Membership

Friday Buzz: Target the Pain Points

How Kickstarter is helping makers on its service improve the odds they’ll actually ship—and why associations should take cues. Also: When multitasking is a necessary evil.

If there’s a pain point in your industry’s business model, target it.

That’s a key lesson for any business, but one that feels particularly relevant for Kickstarter, which has a reputation for having hardware-driven crowdfunding projects that don’t always get off the ground or flop in embarrassing ways.

“Certainly every time a hardware project fails to deliver, it’s a headline,” Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler admitted in an interview with TechCrunch.

The certified benefit corporation announced this week a new Hardware Studio, which is designed to help its hardware-based creators think ahead of time about the infrastructure they’ll need to complete their projects.

“Figuring out how to engineer a product for large-scale manufacturing can be daunting,” the company states on its website. “Some creators have a great idea and a working prototype, but could use help taking the next steps.”

Kickstarter is teaming with the firms Dragon Innovation and Avnet to help creators asking for money think of these things ahead of time.

Associations should take notes when building out their own member benefits—because this is the kind of approach that helps improve an industry.

Sometimes You Just Have To

Multitasking is a fact of life, despite the fact that maybe 2 percent of people are actually any good at it. Event planners may gain some sort of benefit out of doing it, even if it’s not always a desirable thing to do.

If you’re in a spot where it’s necessary, this piece from the Event Manager Blog should help you figure out how to juggle a little. Use only when necessary.

The much-hyped Surface Laptop is a dramatic rethink of what a laptop can be. Laptop magazine explains why that matters.

Don’t be afraid of telling a story with a cartoon, IT pro Joshua Hiller writes for Association Success.

Detect high emotional intelligence: Inc. contributor Marcel Schwantes breaks down the behaviors of someone with good EI.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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