Recession

Vote for Boundless

I love politics. Some might say a little too much. Most recently (to the dismay of both my wife and the Boundless HR team), my political banter has ramped up even more in anticipation of today’s midterm elections. Am I passionate about the subject? Absolutely. I want our country to retain both our position as [...]

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What do you want to be when you grow up?

Yesterday I was asking my little girls, Ally (6) and Katie (3), what they want to be when they grow up. This is a game we play every so often—it’s my way of checking in and seeing if my parenting has any impact their perspective on life. Katie, my little firecracker, told me she wanted [...]

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Some business inspiration

Those who know me can tell you without hesitation that my favorite reality TV show is “The Biggest Loser.” This show is inspirational on many levels, but I’m most inspired by the fact that the trainers, Bob and Jillian, give people hope. It sounds corny, but it reminds me that no matter how big the [...]

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Lessons learned in 2009

We’ve all heard it before: in 2009 the economy had a big impact on the promotional products industry. And although the industry as a whole took a hit, individual businesses experienced the recession differently. Some people sank, losing up to 50% of their business. Some treaded water, surviving but not thriving. And some people swam, [...]

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A Prescription to Avoid the Death Spiral

Change is a frightening word, especially for businesses, and especially when the economic reality is dismal. But sometimes change is the only way to prevent an inevitable slow decline in your business–the proverbial death spiral. Sometimes you have to do something drastic to stop it in its tracks. I’ve written about the death spiral as [...]

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A Business Planning Experiment

A vision is a clearly-articulated, results-oriented picture of a future you intend to create.” – Jesse Stoner Zemel At Boundless, I have recently began an experiment with five of our top professionals. My objective is to design a foolproof recipe that can make any professional successful. I am modeling this plan after many of the [...]

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The Digital Generation

Seth Godin wrote a blog the other day called “From Sixty to Zero” that talked about how to prepare your business for hitting the brakes in tough times. He asks, “how would you manage or market differently if you knew that you had to hit the brakes, and hard?” I thought this was a great [...]

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Video from SXSW, “How to Create a Great Company Culture”

Here is the video from the 2009 SXSW Interactive roundtable discussion that I co-hosted with Sam Decker titled “Creating a Winning Company Culture.” You can read more about it in my recent post titled, Hipsters, Tweeters and Talking Heads.

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Hipsters, Tweeters and Talking Heads

South by Southwest Takes Over This week the area surrounding our Austin headquarters has been invaded by a crowd of badge-wearing hipsters, musicians, tech-heads and other assorted media types thanks to the South by Southwest festival. SXSW is one of the largest conferences for music, technology and film, and it takes over Austin for two [...]

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Innovation in Short Supply

This article by Pascal Levensohn struck so many cords with me that I was compelled to share. As a pro-business, entrepreneurial business owner, I too am disturbed about the emerging trends in our macro economy.

I pride myself on being politically “agnostic”—I’m not in the corner of any political party. In a recent political conversation with my co-founder Henrik Johansson, I said that I could care less if our leaders are Democrats or Republicans, as long as they want to get back to the fundamentals that made our country great. Greatness comes off of the backs of hardworking Americans that are innovative, entrepreneurial and take risks. These are the people that will put people to work.

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