Adobe Acquires Behance: Adds Community Features to Creative Cloud

Adobe Acquires Behance: Adds Community Features to Creative Cloud
Take a Business Trip Without Missing a Beat on Productivity
How To Manage A Dysfunctional Team
Netflix Customers Experience Christmas Eve Outage

Posted: 26 Dec 2012 01:00 PM PST

Adobe recently announced its acquisition of online portfolio site Behance, which it plans to use to power its Creative Cloud community features.

Adobe's Creative Cloud is a subscription-based service focused on giving creative professionals access to online tools, software, and storage. But now with this acquisition, Adobe is looking to bring more community features to the service, such as publishing portfolios and interacting with other users.

Though Behance will be integrated into Adobe's online tools, it will also continue to serve users as its own entity. Its CEO, Scott Belsky, is becoming Adobe's Vice President of Community, and the rest of the team and its NYC based office will remain intact.

Users of Behance shouldn't notice much of a difference, at least for now. Current Behance accounts will continue to exist, and new sign-ups will also continue to be accepted, according to a post on Behance's blog.

For creative professionals, Adobe has offered tools to assist with creating various types of projects for many years. And since businesses and professionals are getting more social in plenty of other areas, it makes sense that the same professionals that use Adobe's products and services might also be interested in finding an outlet for sharing their work and seeking feedback from others in their field.

At this point, it's unclear exactly what the community features of the Creative Cloud will look like. But it's likely that some form of public sharing and communication options will soon join the site, which already offers ways to create, store, and share projects via more private channels.

Adobe did state in a blog post that all Creative Cloud member will soon gain access to the basic Behance capabilities such as portfolio creation and communication features, and paid Creative Cloud members will also gain access to extra capabilities like those offered by Behance ProSite.

Behance was founded in 2006 and currently has about 1 million members. Adobe's Creative Cloud launched in May and now has over 300,000 paid members, with another million that have signed up for the fermium version.

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Take a Business Trip Without Missing a Beat on Productivity

Posted: 26 Dec 2012 11:00 AM PST

travel for business Ever return from a business trip feeling like you're five steps behind on everything? (Come on, be honest, I won't tell).

Instead of ending up with a pile of work waiting for you when you get back, check out these productivity tips from my own travels and some my favorite road warriors on how to keep everything from your workouts to your inbox in check.

Inbox Zero

The way I personally keep my sanity every day is by returning to my hotel room at the end of each night and striving for a zero inbox. We use Gmail at our company, so I use the "Unread Emails First" filter to bring everything I haven't checked yet to the top of my inbox.

I use the Rapportive Gmail plugin, which gives me a quick snapshot of the person who sent me the email (including their recent Tweets or Facebook posts, if they've made them public.) Knowing who sent the email and how urgent it is to respond right away is the first step to email sanity.

The goal of "Inbox Zero" hotel time is to read every email, even if I don't have time to act on it until I get back. I file them into trip-specific folders that say, "Needs Attention," or "Longer Term." Anything that truly requires an immediate response gets an email back that same night.

The reason this is an important tactic for a traveler is because you can never know when you'll be distracted from answering your emails – a delayed flight, or stressful meeting can easily help me forget to respond to something, so I need to characterize it so I can remember everything.

Track Expenses as You Get Them

Nothing sucks more than getting home to a super-long expense report. Scott Orn, a venture capitalist at Lighthouse Capital Partners, tracks expenses as he goes by taking a photo of every receipt as he gets them, and sends them to his cloud storage account, immediately:

"It's really simple to take a photo of the receipts I accumulate on a business trip and file them directly into my expenses folder for the month. I can share the folder with anyone who needs access to it, like our finance and administration teams. It saves a lot of time at the end of the month when I scrambling to get expenses filed and I never have to worry about expenses falling through the cracks and not getting reimbursed."

Whatever software you use, tracking receipts by taking a photo of them as you go is a good alternative to accumulating them for a month and then scrambling to complete your expense report using an old-school scanner. Plus you can easily avoid losing receipts by creating a paperless paper trail.

Expense Magic will even file receipts into whatever expense report format your company uses.

Actually Use Those Sneakers You Brought

It's easy to give in to the temptation of going to dinner or drinks with coworkers or clients every single day when you're on a business trip, but the "I'm on vacation. . .I'm away from home," excuse doesn't fly when it comes to skipping workouts.

I've packed sneakers with the best of intentions and just not used them. But I try to make every effort to go for a jog or visit the fitness center in the morning, knowing that dinner or cocktail obligations will always seem much more fun to me than the gym.

Another option is to pack a yoga mat and do a workout right in your room. I love this "Nerd Fitness" 20-minute hotel room workout if you're stretched for time.

Use WiFi-Less Planes to Your Advantage

Most people freak out when they find out their plane has no wi-fi. On the contrary, an internet-less plane can be the most productive, zen time to work on documents like presentations or proposals that aren't entirely reliant on connectivity.

Think of the time in the air as dedicated focus time where you can't get distracted by the latest LOLCat (guilty as charged) or IM from a coworker.

Save yourself from a conversation with your row-mate by plugging in some headphones and just cranking on whatever project has been eating at you when you're usually distracted by phone calls, meetings or being online.

Business Woman Photo via Shutterstock

The post Take a Business Trip Without Missing a Beat on Productivity appeared first on Small Business Trends.

How To Manage A Dysfunctional Team

Posted: 26 Dec 2012 08:00 AM PST

team management Dysfunctional people create dysfunctional situations. One team member with poor communication skills can explode a business environment. But a great communicator who never pulls his weight on the team can do the same thing.

The problem is office chaos created by unmanaged office politics.

Any time a group forms, there's going to be a play for power and positioning — that's natural. It happens in high schools, on athletic teams, in social organizations. And it happens in business settings. It's a normal function of groups.

The engagement, however, becomes dysfunctional, if it goes unchecked.

Who's In Charge?

You don't have to be a bulldozer to run a business or effectively manage a team. But you do have to be bold enough to set a standard, and then protect that standard.

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, a leadership fable by Patrick Lencioni, he highlights the idea that teams can be dysfunctional in layers. Depicted in the form of a pyramid, Lencioni says:

"The first dysfunction is an absence of trust…that stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable in the group."

Consequently, the trust issue creates a conflict issue that leads to a commitment issue as well as an accountability issue. By the time these four issues pile on top of each other, you end up with an underperforming team and company — which is the ultimate issue when it comes to small business impact.

Where Did The First Problem Come From?

If trust is the foundation to successful team relationships, then how does a small business loose it in the first place? A few things get in the way including:

A lack of awareness that the trust was never earned.
A leader who hopes the issue will fix itself.
An owner who doesn't have time for these types of concerns.

Healthy teams don't build themselves. If nobody is actively responsible for the team, then you get what you get — a mess.

Trust

Lencioni says:

"The fact remains that teams, because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional."

Our personal chaos follows us where ever we go. We all have triggers, quirks, behavior issues that we have to manage. We're human, it's not an excuse, it's an observation.

Since we are people with issues, chances are we come through the door with concerns. If those concerns go unchecked, then there is no trust. But if they're effectively and consistently addressed, then we open up — a little at a time. This opening creates a safe place to do business, to collaborate, to create amazing things together.

Keep in mind, the consummate professional will make the most of a bad situation no matter what. But here's the concern – what skills, what ideas, what witty inventions are being left on the table, because of your team's unchecked dysfunction?

Traction

Marketing is about promoting a message that means something to your target audience. The small business owner, ultimately hopes that his marketing efforts turn into paying customers. He wants his message to gain traction and gain attention.

Marketing not only happens outside of the company, but it also takes place within the team. Every time bad behavior goes unchecked, then a new standard gets attention, a dysfunction gains traction, and the team losses ground. A destructive team will ultimately erode the company.

Lencioni states:

"Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career development, or recognition) or even the needs of their division above the collective goals of the team."

Again, teams don't build themselves, leaders do — and that takes time. Effectively working together is often a learned behavior. Somebody has to set the standard.

Time

The quality of your team impacts the quality of your business. If they turn on each other, eventually one of them is going to turn on your customers. Think about it, if your team fails to own up to their mistakes when dealing with each other and you, then that behavior is going to leak out. And when clients call in with issues you want them to encounter an honest, direct and solution-oriented team. Evasive and defensive is just bad business.

There's always time for leadership.

In Leadership Truths That Every Leader Needs To Know, Dale Kirke says:

"As a leader, you create an environment where people are encouraged to work harmoniously together using their own unique talents and skills to achieve common goals."

The environment doesn't create itself. The leader creates the environment.

Here are three tools to help you redesign your office atmosphere:

Clear expectations. Make sure your team understands what you expect. And then you live up to that expectation.
Constant feedback on behavior. Make sure your team sees you respond to questionable behavior. Self-correction often happens with a little bit of guidance.
Concrete course of action for conflict resolution. Every issue isn't a major one. Managers can check certain things just by speaking up. But some types of concerns including sexual harassment and other forms of bullying need a written and clear course of action.

You can be firm but fair, fun and effective. But you have to remain frank and focused on the kind of team and environment that you are creating.

Senior Manager Photo via Shutterstock

The post How To Manage A Dysfunctional Team appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Netflix Customers Experience Christmas Eve Outage

Posted: 26 Dec 2012 02:30 AM PST

All entrepreneurs must learn this important lesson: No matter how great your product or service may be, how you deliver that product or service ultimately makes or breaks your business. Fail to deliver what customers expect, and you will suffer the consequences. Deliver consistently at or even above those expectations and you build a loyal army of followers who will keep buying from you while bringing even more customers to your door. Here we see evidence that even large brands can get it wrong when it comes to delivering on expectations and also hear some advice from small businesses on how to get it right.

Customer Relations

The gift that keeps on giving. On Christmas Eve, Netflix users discovered the streaming video service isn’t always a good alternative to cable. An outage affected users in Canada, the U.S. and Latin America that evening and was not fully corrected until Christmas Day. It was not a great gift to Netflix customers, many of whom have abandoned cable and other forms of entertainment for the innovative service, and like many bad customer experiences, it may linger in their minds for some time to come. Reuters

Signing an unwritten contract. You may not think of it this way, but each time you make a sale of products or services to a customer, you effectively enter into an unwritten contract. Once you adopt this approach to customer relationships, you’ll probably never look at your business the same way again…or want to. Instead of simply moving on from one sale to the next, you’ll look at each transaction as a set of promises made between you and your customer, says blogger Harry Vaishnav. And they are promises that must be kept if your business is to succeed. Small Biz Viewpoints

Service with a Smile

Above and beyond the call of duty. The most successful businesses are those that do a little something extra. They are also the ones that make sure their customers know and remember the added benefits they provide in their products and services. Take the baker who always slips that extra bread roll into your bag, a “baker’s dozen.” You remember that little extra the next time you’re buying bread and decide which bakery to visit. Do the same in your business, says Tom Watson, and you’ll keep them coming back for more. Cleaning 4 Profit

Up close and personal. Personalized service can be an important edge, especially for smaller companies. One important step in creating this personalized service is to get closer to your customers. This closer relationship lets businesses learn specifics about customer preferences and how to deliver on them effectively. Here business networking consultant Jeff Owen suggests some great steps that will bring you closer to your customer base. UPrinting

Communications & Community

How to change the channel. Customer service and engagement depend upon communicating with your customers and fans where they are, and like it or not, this does not always mean a single or small collection of channels. Not only do customers expect your brand to engage with them across multiple channels, but 97 percent of these customers expect their experience to be consistent no matter what channel they use to engage with your brand. The good news is that one study found those customers who engage you on multiple channels are likely to spend more money and be more loyal too. SalesPortal

Truth is more profitable than fiction. We all like to believe that our products and services help our customers. So the best kind of customer service should be to deliver those products and services in a way that will make our customers’ lives better. But it turns out that telling the truth about what our customers need is also the best marketing. It may also be the best way of keeping customers loyal and bringing them back again and again. Business mentor Laura Humphreys tells the story of a dentist whose candor is winning business one patient at a time. Liber8Me

Talk to your community. Talk with your community and you create loyalty in ways you cannot fully calculate. As blogger Sian Phillips explains, your community allows you to connect in a way that goes beyond simple marketing and customer service. Ask them to answer a question or to share a blog post or other message, and they will respond. They are more than customers, clients, and fans, they are friends. These connections will serve you well and help you deliver products and services in tune with your customers and community. CorpNet

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