Every year, _Inc._ magazine ranks the [5,000 fastest-growing companies](https://web.archive.org/web/20111126125601/http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/2011/) (privately held) in the United States. They just recently released their 2011 list, providing a fresh set of data on the movers and shakers acros…
The biggest mistake people make with website redesigns is thinking that it’s _just_ a website redesign. They see the new site, everything seems to work, and they call it done. Meanwhile, their SEO juice is leaking all over the floor. Their rankings are going to suffer, and they don’t even know it ye…
Over the years, we’ve found that there are three foundational elements to almost any brand: purpose, values, and style. ## BRAND PURPOSE Research cited in _Built to Last_ (by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras) indicates that purpose-driven companies can outperform the general market by a 15 to 1 ratio. T…
The typical modern consumer generally assumes quality and functionality as given, so what they’re really seeking are experiences that help them to fulfill their psychological needs (affiliation, aspiration, and identity). A key way to satisfy all of these needs is to cultivate a "tribe" around your …
Executives tend to be short-term thinkers. Their career has grown through easy-quantifiable successes, and they’re constantly pressured — by other short-term thinking executives — to base their actions around short-term metrics. It’s all about what happened last quarter, or last month, or even last…
Revolution is easy when you don’t have anything to lose. You say the things everyone’s afraid to say, kick in some doors, fire your guns into the air, depose some tyrannical leaders, and declare your way to be the new way of doing things. When you’re a startup, it’s only natural to have a revolution…
Spreadsheets soothe nerves but distort reality. Great brands move hearts before minds. Respect data yet prioritize instinct, meaning, and identity to spark devotion and long term impact numbers can't capture.
As we’ve been working on our own content strategy for the next six months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what kinds of things we should be writing about. There are all kinds of options out there, but I increasingly find myself thinking that the most effective blog posts (in terms of buildi…
Plaques don’t make culture. Enron’s polished values masked a cutthroat reality that imploded. If principles aren’t practiced daily in incentives, reviews, and decisions, they’re props inviting rot and eventual ruin.
After years of soul searching, experimentation, and dipping our toes in the water, we here at Forty have finally committed to fully adopting the Agile methodology across the board. This is a pretty radical change for a marketing agency. The Agile methodology was developed in the software industry, a…
When you're designing something, it's easy to fall into the trap of designing it for yourself. If you tend to be an emotional decision-maker, you might focus on feelings and sensations rather than raw data. Conversely, if you're a detail-oriented decision-maker, you might skip all that emotional "fl…
When I was young, I had a really pessimistic view of marketing. I thought advertising was about emotional blackmail and manipulation, branding was conceptual mumbo-jumbo, design was pointless visual fluff, and public relations was just a way to hide your faults and deceive your customers. Taken toge…
Behind famous logos are scrappy stories, not pricey brainstorms. From Adidas to Volvo, names often spring from rivers, jokes, and founders’ quirks, proving creativity and context beat consultants.
A customer’s attention: it’s exceedingly difficult to acquire, experts measure it in milliseconds, it vaporizes if mistreated, and it’s worth far more than gold or diamonds. Scared? Don’t be—it’s putty if you know how to handle it. **Attention is the most fundamental unit of design.** Once you get p…
Alltel’s faux lawsuit fizzled. Forced jokes, cardboard characters, and fear of offense drained the story. Viral needs craft and risk, more novelist than ad shop, or the web shrugs.