David Lidsky's Blog, page 2744

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Now Competing To Be The Master Of Your Domain: Squarespace

It's already one of the major companies dominating website hosting, with advertising that blankets the country from subway cars to print magazines. Now Squarespace is getting even more ambitious, looking to take on GoDaddy and move in on the domain registration business with a new product that allows users to buy and process their desired URLs through the site.

The company's new product, Squarespace Domains, entered soft launch in early April. CEO Anthony Casalena tells Fast Company that he is enthusiastic about the new product while also taking some veiled digs at other domain services.

"We looked around at the competitive landscape," Casalena said. "And we were like 'My God, this industry is so old and has so little innovation,' and there were very antiquated products for people doing this even though it's such a fundamental piece of doing a website."

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Depending on the name of the URL that's purchased, Squarespace charges between $20 and $70 a year. Pricing is set depending on the top-level domain used and includes an ad-free parking page that follows Squarespace's aesthetic along with WHOIS privacy. By comparison, the company's fully hosted plans hover between $96 and $144 yearly for personal accounts.

By offering this product, Squarespace is able to offer a workaround for a price point issue that's challenged them for some time: Customers with a Squarespace account (Disclosure: This writer uses Squarespace to host his own website) have to pay separately for each site they open with the company. No volume discounts or package deals are normally offered.

This means that, in the past, a customer such as a small business that's looking to set up a separate site for something like a pop-up sale had to either buy a separate account (which can be quite pricey) or be lost to competing products such as About.me, Wix, Weebly, or WordPress. Most importantly, those customers registered their domains through third-party providers—even though they were already paid-up Squarespace consumers.

It also gives the company a lower-priced product to hook customers who aren't completely sold on a full-featured website yet. Promotional materials sent to Fast Company mentioned that "a 2014 survey by Vistaprint found that 43% of small businesses choose a domain name before doing anything else online, and anecdotal evidence suggests that many of our customers prefer to start with a domain as well."

Casalena added that "domains aren't the most exciting thing in the world, but we have a good take on it and we're excited to bring it into the modern age." In the coming months, the company plans to add free SSL certificates—and, crucially for keeping users in their ecosystem—the ability for current Squarespace customers to shift their non-Squarespace domain registrations to the company.

Domain hosting is the latest in a number of new product launches that Squarespace has made in the past year to target specific customer niches. In late 2015, the company introduced single-page websites with limited functionality that cost $60 per year at press time (making them cheaper, in some cases, than the domain product) and a new e-commerce product targeted at small businesses that starts at $312 yearly.

Squarespace's goal seems to be simple: Keep their customers in their ecosystem for as long as possible, and introduce progressively lower-priced products with limited functionality to attract customers who'd otherwise use competing products (including free and freemium alternatives). Their hope is that by offering domains, they'll attract users who will be more than happy to build a full-featured website later on.

Pentagram Sexes Up The Stodgy World Of Finance

The graphic design of the finance world is stodgy, boring, old-fashioned, and marvelously conservative. But money is sexy. So when approached by an influential group of New York security analysts to design a book predicting the future of the stock market, Pentagram partner Eddie Opara aimed to give them a design that was just as exciting and dynamic as money itself.

Published by the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) in celebration of its 50th year, High Yield Future Tense: Cracking the Code of Speculative Debt is a thick bible that presents the outlook for high-yield bonds—riskier bonds with a higher chance of profit than other types of bonds—as a selection of think pieces, infographics, and formulas from some of the all-stars of the futures world. Approached by NYSSA to design the book, Opara at first had his doubts. "I mean, let me put it this way: If you were a designer, and someone approached you with a book with this title, wouldn't you think carefully before taking the job on?" he laughs.

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What eventually brought Opara on board was NYSSA's promise that it expected something very different from the usual finance tome. Looking at Amazon's finance section together, Opara showed me the kind of graphic design he was specifically trying to avoid. "Not to get personal, but these designs all have the aspect of DIY books," he says. "They look like they're from the '80s or '90s. And when you open the books up, they look like some exam you have to do for accounting class."

Finance books deserve the same graphical treatment as books about fashion or architecture.

So for High Yield Future Tense, Opara and his team at Pentagram set out to break the mold. The cover has four ultra-modern typefaces (Larish Neue, Domaine Sans Display, Px Grotesk, and Danmark) that vie for readers' attention. Opara says these typefaces weren't picked because they necessarily evoked money, but because they created an effect right from the get-go that this wasn't a book for conservatives, or people living in the past. This was a book for people who aren't afraid to rip open the future of the high-yield bonds market.

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Broken into four sections—market dynamics, active management, analytical innovation, and benchmarking—the book continues to use typography and color as organizing elements throughout, with each section getting its own dominant color and typeface. Colored ribbons, meanwhile, make it easy to flip open to the correct section. Perhaps the most "traditional" nod to the world of finance comes by way of the individual contributor portraits, which are done in a style reminiscent of the Wall Street Journal's stipple hedcuts.

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According to Opara, the most time-consuming element in High Yield Future Tense to design were the illustrations, or graphical "exhibits." The volume contains more than 168 such exhibits, including 111 charts and graphs and 57 tables. These were challenging for Opara and his team to get right, often because the book's authors had to explain the financial meaning to the group. When they understood what these charts were about, though, Pentagram realized that these weren't just stuffy bar charts and line graphs. They were stories, predicting the cause and effect of millions or perhaps billions of dollars being made or lost. Designing each exhibit so it told its story properly ended up requiring so much brainstorming that the end papers of High Yield Future Tense are just Pentagram's notes and sketches, trying to work out the problem.

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The design element of High Yield Future Tense that Opara is most proud of is how the book handles its 31 math formulas. Regular joes won't make heads or tails of them, but to finance types, the formulas are literally amazing, Opara says: secret equations to die for, published for the first time by some of the greatest minds in the financial world. Opara decided to handle these formulas almost like Playboy centerfolds, pulling them out and turning them on their side so that High Yield Future Tense's readers can appreciate their beauty.

"For a long time, I've wondered why finance books aren't designed to exude the importance of what they're stating," Opara says. "Why are these books so incredibly bland, when it's not bland content, especially for the person who can see the real content behind the words?" Finance books, Opara says, deserve the same graphical design treatment as books about fashion or architecture, because finance is also about design. "Finance is about trying to design a methodology for us all to live better, richer lives," he says. And that makes High Yield Future Tense one of the few finance books that looks the part.

All Images: courtesy Pentagram

The Next Frontier For Ambitious Entrepreneurs: Space

Eric Ward, a graduate student at MIT, has always wanted to work in the aerospace industry. "It's a field full of people who are both very passionate about space and also excited about tackling very hard problems," he says.

After earning a degree in mechanical engineering, Ward landed coveted internships at NASA and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, expecting that he would spend his entire career at a big, established space company. But over the last decade, he's watched a new generation of companies like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX enter the space game. "There's a mythos in the space community surrounding Elon Musk," Ward says, referring to the founder of SpaceX. "He's been very successful in changing the way people think about space. He's forced people to accept that fact that the private space sector is viable and important for the growth of the industry."

"(Elon Musk) forced people to accept that fact that the private space sector is viable."

The success of these high-profile companies has inspired other entrepreneurs—or astropreneurs, as they sometimes refer to themselves—to take a stab at starting their own space businesses. NewSpace Global, a firm that tracks the private space industry, has seen explosive growth in the market. Over the last five years, it's gone from tracking 125 space companies to over a thousand. "We expect to be at 10,000 in the next ten years," Richard Rocket, NewSpace Global's CEO, said during a presentation at MIT's New Space Age conference. "There are more companies emerging that are capable of sending something to space. That's exciting because it's going to drive down launch costs and increase launch rates. They'll help prove that these business models work."

Ward wants to be part of this new breed of space startups. Over the last year, while working on a degree in systems design and management at MIT, he's been tinkering with the design of a rocket that will send small satellites into orbit. With a cofounder, he's currently working on a business plan to secure funding.

[image error]Photo: Flickr user Michael Seeley

Ward's startup, like many others that are springing up, is capitalizing on the boom in small satellites.

Small satellites first gained popularity over a decade ago, when universities like Cal Poly and Stanford started encouraging students to build CubeSats—mini satellites weighing less than three pounds—that would go into space to gather scientific information, observe Earth, and even launch amateur radio stations. Through a NASA educational program, CubeSats would be selected to piggyback on space missions. NASA currently has 50 more CubeSats awaiting launch.

But over the last few years, companies have been eager to develop small satellites of their own to gather data for their businesses or test out technology. The global satellite industry is now valued at over $200 billion and is rapidly growing. More satellites were launched into space in 2015 than ever before.

Startups are coming up with more and more uses for these satellites. Two years ago, Google acquired Skybox, which uses CubeSats to provide high-resolution photos and videos of the earth. Mark Zuckerberg's plan to bring affordable Internet to the entire world will depend on satellite technology. Small satellites have been used to more precisely detect weather patterns, closely monitor crops, provide real-time images of Earth, and even identify how many cars are in a parking lot.

The market is now ready for rockets whose only purpose is to carry small satellites. NASA is currently developing its own rockets to do this, and it is investing in other companies that are working on technologies specifically designed to launch small satellites. L.A.-based Rocket Labs has already developed a vehicle called "Electron" that provides low-cost, high-frequency launches for small satellites. It has one big contract for 12 launches over 18 months as soon as its facility in New Zealand is complete. Another company, Firefly Space Systems, offers a similar vehicle, and has secured a $5.5 million deal with NASA to launch a constellation of CubeSats in 2018. Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are also working to provide this service.

Ward believes there is room in the market for many more companies like this, given the many small satellites that are currently looking to hitch a ride into space. Right now, companies need to wait two years to send a small satellite into orbit. "We will provide the transportation infrastructure to the rapidly growing small satellite market," Ward tells Fast Company.

[image error]Photo: Flickr user NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Pat Izzo

Over the last year, Ward and his cofounder have been designing the hardware to launch these small satellites. With their engineering background, they have the technical skills to develop a rocket, but in order to get a vehicle off the ground (literally), they will need a significant amount of capital investment. This is why they are at MIT's Sloan School of Management, acquiring the skills they need to launch a business.

"We will see an increase in the number of space unicorns with valuations of north of a billion dollars."

From Ward's current projections, he believes several million dollars in funding should allow them to make progress, though it will take up to $50 million to be fully up and running. Fortunately, there are investors eager to pour funds into startups like Ward's. For instance, there's the New York-based Space Angels Network that invests in early stage space startups. The group receives hundreds of applications from startups every year, and invests in about 5% of them. "You're looking at investment profiles closer to biotech," Ward said. "Higher capital costs, longer duration investments, but the potential for these even bigger payouts."

There are also space incubators that help astropreneurs go from an idea to a business plan. The Silicon Valley Space Center and Lightspeed Innovations are both aerospace accelerator programs that help promising entrepreneurs land angel funding. "We're using the TechStars model," Ellen Chang, Lightspeed's founder, said at the MIT conference. "We're focusing in on 10 companies, and our challenge is to get to the point where they are investable in four or five months." Last year, for instance, Lightspeed helped to secure investment for Phase Four, a startup developing plasma-based technologies to propel satellites into space. It also helped Kubos, another early stage startup that is building open source software to support small satellite missions.

Because space travel is so complex, startups are rushing in to meet very specific, specialized needs. Astroscale, for example, is a Singapore-based startup developing a satellite that will remove orbital debris and decommissioned spacecraft from space. It hopes to have a demonstration mission in 2017 and to be fully operational 2018. Last month, it secured $35 million in funding from a group of venture capitalists investors from around the world.

Besides launching spacecraft and satellites, startups are also analyzing vast quantities of new data and sorting out communication systems so that information can pass from Earth to space and back again. On the backend, there needs to be extensive resources to coordinate and manage missions from the ground. These different companies are working together, creating a new ecosystem.

Google's acquisition of Skybox Imaging in 2014 for $500 million, only four years after the company was created, sent a ripple through the investment community, signaling that space startups had the potential to make big, profitable exits in a short amount of time. "Skybox will not be an outlier," Rocket said. "We will see an increase in the number of space unicorns with valuations of north of a billion dollars, though this might take several years."

[image error]Photo: Flickr user Joshua Davis

Lisa Porter, who has held top positions at NASA, DARPA, and other intelligence wings of the government, says that we're now in the third chapter of the space industry. "We call it Space 3.0," she said. At first, governments invested heavily in space exploration; then companies with large budgets entered the industry. "There are new opportunities and new capabilities now," she explained. "The distinction is that they are all driven by cost innovation. The mindset is first and foremost about getting the cost very low."

Rocket Labs is a good example of this thinking at work. It has managed to create a vehicle that will drive down the cost of sending a rocket into space to $4.9 million per launch, 95% less than the average cost right now.

For someone like Ward, who is just getting his feet wet as an astropreneur, it still feels like there are gaps in the market, particularly if he focuses on creating a system for getting satellites into space that is cheaper than those of his competitors. While starting a space company is daunting, it does not seem impossible. "Launching a space startup is very much a doable thing," says Sean Casey, the founder of the Silicon Valley Space Center. "There is still room for a lot of additional players."

That's not to say that it will be easy. In fact, Ward expects it to be the biggest challenge of his life. He's been brainstorming names for his new company and recently, he settled on Odyne Space. "She's the Greek goddess of pain," he says.

Take A Seat And Enjoy These Photos Of The World's Best Toilets

Loo, lavatory, bog, pissoir, khasi, throne, thunderbox, dunny, water closet: The humble toilet inspires a lot of wordplay, and why not? These most functional of conveniences are under-considered, despite being essential, civilizing, and, dare we say it, pleasurable.

Some of the finest examples are here, in a book curated by Lonely Planet. There's the quaint outhouse in the Finnish tundra. The lovely green Berlin urinal from the 19th century. The toilet "island" off the coast of Belize. And the toilets at the Thiksey Monastery in Ladakh, India, with a view of the lower Himalayas in the distance (what a place for a whizz).

It's also a good reminder that 2.5 billion people around the world lack proper sanitation, which leads to the deaths of 700,000 children each year from water-borne diseases. In other words, be thankful for even the standard, non-photograph-worthy toilets you have.

[image error]Thiksey Monastry, Ladakh, India© Bernhard S./500px

"Toilets so often transcend their primary function of being a convenience to become a work of art in their own right, or to make a cultural statement about the priorities, traditions, and values of the venues, locations, and communities they serve," says the book's intro, somewhat overstating the restroom's cosmic importance.

But who can argue with the elegance of the wood-cabin john in Alaska, or the monumental nature of the 10,000 toilet, sink, and urinal sculpture in the Shiwan Park in Foshan, China? These pictures make you appreciate having a decent place for one's business, especially when one in three in the world, or 2.4 billion people, still live without sanitation.

The Most Common Resume Lies (And Who Is Most Likely To Tell Them)

Even in a market that favors job seekers, candidates will go to great lengths to clinch the job of their dreams. So it should come as no surprise that more than half (56%) of over 2,000 hiring managers have caught a lie on a resume, according to the most recent survey from CareerBuilder.

And those lies can understandably cost candidates the job. Another study of hiring managers revealed that the majority (69%) of them said that if they caught the candidate lying about something, it would be a deal breaker.

Twelve percent of full-time workers said if they got fired from a job, they would leave it off their CV.

But that still leaves 31% of hiring managers who would be willing to look the other way. How far is too far, though? Hloom, an online provider of office templates for small businesses and individuals, surveyed 2,000 employed workers to see what they thought about the difference between "harmless white lies" and "serious falsehoods."

Among the lies that most people labeled "real" were:


College
Foreign language fluency
Academic degree
Former employment history

Those ranked harmless included:


Computer skills
Year of graduation
Duties in former position
Promotions

These most common fibs were ranked on a scale of one to five, with five being the most serious.

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The cause of the padding and exaggerations was overwhelmingly (49.3%) to appear more qualified for the desired job. Coming in second, 21.7% of those surveyed confessed they wanted to embellish their experience to come off as more well-rounded.

Most applicants think they can just get away with it, according to Carly Steele Johnson, a representative from the creative team at Hloom. "It is very easy for an employer to verify information, however, many of them are busy so wouldn't always check," she tells Fast Company, adding, "Who has time to check every little detail?"

If they were let go, the likelihood of lying on their resume increases. The New Norms @ Work global survey found that less than half (46.8%) of all workers polled said they would be totally honest about it if they had to reveal whether they got fired from a job. Twelve percent of full-time workers said if they got fired from a job, they would leave it off their CV or LinkedIn profile.

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Those who were out of work and actively looking were most likely to tell a white lie, according to the Hloom survey. Unemployed workers who were not seeking employment were most likely to report that they'd tell a real lie.

Age doesn't play in strongly as to whether or not the applicant will lie. Forty-three percent of the youngest respondents between the ages of 18-24 said they'd tell a white lie, while 48% of those between 55-64 said they would. That latter group also were the most likely to tell a real lie, as 12.7% reported they would.

Education does factor in to whether or not someone will fib. Sixty-eight percent of respondents who completed some high school but didn't earn a diploma admitted to telling a white lie on a resume, and 38% of them told a real lie. In sharp contrast, no one with a doctorate degree confessed to telling a real lie, and only 13.6% reported white lies.

Gender separated the liars from the truth tellers. "Men told white lies almost 6% more than women, and real lies over 3% more than women," Steele Johnson says. She could only speculate on the reasons why. "Perhaps since men are still very often the only full-time employee of their household, they feel more pressure to get the job?" she asks.

Why Building Your Startup In "Stealth Mode" Is A Bad Idea

"Stealth mode" is the period when startups build a product or company in secret, ostensibly in order to gain a competitive advantage before they launch. Developers code in an undisclosed location, and every business development conversation is preceded by a nondisclosure agreement. During stealth mode, startup founders tend to speak in vague terms about their product as if their approach is generating traction through curiosity. Most likely it isn't.

No one cares about your secret business venture. Share it, get feedback, improve it, and then maybe someone will.

No one cares about your secret business venture. Share it, get feedback, improve it, and then maybe someone will. Unless you're a high-profile security startup and you're building futuristic weapons or climate-change–reversal technologies, you're probably making a mistake.

Building a company in secret cripples the development of an early customer base and eliminates any opportunity for valuable feedback. It also increases your risk of failure while racking up months or years of expenses before knowing if the idea is going to flop.

Let's start by exposing some common myths about why operating in stealth mode is supposedly beneficial.

Myth No. 1: Competitors don't know what you're creating and therefore can't steal your idea. It's true that while you're in stealth mode, larger competitors don't know you exist. So sure, these competitors could take your idea and build something similar themselves, but often it's easier for them to acquire your fledgling startup to add to their portfolio instead. If being acquired is your goal, then stealth mode isn't helping you.

Myth No. 2: A good product will prevail. A good product with a mediocre brand will likely die a slow death, but a strong brand with a mediocre product can pivot and succeed—because people trust and have a relationship with the brand, not just the product. This is one of the reasons why Apple has dominated over the last 15 years. People love its brand, and any product it introduces is widely coveted. Apple devotees might cringe reading this, but while it's true that the company is known for exemplary products, the power of its brand can sustain any weak product launches. Apple's longevity doesn't hinge on any single product.

I've spent the last 12 years consulting with startup clients and have learned that product/market fit and brand positioning are crucial to their success. It's painful to watch a startup flounder when it hasn't figured that out. In more than one case, I've seen thousands of potential customers arrive at landing pages and convert at abysmal rates, all because the startup's value proposition or positioning hadn't been properly vetted.

Finally, after months of A/B testing and optimizing ad campaigns, marketing messaging, landing pages, and strategy, we come to a stark realization: It's not a marketing problem. It's a business problem. Yet sometimes marketing agencies have an easier time looking in from the outside to diagnose what the founders themselves don't want to see.

Marc Andreessen explains it well in this post on his blog:

You can always feel when product/market fit isn't happening. The customers aren't quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn't spreading, usage isn't growing that fast, press reviews are kind of "blah," the sales cycle takes too long, and lots of deals never close.

To achieve product/market fit, you first need to know your market. And you can't do that if you're operating in stealth mode.

Startup founders should spend as much time as possible talking to, researching, reading about, and even hanging out with their potential customers before they launch their businesses.

Instead of going into stealth mode, spend the first six to 18 months gathering as much feedback from potential customers as possible. Founders and marketers alike should actively discover flaws and ways to improve a brand or product during this crucial time, before their product is available to the masses. Phone interviews, customer surveys, and good old-fashioned research can tell you a lot about the potential opportunities and pitfalls before you release your product. Stealth mode can't.

This is also the time to sniff out and eliminate confirmation bias. As Cindy Alvarez of Yammer puts it in a First Round Review article on customer behavior, you need to ask your customers, "What's one thing that would cause you not to purchase a service like this?"

And you have to do that without manipulating the response to get the answer you want. You might hear something that hurts your ego or damages your optimism, but it's very likely the best thing for you.

A recent client of ours wanted to launch a tech product in the golf industry—no more specifics than that. After two months of research on a modest budget, we recommended the client avoid the industry entirely.

We surveyed thousands of golfers at all skill levels searching for a specific customer need to build a product around. There was no clear customer need that demanded a product that wasn't already out there and flourishing in the marketplace. Our client could've followed his dreams and built a product, spending hundreds of thousands to get to market, only to struggle and fade away.

Ultimately, we advised him that we wouldn't invest our own time and money in a venture of this kind, but that it was his call to make. We could have launched into stealth mode and started building something, but we did our homework and talked to potential customers instead.

I've seen enough startups fail to know that even the best marketing can't fix a product/market misfire. You can have the most intelligent and driven founders, plenty of capital, and a winning idea, and still fail to get that match right.

Why not lower the risk? Remove the veil of secrecy and talk openly about your venture. Focus on your brand first, and share it.

So why not lower the risk? Remove the veil of secrecy and talk openly about your venture. Focus on your brand first, and share it with as many people as possible before your product is ready. Building your brand through social outlets can give you a nice platform to launch your product once it is ready. By establishing a strong voice and mission, and by publishing content that helps your audience, you can gain followers quickly. When the time comes to market your product, you'll already have an engaged and loyal fan base to connect with.

After all, would you rather have 10,000 fans to sell to when your product is ready, or zero, because you were in stealth mode the whole time leading up to your launch? Even if your initial product fails and you're forced to pivot, you'll probably be better off. In fact, that's nothing to be ashamed of—many great companies begin that way. Few that last start stealthily.

Jason Brewer is cofounder and CEO of Brolik, a digital agency in Philadelphia. As an entrepreneur, Jason is passionate about helping other business owners navigate the complicated journey of owning a business and developing marketing strategies to grow brands. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybrew.

The Skeptic's Guide To Visualizing Career Success

You want to be successful, right?

In fact, you've probably used that very word recently. But have you truly thought about it? What I mean is, have you deeply defined what the word means to you personally?

We bandy it about all the time, saying things like, "Oh yeah, I want to be successful" or, "I hope I'm successful," but rarely do we define it in a meaningful way for ourselves.

And that's where things go wrong.

There are about a zillion articles out there telling you to just visualize it, as if it's as simple as eating breakfast or checking your email. Plus, if you're like me, sometimes the idea of "visualizing something" feels just a little bit, well, squishy. And squishy doesn't often lead to results.

So, let's be the opposite of that and get practical instead.

Start with the idea of your success. To help you get there, we've got to know what the word means to you. What I think of as success and what you think of it are probably pretty different.

Ready—what does it mean to you? Insert your answer here: _______. (Well, in your head, this is a screen and you shouldn't write on it.)

Maybe you wrote "making a lot of money" or "doing work I love" or "becoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company" or "working from the beach at all times, wearing shoes entirely made from sand."

Awesome—great work! Step one is complete.

Now, there's more to do so we can understand and start to see your definition come to life. It's time to bring your senses into play and get descriptive.

If you chose making a lot of money as success, for example, what does that look like? What does that taste like? What does that smell like? What do you wake up to in the morning? How do you commute? Smell the gilded leather and get down and dirty with the fancy gourmet coffee.

When you do work you love, what do you wear? What does your desk look like? What do you smell in the air around you?

Or, if you chose something like "doing work I love," then get in there and put your senses to work. When you do work you love, what do you wear? What does your desk look like? What do you smell in the air around you? What do you see in the mirror each morning? You get the idea.

How does seeing, tasting, touching all of this feel? Yes, this is a little out there, but you've got to make yourself walk through this process. Keep trying until you can accurately describe everything as if it's a real memory.

Real results come from knowing why you're doing what you're doing in the first place. When you understand this on a deep level, it's motivating and empowering. When you feel motivated and empowered, you tend to make things happen for yourself. So go back to your original statement on what success means to you and ask yourself why you want that. Dig a little deeper, because there's something driving you and it's time to shine a light on it.

I know I view success as doing work I love because it gives me a chance to realize my potential and have an impact on the world. That matters to me. When I start a new coaching project or create a new program, I think about the people who I'm touching. I see their sense of relief as they find answers to their big career questions. I visualize their sense of freedom as they leave behind a toxic job environment. I imagine them standing a little taller as they reach out to a new career opportunity or networking contact, knowing that I've helped to make them more confident.

When I visualize that, my work gets better (and, as a happy side benefit, so does my confidence in myself!).

What's your why? Dig a little deeper than you have before, and connect with what is driving you. If it's money, what is the money giving to your life? What is it allowing you to have or achieve?

See it, taste it, feel it. Revel in it!

Invite a friend or three to a round of happy-hour drinks or a cup of coffee. Run through this exercise out loud with them, each person sharing their own version of success. Warn them it might feel silly at first, but you've all got to take this seriously for it to work.

Get elaborate with each other, and help to draw out the visualizations as you chat by asking questions. For example, you might say, "I want to make a lot of money, which in my mind means I always fly first-class when I travel for work."

And your friends will ask, "What does first class feel like? Describe walking onto the plane and sitting down! What drink do you ask for from the flight attendant?"

There's something so powerful about talking through your vision with people you trust.

Or you could say, "I want to become the leader of my company." And your friends might respond, "Tell us about your first meeting as leader, how do you walk into the room? What's the first thing you say?"

There's something so powerful about talking through your vision with people you trust. Not only does talking about it imply a commitment to making it happen (bravo!), but it also helps you flesh out your vision and make it more and more detailed, and therefore much more real.

If you can see it and say it aloud, you're more likely to make it happen. So, get out there and grab your success. It's waiting for you!

This article originally appeared on The Daily Muse and is reprinted with permission.

This Coworking Space Will Let You Work There In Exchange For Content

The promise of "exposure" in lieu of payment is a well-known cautionary tale in freelancer circles. Your effort should come with tangible compensation, preferably money. But what if, in return for your work, you were offered a desk in a co-working space, plus access to a photography studio, event space, meeting rooms, and over 20 other freelancer colleagues from a variety of disciplines?

In exchange for a desk, freelancers contribute two articles per month to DailyBreadMag, the space's online publication.

Welcome to Blogfabrik, an innovative coworking space in Berlin that opened in June 2015. Blogfabrik means "blog factory" in German; it's an apt name. In exchange for a desk, freelancers contribute two articles per month to DailyBreadMag, the space's online publication. Members are also responsible for promoting their articles through personal social media channels and organizing one event each at Blogfabrik over the course of the year.

Apart from their work for DailyBreadMag, freelancers have the opportunity to work with Blogfabrik's affiliated agency, Kiosk, for which they're paid separately.

"We explore [the freelancers'] abilities and skills with the magazine to see if someone is really talented at taking pictures, writing, or designing graphics," explained Claudio Rimmele, creative director and editor-in-chief of DailyBreadMag. "Then we feel confident about connecting our freelancers with incoming jobs from outside companies."

It's an unorthodox experiment—and, perhaps, a sign of what coworking spaces can be.

The 500-square-meter coworking space is bright and open, and is dotted with the quirky details you might expect. Walls are covered with chalkboards, stacks of vintage suitcases decorate the foyer, and pastel backdrops in the photography studio are perfect for spontaneous selfies.

[image error]Photo: Elizabeth Rushe

The open kitchen includes plenty of informal seating for catching up over coffee. A Polaroid collage of the freelancers who help produce DailyBreadMag spans the walls.

The online magazine sees itself as a think tank that primarily reflects the lives of the Blogfabrik freelancers while also addressing topics like digital culture, accessibility, feminism, and terrorism. The target readership consists of 18- to 35-year-old digital natives as well as "open-minded people from other fields," according to Rimmele.

Overall, there's a lot of freedom for the contributors. Rimmele sees it more as a testing ground for the freelancer's ideas and abilities rather than something meant to resemble a traditional magazine.

"I approve pitches and assign topics for DailyBreadMag, but they have freedom to do what they want as contributors to the magazine," he said. "When you work with a client, it's always down to the client's demands, but that's not the case with the magazine."

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It's worth noting that Blogfabrik is not an independent company. The concept was developed and is funded by Melo, a media and logistics company based in Münich, whose main business includes distributing print and digital press. Rimmele told me that Melo wanted to invest in Blogfabrik to learn more about content creation.

"It's an experiment. Melo does logistics and press distribution, but what they hadn't done before is create content," he said. "They know that one day content creators will not need distributors anymore, so they want to see how this new media landscape evolves, and then maybe make a further investment with that knowledge. Bloggers are part the future of the publishing industry and should be supported in their independent publishing."

Because of the unique system, Kiosk has been able to bring in extra work from companies attracted to the idea of having a talent pool working under one roof. Additionally, Rimmele is already connected to local brands; he was part of the founding team of I Heart Berlin, one of Berlin's most popular culture blogs.

"What we do is make content creators successful and make ourselves successful through them."

However, he is quick to dismiss the idea that Blogfabrik is an agency that pays its employees with access to a coworking space. "It's not like we have twenty agency people here working all day thinking about new ways to make money," he said. "What we do is make content creators successful and make ourselves successful through them."

So who are the people that make up Blogfabrik? Thirty freelancers came on board for the initial launch, covering a number of trades like photography, journalism, videography, editing, and blogging. As the site's one-year anniversary approaches, most of the original freelancers plan to stay on.

Eylül Aslan, an award-winning photographer and writer from Istanbul who moved to Berlin four years ago, has been at Blogfabrik from the beginning. "I come from a culture where it's not really accepted to be a photographer—it's not a profession," she said. "I would definitely say Berlin and the chances that I get here at Blogfabrik—the environment, the network, and the people—really helps. It makes a big difference."

Marlen Stahlhuth, the fashion editor and a photographer for INDIE Magazine, agreed. "Blogfabrik makes a lot of things easier for me," she explained. "It's more official than going to a café or restaurant for meetings. There are jobs coming through Blogfabrik, and there's a lot of interaction with the other freelancers."

Blogfabrik is currently working out the details to offer "flex" desks, a part-time coworking option that can be booked in exchange for one contribution to DailyBreadMag per month. And while the magazine has primarily been published in German until now, the site began running articles in English this month.

"It's very encouraging and motivating to be around everyone—we are like a family," Aslan said. "I tend to be lazy when [I'm by myself]—I feel like I have nothing to work on. Then I come here and I realize I have lots to do."

This article originally appeared on The Freelancer and is reprinted with permission.

The Burr-Feinstein Encryption Bill Is Probably D.O.A.

The encryption bill being floated by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein already seems marked for failure because of a promised filibuster, a hostile House of Representatives, an eventual POTUS veto, and universal opposition from Silicon Valley and privacy groups.

The bill, which was leaked last Friday and circulated Wednesday, mandates that U.S. technology companies establish an encryption "backdoor" through which government agencies can access user data on the power of a warrant or court order.

The main problem with the bill, sources say, is that it touches only U.S.-based hardware and software companies, and so will do little to curb terrorism. The Internet, after all, isn't confined by borders, so bad actors could easily abandon tech products with backdoors and move to ones with better security. Terrorist networks are already known to use apps Telegram or Signal, which are operated by companies outside the United States and use strong, open-source encryption.

The Burr-Feinstein bill will next be discussed and marked up in the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Senator Burr chairs and of which Feinstein is the ranking member. If the marked-up bill passes a vote in the committee it could be introduced on the Senate floor.

But Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)—the second-ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee—has vowed to be waiting there with a filibuster if that happens. Wyden does not believe the problems with the bill can be fixed with markups, a spokesman said.

Even without a filibuster, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said the bill almost certainly lacks the votes for passage in the Senate. It's even more unlikely that a companion bill would be introduced in the House, where passage is next to impossible.

The White House has already said that it won't support the Burr-Feinstein bill in its current form.

At least one Republican member of Senate Intelligence Committee—Senator Dan Coats (R-Indiana)—came out in support of the bill in an interview with NPR Wednesday night.

Other than Coats, it was difficult to find members of Congress who are in support of the bill. A Coats spokesman said in an email note he knew of no others supporting it.

"The discussion draft was released just yesterday and staff is in the process of talking to stakeholders," said a Feinstein spokesman. "I'm sure we'll be in a position to discuss support for the bill down the road."

It was far easier finding people in Washington to speak out against the bill.

"The bill goes to an inherent constitutional question of do we have a right to produce a product that commits no crime, or provide a service that commits no crime, and guarantees security, or do we have to presume that locks have to be insecure so that law enforcement can get to them?" Issa told Fast Company Thursday.

The question still remains as to whether it's really possible to write a viable law that would both allow the government access to encrypted data without seriously weakening personal data security in a time when hackers are becoming more resourceful and aggressive.

"People are trying to find the middle ground between encryption and national security," Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told Fast Company Thursday. "If there is some middle ground that I don't know about I would be happy to hear it, but if you create holes in the encryption you make security weaker."

Both Issa and Lofgren sit on the House Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing on encryption where both Apple and the FBI testified.

Both Senators pointed to an editorial in the San Jose Mercury News titled "Feinstein still clueless on technology after all these years."

The language of the bill indeed does expose a big disconnect between the thinking of the national security community and the tech community.

Apple, which has been at the center of the encryption debate, also chose not to comment. Apple and the FBI will testify in front of another Congressional committee—the House Energy and Commerce Committee—next Tuesday.

Several members of Congress have told Fast Company that the political winds are blowing away from carte blanche government surveillance and toward stronger encryption in a broad sense. Just yesterday members of the House Judiciary Committee voted overwhelmingly to increase the personal data security protections in the Email Privacy Act.