Intervention: Brand Identity Crisis Edition

It's a modern twist on an old paradigm: prolific ascent giving way to inevitable decline. Once, the epitome of success, the vibrant sun to a dynamic solar system. Now, a lumbering afterthought to the parade of bright new stars. Then, in some fit of desperation, the has-been strips away the vestiges of a former self, slicks everything back and goes metro.

Stepping Back From Komen's Brand Disaster

Now that the dust has settled on the Susan G. Komen Foundation's disastrous and embarrassing handling of their partnership with Planned Parenthood, it's a good time to take a step back and understand how an organization that does so much right could have gotten this one so wrong.

Maximizing Design Firm Relationships During the Budgeting Process

Last month I outlined three ways for nonprofits to maximize design firm relationships: Leveraging Simple, actionable strategies to leverage their experience to help with the budgeting process, planning together for stakeholder input, and collaborating on project success metrics. Today I’ll dive a bit deeper into how an experienced design firm provides valuable insights as you’re putting together a budget for your nonprofit’s web redesign project.

Rethinking the Traditional Policy Report

The conventional strategy for policy reports is to cater to a specialized cadre of industry insiders. This often results in dry, linear documents, interspersed with the requisite stats and charts to support their policy recommendations. While this approach can certainly help get your ideas down on paper, it doesn't do much to get your audience to notice you and your message over the thousands of others vying for their attention. 

State of the State of the Union: Power(Point) to the People?

On January 24th of 2012, President Barack Obama delivered the State of the Union address. For the second time, the White House made it available online with a special enhanced broadcast complementing the speech with onscreen presentation graphics.

I know what you're thinking—a Powerpoint from the President? Who does he think he is, Ross Perot? Our founding fathers must be turning in their graves.