Jack (Jill?) of all trades, master of many

Or, The Incredible Benefits of Being a Generalist I am asked frequently what we specialize in at Big Sea. Many clients want to hear that you understand their specific industry, their vernacular and unique problems. We have many clients who are very similar, sure. We have done quite a bit of work with museums and… Read more »

Time to breathe

For the past three years, I’ve taken a “sabbatical.” I spend the month of June traveling with my family. Sure, I check in now and then but for the most part, I am decidedly not working. For the first ten years of running my own business, I couldn’t take a single full day off. I… Read more »

Want to get a promotion? Ask for help.

Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. If you want someone to trust you with something difficult — perhaps a project that’s normally above your pay-grade or a task that you haven’t done before — you have to learn when to raise your hand and say “help me, please.” If I can’t trust… Read more »

Agile is not an approach; it’s a mindset

The Sea Dragons team at Big Sea just finished a website design project with one of the original authors of the Agile manifesto, Alistair Cockburn. We’ve had a difficult time approaching traditional marketing-oriented websites from an Agile perspective. We just couldn’t get the iterations and sprints to line up with the very waterfall-esque nature of… Read more »

Standing Up and Standing Alone

I had a long conversation with my 9 year old daughter last weekend about how doing the right thing is often really difficult. About what being empathetic really means, about understanding why a friend might be teasing or ignoring you. About what they really might be feeling that’s causing their behavior. We talked about how… Read more »

We’re just not there yet.

As much as you might want to rush into things, I’m just not ready to commit. We’re not *there* yet. Forcing me to endure your sales pitch by calling as soon as I download a whitepaper is basically a death sentence for our relationship. (It’s why we talk about “nurturing.”) You never get a second… Read more »