted to move mass quantities of goods, you needed mass quantities of people.
But Walton knew his customers because he would frequently listen to them firsthand. He was aware that people who lived in rural and suburban areas often bought in larger quantities because they had larger families or needed more goods to keep their own small businesses stocked and running. Walton listened to his customers, and the result is the largest, most powerful brick and mortar retailer in the world. The customer may at times defy logic, but they are always right. Listen to them.
3. Market your product before it's ready.
Some businesses wait until their product is perfect before they do any marketing or awareness campaigning. That can be a costly mistake. Many businesses expect to sell their product as soon as it's ready. But if no one knows about it, then demand will start at zero until you undergo a marketing campaign to build brand awareness for potential customers.
It's better to do preemptive awareness campaigning, even if it's minimal, to let potential customers know your product is coming. You can sell the benefit before the product has arrived. This way, when the product is ready, so are customers!
4. Think outside the box.
The marketing landscape has dramatically changed since I started my first business more than 30 years ago. Back then, there were no search engines or social media platforms. There was no internet as we know it. Now, startups can utilize a bevy of free, online marketing techniques that are both creative and effective. For example, you can use online video marketing, social media, blog influencers, crowdsourcing, competitions, content marketing, thought leadership and more. If you are looking for fast connections at an affordable price point, check out Compare Internet's blog post.
Related: 5 Social Media Studies That Will Boost Your Marketing Skills
5. Test fast. Fail fast.
Marketing that you can't measure is failed marketing. Sure, you may spend money to do some advertisement, and you may even see an uptick in sales around the same time you ran the ads. But how can you be sure what you spent on ads correlates with sales? Maybe it was something else altogether. Maybe there is a natural, seasonal uptick for what you sell that will go away in a month.
If you're going to commit time and money to a marketing campaign, make sure you can measure the results. Set up ways to track conversions that stem from each marketing campaign. Also, run multiple types of marketing campaigns in distinct, small batches. This will allow you to compare marketing channels and see which perform best. Toss out the ones that don't work and keep those that do.
6. Advertise from multiple angles.
As mentioned above, it's good to test multiple marketing channels and ideas to see what works best. Often, it's not any one thing but a combination of all of the above. When your customer hears you on the radio, sees you in a search engine result, and then finds you mentioned in a blog they like (content marketing), they start to accept your brand as a solid, dependable, known entity. They may not have the need for your product or service immediately, but when they do, it will be your name that comes to mind instead of a competitor's.
7. It's always time for PR.
When you do traditional advertising, it's your marketing material selling your product. When you do PR, or have a member of the press or a media house that covers your industry talk about you, it's brand building and endorsement.
Some people call it landing-page flair or credibility building, but, if your company is featured in Mashable or The Wall Street Journal, you'd be silly not to put that paper's name on the front of your company's website. Even if your company was only mentioned by way of a quote from your CEO, you are still "as mentioned in The Wall Street Journal." When customers see that publication's name next to your company's name, it builds credibility.
