DPS Blog

4 Heart-Shaped Invitations To Marketing Excellence 4 U!

4 Heart-Shaped Invitations To Marketing Excellence 4 U!

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re celebrating another year in business! We launched Design-product Systems on Valentine’s Day in 2008 to help design professionals, marketers, and business owners market their work clearly and efficiently. By increasing clarity and efficiency in balance, we enable our clients to do more of what they love — and even do […]

The Key To Surprising Clarity

The Key To Surprising Clarity

Sometimes we surprise ourselves when we’re able to answer a difficult question with ease. For years, I had been frustrated by this difficult question at the core of my business: “What do your customers really want (or get) when they call you?” When I was starting out,...

Top Billing: Revenue Disparities Found Among Boston’s Elite Architects [INFOGRAPHIC]

Top Billing: Revenue Disparities Found Among Boston’s Elite Architects [INFOGRAPHIC]

One in four Massachusetts-based architects is employed by one of the top thirty firms, as ranked last month by the Boston Business Journal, and visible in the infographic below. In this top quartile, approximately 47% work in the nine largest firms, three of which are locally headquartered. These nine firms generated $364.9 million in architectural […]

A Shortcut To “Becoming More Efficient”

A Shortcut To “Becoming More Efficient”

  “I know we can always be more efficient…” I’ve heard this out of the mouths of marketers new and old, for a dozen years. With it, I hear resistance in their tone, sometimes strident, sometimes hesitant. Being more efficient is an end state that few people get to experience. Thus it remains a cause […]

4 Signs You Need To Leave Your Wheelhouse Behind

4 Signs You Need To Leave Your Wheelhouse Behind

The wheelhouse is where you steer the boat. In some ways, your professional wheelhouse steers your career forward. “What’s in your wheelhouse?” was popular shorthand for personal branding, job searching, or positioning yourself to get on a project team. The wheelhouse became a business buzzword a few years ago. It’s a place of centralized power, […]

2020: Daring Designers To Be Different

2020: Daring Designers To Be Different

The economy is booming, and it’s showing in the Boston skyline. There’s lots of new building: In the Seaport, South Boston, the Innovation District, In Assembly Square, and along the Green Line extension in Somerville. Along the Mass Ave corridor and in Kendall Square in Cambridge, and in Lower Allston, Dudley Square, Dot Ave, and […]

Does Your Website Have “Signature Burger Syndrome”?

Does Your Website Have “Signature Burger Syndrome”?

You’ve probably seen the signature burger on the menu at your local upscale bar/restaurant. It features way too many ingredients or some outlandish combination of them that draws in the truly adventurous. Eater’s trendy restaurant menu parody called it the “Burger That’s Crazier Than It Needs To Be”. Company websites, too, have gotten crazier than they need […]

How Infographics Delight From Click-through To Conversion

How Infographics Delight From Click-through To Conversion

A blog article from the Pandora Insights blog hooked me with a simple infographic that appeared in my LinkedIn newsfeed. In addition to the infographics being well-designed and expressive (which I’ll get to in a minute), the article itself was solidly built, and more informative than a typical self-promotional article. This blog gets it right […]

What My Most Popular Tweets Of 2016 Revealed About Engagement On Twitter

What My Most Popular Tweets Of 2016 Revealed About Engagement On Twitter

15,120. That’s the number of characters I tweeted out in 2016 through my user account (@michaelpsweeney). Well, 15,120, give or take. My estimate might be off because Twitter famously changed the platform in the summer. User handles and links that people type into their tweets no longer count towards the 140-character limit (but social sharing widgets […]

Video Marketing: Does The View Match The Vision?

Video Marketing: Does The View Match The Vision?

Video is an unwieldy medium for marketers. It provides a wide aperture for sending the wrong message. The overlooked or unmanaged detail can distract a viewer from the point the filmmaker was trying to make. The sophistication of the medium and the unprecedented availability of the tools can even give filmmakers too many options as […]

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