Recommended Products: Ekster 3.0 Smart Wallet

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StrategyDriven Professionals represent the pinnacle of performance excellence achieved through personal motivation and drive. Consequently, they seek to surround themselves with only the highest quality products that similarly represent excellence and help them push toward ever greater levels of achievement.

Ekster 3.0 Smart Wallet – Parliament

One such product is the Ekster 3.0 Smart Wallet. Sleek and elegant, this finely crafted leather wallet combines simplicity, style, and compactness with modern security and technologies expected of a superior wallet.

The Ekster 3.0 Parliament Smart Wallet we tested is a bifold wallet comfortably housing four embossed credit cards with an RFID shielded aluminum case and offering sleeves for three additional cards and an elastic strap to firmly secure paper money. Cards held within the shielded aluminum case were raised smoothly upon activation of the card release button and were otherwise held firmly in place. When raised, the cards were staggered in height by approximately one-quarter inch enabling easy selection and removal of any individual card. The wallet’s high quality leather and fine stitching gives it the look and feel of a luxury product.

Additionally, the Ekster 3.0 Parliament Smart Wallet was compact in size, being noticeably thinner than a traditional bifold or trifold wallet holding the same number of cards. This provided the added benefits of comfort and appearance particularly when carried in a pant’s pocket.

StrategyDriven Recommended Products: Ekster 3.0 Smart WalletEkster Tracker Card

We similarly tested the Ekster Tracker Card. Easily paired with the Chipolo tracking app, the tracking card enables location tracking of the wallet within which it is placed as the phone with which it is paired. The tracker card provides a pleasant audible ring to further aid wallet location identification while the app can be configured to enable mobile phone ringing even when silenced. The Ekster Tracking Card is solar powered, environmentally friendly and easily recharged in any lighted environment.

The highly rated Chipolo app was easy to register, configure, and pair with the Ekster Tracker Card via a smart phone; supported by step-by-step instruction screens. A notable bonus features include ‘ringing the phone’ even when in silent/vibrate mode and remotely triggering selfie photos from the tracker card.

Ekster offers thorough online instructions for the use of its 3.0 Smart Wallets and Tracker Card though we found both devices intuitive to use making the instruction manuals largely unneeded.

Both the Ekster 3.0 Parliament Smart Wallet and the Ekster Tracker Card can be purchased from Ekster.com using the links provided in this article.

From Spark to Flame – How to Find Ideas Worth Pursuing

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StrategyDriven Innovation Article |Innovation|From Spark to Flame - How to Find Ideas Worth PursuingTurning fresh ideas into full-blown, marketable commodities is the mandate of every innovation team. The endeavor is more than serendipity. A great part is honed skill.

While originality and innovation spring from deep in the recesses of the mind, it’s our job to develop a creation mindset. This requires strengthening that mental muscle that allows new ideas to arise and exciting refinements to emerge. Part of this exercise is overcoming the self-judgment, criticism and lack of confidence that all contribute to our ability or lack thereof to think quickly or creatively.

I take my inventiveness cues from improvisational comedy. I’ve performed in, directed and produced improv comedy shows for more than 20 years. In improv, the actors make up scenes and stories from nothing. They build off of each other’s ideas without worrying about what the entire scene is going to look like. They just focus on the small, in-the-moment decisions.

As in improv, refining our ability to heighten inspiration and add our own creativity and imagination to an initial idea will let us take ideas to unexpected and exciting places.

Generally speaking, ideas don’t hit like a lightening bolt. Nor do they spring up fully formed, packaged and ready to market. The trick is to recognize the spark when our mental radar identifies a blip of inspiration, and then decide to act on it.

How do we go about finding the spark? Here are some ways that consistently help me set fire to new and interesting ideas:

1. Curiosity. Allowing ourselves to pursue interests for no reason other than the fact that something intrigues us is reason enough to explore new subjects. When you allow your curiosity to explore new concepts, you create new data points in your brain. What we’re doing is filling our “subconscious thought well” with snippets of ideas that our brains can reference. Ideas don’t come out of nowhere — they come out of that subconscious thought well. The more curious we are, the more and different pieces of information we make available to draw from.

2. Go do stuff. Moving from a passive role to an active roll activates the entirety of our bodies and ingrains whatever we’re doing more deeply. Like flowers? Then actually plant and grow some. Interested in history? Take a guided tour of an historic site. The point is, when we actually go out and physically experience whatever we’re most interested in, it becomes a part of us that can never be if we’re just watching. Having pursued a broad assortment of experiences gives us a greater capacity for making associations from a piece of information. Like improv actors, we’re able to build upon ideas by making connections or finding possibilities in all kinds of unexpected places.

3. Observe. Different from spectating, observing is a purposeful activity where we’re consciously focusing on what we see, hear and feel. When we observe, we tend to see both the micro and macro aspects. We take in the entire scene in the macro, yet pick out specific details in the micro. Observing is important to the creative process because we’re again taking in new information and building that subconscious database. This new information allows potentially unrelated concepts to collide to allow something new to happen.

4. Ignite sparks. Every day, people come across sparks of inspiration. An idea comes to mind and a small flash of excitement courses through us as we say to ourselves, “Hey, that’s a pretty good idea.” But most of us never do a thing about it and the spark dies out. The ability to jump on the spark is the single most important way of putting innovative ideas in motion. When we have a positive emotional reaction to an idea, it means there’s something there to take a look at. It may just mean starting to research it online. Some sparks will die a natural death, and that’s okay. What we’re doing is strengthening that muscle that allows us to make connections and let things spontaneously combust.

5. Fan the flame. Following inspirations even to their next iteration creates a momentum that can eventually allow a spark to flicker to life. One hundred sparks may die out for every one that builds into a flame, but when excitement for an idea doesn’t die and continues to energize us, we need to jump on it and see where it goes. From following an idea to its next logical step, one decision leads to the next. As the flame of the idea continues to build, we reach the point where we’ve envisioned something worth creating.

By following our curiosity, which leads us to do stuff, and observing what’s happening around us, we’ll start to experience the feeling of inspiration. And by fanning those sparks of inspiration that continue to excite us, we’re more likely to land on ideas worth pursuing.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Norm LavioletteNorm Laviolette is the co-founder and CEO of Improv Asylum, IA Innovation and Asylum Gaming and Esports (AGE). He has performed, directed or produced more than 10,000 improvisational comedy shows on three continents. He brings the experience of building companies from the ground up into multi-million dollar businesses. Norm Laviolette has worked with Fortune 500 companies, including Google, Red Bull, Fidelity and more. His new book, The Art of Making Sh!t Up: How to Work Together to Become an Unstoppable Powerhouse (Wiley, May 7, 2019), describes how the techniques of improv can transform teams into more powerful, creative and healthy organizations. Learn more at iainnovation.com.

5 Mistakes With Your Business Website

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Business Website|5 Mistakes With Your Business WebsiteIt’s not easy running a business website. The competition can be tough, the demands of your website visitors are more strenuous than ever, and it’s a game that doesn’t allow you to sit still for too long. Still, this is the game that you sign up to play when you enter the online world. Despite the fact that there are plenty of external forces that can harm your website (such as competition and so on), in actual fact, most of the harm stems from the business operator. They make mistakes that harm the quality and trustworthiness of their website, and ultimately harms their profits. Below, we take a look at five common mistakes. Make sure you’re not making any of them!

Low-Quality Media

Your products and services might be outstanding, but if someone is stopping by your website for the first time, how are they to know that? You only have a few seconds to establish your credibility to someone who doesn’t know anything about that. Alas, many companies fail this first test almost instantly, simply by using inadequate photos and videos. If yours are of a low standard, then it’ll be obvious to an experienced internet user, which, at this stage, is just about everyone.

Insufficient Usability

You’re in the business of whatever it is that you sell or the service that you provide. You’re not in the business of website design and usability. Sometimes companies get away with this, but at other times it shows. They have a website that pushes the customer away, or is simply too complicated to make sense of. If you’re going to have a site that works for everyone, then you need to have an eye on the user experience. If you think yours somewhat lacks in this department, then get help from UX 4Sight. They’ll help to ensure that customers understand what your website is all about.

Too Salesy

It’s always important to understand that the customers you’re trying to reach are marketed to all the time. As such, they’ve become pretty aware of when something is far too salesy. If your web copy is full of jargon, and never uses a simple phrase when there’s a much wordier and more complicated option available, then they’ll see through it. If you have to use complicated language to get people to buy, then it’s perhaps time to rethink what you offer!

Annoying Aspects

It doesn’t matter how good your products and services might be: if you’re annoying your website visitors, then they won’t stick around long enough to discover it for themselves. Things like too many pop-ups, notification and newsletter sign up requests, and — especially — autoplay videos all frustrate web users. When the success of your business website hangs in the balance, don’t make it more difficult by annoying your visitors!

Failing to Progress

Finally, make sure you’re progressing and keeping up with the latest internet practices, designs, security, and so on. Your site might look great now, but it won’t be long before it seems outdated!

How To Ensure Your Website Exceeds Expectations

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Website Design|How To Ensure Your Website Exceeds ExpectationsWhen you come up with an idea for an amazing website, it may seem impossible to convert the concept into the real thing. Especially if you lack experience in the field, building and maintaining your own site can appear to be a humongous task that’s daunting to even start. Hopefully these helpful tips can get you set in the right direction to exceed your expectations and become the most successful website you could ever have imagined.

Choose The Right Name

When coming up with the right name for your website, many different ideas will pop into your head (some much better than others). It should be a fairly simple process, so try not to over complicate things by spending too much time thinking of something unique and outlandish. Stick to a couple of keywords and keep it short so it’s easy for users to remember, and less likely for them to misspell when searching in their browser. Make sure that you search beforehand to check whether the name has already been registered by another owner, and claim it as soon possible if it is available as they generally sell very quickly.

Make It Accessible

Ensuring your website is accessible is a vital aspect of the process, as you must make steps to be inclusive of every type of user. There are a few simple ways that you can make your site usable by every person with any type of disability or impairment, whether this be hearing, vision or motor skills related. When you add any images to your website, attach alt text that explains whatever is happening inside the picture so that anyone with a visual impairment can listen to a description instead. Remember to keep text dark in colour, preferably black or dark blue, and allow it to stand out from the background by opting for a lighter shade such as cream or white to enable it to be easily read. If you can, add the option of resizing the text so each user can alter the page to their own personal preference.

The Perfect Design

There are a few key principles that constitute to an excellently designed website. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the user, and think solely about what they might want or expect from your site. Each of your pages should have a specific purpose, and the design should reflect this. Keep the same colour palette throughout the site, alternating between different shades to make it sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing. Use bright colours exclusively for buttons or small areas, as they can be garish and overpowering when used too heavy handedly. The size of headings and body text should be notably different, and navigation menus should be clear and very easy to use to ensure there’s no unnecessary over complications. Ensure that any design features are translated efficiently when loaded in a mobile browser, as a large amount of your users will be visiting your site from their smartphone or tablet.

Image To Text Ratio

Anyone will admit that scrolling through a site that’s all text and no pictures is a dull and boring experience. Equally however, page after page of photos without any meaningful information can be uninteresting after only a couple of clicks. Finding the right balance between text and images is hard to master, but it will ultimately depend on the purpose of your website when it comes to deciding on which ratio is best. Stick to a few high quality images that depict what you really want to show people, and pair these with some really useful blocks of text that sum up your main points without rambling on for too long.

Add Loyalty Options

A user that visits your site once is a massive plus, but it’s better if you’re aiming to convert each person into a loyal and regular visitor. To do this, you should build a feature into your site that allows users to enter and submit their email address. However, it’s not just as simple as adding a box with the text ‘sign up via email’, as you need to give a lot more in order for your visitors to be able to trust you with their personal data and actually want to receive updates and information. Make it a focal point of the home page, and include it in a smaller size on each of the individual pages on your website. Don’t be too bland with the text, allow your users a little taste of what they will be getting by explaining briefly, such as ‘sign up to receive our weekly newsletter, updates, and more..’. This way you can catch their attention and be informative and convincing in just a short piece of text.

The Importance Of White Space

White space can help to emphasize different aspects of your site, and also add a feel of sleek and modern design to each page. By having a white background behind text, you can allow the user to focus their attention on the words themselves and help to keep information clear and accessible. Trying to fill your page from corner to corner with moving gifs, colourful text and a ton of photos will not only make for an immature design, but will make the user lose trust in the credibility of your website and information. Stick to what you need and keep it classy by emphasizing each section with negative space and restore some peace and harmony within your colour palette. Though it may appear minimalist, it still won’t have the opportunity to feel basic as you can then allow your main assets to catch the visitors attention and shine.

Test It

When you think you have your website close to its final stages, now is the time to consider doing some kind of testing. You should carry out several different experiments across your site to see how easy it is to navigate around, and whether all of the different sections and buttons operate properly. Your website has to fits its intended purpose with its content whilst still providing something extra through its layout and design, so bare both of these aspects in mind when doing any kind of testing. Be sure to include other users in your tests, whether this be colleagues or family and friends, as you need to be able to gain a different viewpoint and perspective that only another human with their own thoughts and feelings can offer.

Generating Traffic

Even if you have the most beautifully designed website that provides the user with the perfect experience, you simply will not get any visitors unless you generate traffic. Becoming a popular site takes a fair amount of time, but optimization is achievable if you think logically. If you can’t figure it all out yourself, does an SEO agency make sense for you? They have the means to force you to work your way up search results in the web to have a much better chance of being noticed and visited. Use some specific keywords in order to be included in the relevant pages, and ensure that none of your links or pages are broken. By being towards the top of a users search engine, you are more likely to be seen as not many people go further than the 2nd or 3rd page of results when online.

Measure Success And React Accordingly

When you release your website onto the internet, you have to put measures in place in order to track visitor statistics. It will be helpful to find out how many users view your page each day, and what those users look at on your website. Being able to monitor how each visitor interacts with your website will allow you to assess whether each page is serving its purpose, and whether there’s anything you might be able to do to improve their experience. When you have gathered this data over a period of a few weeks or months, analyze the positive and negatives and decide upon some changes you will make to allow your website to perform better. By regularly checking your visitor statistics, you can stay always up to date with the changing wants and needs of the user, and help you stay on top of your game.

Hopefully the information above can help you create the most amazing website, that succeeds in every way possible. Consider every aspect of the users wants and needs at each stage of the design and implementation process, as they should be your main focus throughout. Be ready to put in the work and stay on top of maintaining the site after its completion by carrying out regular rigorous testing, and you can ensure that your site makes it to the top and stays there for as long as possible. Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy yourself. The web is an amazing place to network with other like minded individuals and show off your skills, so switch on your laptop and get creating.

The Failures A Leader Should Never Tolerate

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Leadership|The Failures A Leader Should Never TolerateAs a leader, being understanding of mistakes and even merciful when possible is often the right strategy to take. Your team needs room to grow and if you come down too hard on all problems, you create a culture where people simply aren’t willing to bring your attention to those problems, so they fester.

However, you also have to show courageous leadership and even be confrontational when it comes to the serious issues. Otherwise, you have no authority and you create an environment where everything is permissible. With that in mind, here are some failures that you cannot tolerate as a leader, and how you should combat them.

Preferential treatment

This is a problem that you’re going to see in almost every workplace. Exceptional team leadership means being able to delegate, to discipline, and to praise evenly across the board, regardless of personal chemistry or whether you and a colleague don’t see eye-to-eye. However, your discipline isn’t always the problem. The other managers and team leaders can fall prey to the temptations of preferential leadership. You have to be able to spot the signs of it and to ensure that the leaders beneath you know that is simply is not permitted. Otherwise, you may have to find other leaders who won’t fall into the same trap.

Passing the buck

As mentioned, a culture where your team feels free to communicate and report misconduct in the workplace is important. You have to create that culture of accountability yourself. The best way to do that is to hold yourself responsible when possible. If your team fails to meet a business goal, rather than blaming them, apologize for your role in making that failure happen. Be forgiving with small mistakes, as mentioned, so your team is more willing to take accountability. There will be those who try to pass the buck onto others, and you may have to make an example by reprimanding them for doing that rather than simply taking the blame, themselves.

Theft

Employee theft comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes, and it’s not always targeting you directly. However, whether it’s a stapler, a filing cabinet, or cash, you cannot tolerate an employee who rips you off, rips a client off, rips a supplier off, or rips one of their colleagues off. Implement different approaches to prevent theft as best as you can but be willing to address the problem and nip it in the bud as soon as it happens. People who are willing to steal from those they work with cannot be trusted in any capacity and should be let go. It doesn’t matter if they’re working in the mail room or if they’re with you for the daily briefing in the executive team every day.

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Leadership|The Failures A Leader Should Never TolerateDrug use

Alcohol and drug abuse are a sad fact of modern life. It’s a disease that’s spreading through society, affecting countless individuals, families and, yes, even workplaces. Effective, empathetic leaders will provide pathways or help in finding treatment for substance abuse, but that doesn’t mean that they will tolerate it in their workplace. Addiction is a dangerous condition, one that can endanger the safety of the others in the workplace. Finding the right method to test for it and removing the affected individual, if found, from the workplace is the first priority. How you choose to help them or not comes after that. However, it is important to show empathy to the stresses and troubles of your team where and when that’s possible.

Digital misconduct

Nowadays, a business is often most vulnerable in its digital spaces. Most businesses that suffer a major data breach do not survive past two years. For that reason, you have to make it as clear as possible to your team that digital security protocols simply must be followed. Those who neglect their duties or who willingly allow unauthorized access to sensitive data cannot be tolerated. Working with an IT security provider can help you close the vulnerabilities that they open and, furthermore, can help you realize when employees have been tricked or negligent or when they have intentionally contributed to the vulnerability that comes with a data breach.

Harassment

Workplace bullying, discrimination, or harassment of any kind is a noxious weed that takes root deeply and spreads fast if allowed. It creates a culture of intimidation, fear, and coercion that can irreversibly impact the sense of trust and team identity that you work hard to build. As such, you must act to stamp it out as hard as possible, with no reprieve for the culprits no matter their position or personal/working relationship with you. The best way to combat harassment is as a team. Provide safe, anonymous ways of start HR reports, provide tips on how to identify and report it, make sure that it’s clear you have a zero-tolerance approach to harassment. If you fail your duties to provide an environment where harassment is treated seriously, your business is liable for the damage suffered.

Safety snafus

Every workplace has its safety issues. Even in an easy-going, secure office, slips, trips and falls and fire hazards still exist. It’s important to make sure your team is aware of the workplace safety policies and practices that you have in place. It’s just as important to make sure that they never cut corners when it comes to worksafe practices. If they undertake any actions that endanger themselves or others in the workplace, they need to be trained in safe practices from the beginning. In the case of a breach that could cause serious harm, you may want to consider further punishment. The consequences of allowing someone to be seriously injured on your watch are too great to simply let it slide.

As a leader, there are going to be situations that test your resolve and demand hard decisions. It’s important that you be aware of the risks and have strategies in place to deal with them so that you’re able to effectively show that authority when you need to.