wise elephant, making it happen

Author Archive

What Pizza Can Tell Us About the New Economy

By Jason Moriber • Jan 20th, 2010

A vital aspect of Totonno’s, beyond the deliciousness of the pies, is the way he chose to run the shop: it opened at 3pm, they made a certain amount of pizza dough for the day, and when it ran out they closed up shop, no matter how long the line of potential patrons remained. The business did not go out of business, nor did it balloon into a national brand (which seems to be the progression of most food enterprises these days). The place has remained a vibrant business for nearly 100 years, buzzing along merrily.



Q: The questions for those working the middle are, what can go wrong and who gets left behind when the wave comes?

By Jason Moriber • Jan 11th, 2010

A: The middle shouldn’t be the default; it should be a choice, a hard one, and include a commitment to the long haul. Also, it’s not about waiting, you have to make a business there, not bring a business to there…



Where the Work will be 2010: The End of the Middle, the Rise of the Middle

By Jason Moriber • Dec 21st, 2009

For small, entrepreneurial, creative and passionate business the marketplace has been hit hard to the point of evaporation. To succeed in the downturn many businesses have shifted focus, either through hyper-specialization, or by the opposite, seeking new and larger markets. It’s a repositioning of businesses to the polar edges of a marketplace scale.



How do you define “Local?”

By Jason Moriber • Nov 19th, 2009

We need new words to cover these intricacies. The historic “local” is defined by proximity. The associative local is defined by relationship. My reading of the undertone is that there is a greater shift towards the historical local which is burgeoning on the associative one. There seems to be new interest (and potential cash flows) in providing services/platforms for the historical local.



Trend Analysis: The Lace Economy

By Jason Moriber • Nov 16th, 2009

We are now entering the Lace Economy (exiting the Web + Bubble Economy). The Lace Economy is both a fine-tuning of our networks and relationships, and a demand for services and products that are well crafted, genuine, and trend towards supporting the local and regional…New networks are being amassed through a mix of web-based tools (Facebooks, LinkedIn) and traditional channels (networking, associations). These form into a tangled, limitless, and underproductive web. Though there is an intoxicating excitement in the chaos of tangled relationships, the ever-increasing girth of networks makes these connections fragile and meaningless.



Jeffrey Fiterman, Photographer (via Agency Access)

By Jason Moriber • Nov 9th, 2009

We make follow-up phone calls on Jeffrey’s behalf in response to his email statistics. We gain Jeffrey sought-after portfolio requests from specific, targeted, contacts.



re: The Auditors, Blog

By Jason Moriber • Nov 9th, 2009

Francine McKenna, the author and owner of the blog re: The Auditors, originally approached us to assist her with moving her blog from blogger to a more robust and custom platform…Ever since we’ve been assisting Ms. McKenna with marketing and business development advice…



O’Fit Personal Training Studio

By Jason Moriber • Nov 9th, 2009

O’Fit asked Wise Elephant to help to solidify their branding and marketing messages while ramping-up their blogging and direct marketing.



Note for Freelance Creatives: Make Work Happen

By Jason Moriber • Nov 3rd, 2009

Freelance creative professionals increasingly ask me these two questions:

1. Is there any work “out there?”
2. Is that work for me?

The answer to both is no, not right now, and maybe not for a while, if ever. There is no work “out there” for anyone anymore in the way it used to be. There is no low hanging fruit; there is no regular gig. If you keep asking these questions then there is no work for you.



The End of Intelligence, The Birth of Doing, The Decline of Newspapers

By Jason Moriber • Oct 27th, 2009

Intelligence has a diminished bearing on economic prosperity. Employers are shedding workers by the price-tag regardless of merit, experience, or potential. If business revenues fall off a cliff the first instinct is survival, not productivity. This opens the door to a renewed emphasis on “Creativity,” which implies less investment in goods, and more emphasis on making something from nothing. Call it “Doing.” In our new economy either you do something that resonates, or you don’t.