Gigantic Adds New Owner

Kas Neteler
Kas (l) with Lisa and Stef at NCRA
Kas (l) with Lisa and Stef at CRRA

It is with great pleasure and pride that I announce my new position as Principal at Gigantic Idea Studio! I am now co-leading the company with founder Lisa Duba. I feel I have truly landed in my professional home, as we collaborate with our clients to create positive environmental change.

It’s been a wonderful journey. As many of you know, I’ve been a regular contributor to Gigantic projects since 2009. What you might not know is that in 2009, I found myself at a point of personal reinvention: I was finishing my Green MBA degree; ending 14 years with a previous employer  (the recession “eliminated” my position) and mourning the passing of my mom from cancer. All occurred within weeks of one another. After all that I realized I did not want to work full-time for anyone again …unless I was an owner.

kas taking photos
Action! Kas at a photo shoot for StopWaste

I’ve been preparing to be an entrepreneur for a long time. I grew up with a family business—John Neteler Auto Sales and Service—and I went to grad school to learn triple bottom line business management. So when I found myself at a crossroads, I was prepared to strike out on my own as a freelancer. Within six months of launching my independent business I was working with an extensive list of clients across several industries: sustainability, tech, healthcare, education and more.

Gigantic Idea Studio was one of my first, and proved to be one of my best, clients. Over the years, Gigantic allowed me to fully exercise so many of skills: creative brainstorming, strategizing, designing, photographing, facilitating, and engaging communities.

Fast forward to fall 2015, when Lisa Duba and I began a conversation about co-ownership of Gigantic. We took our time and thoroughly discussed the opportunities and challenges of partnership and how best to co-create a successful path forward for Gigantic. Now it is official! I look forward to many years of collaboration with Gigantic’s fabulous team and our amazing clients to make the world a better place. Please contact me if you would have questions.

3 Rules for a Flourishing Website Redesign

admin

Flower Growing in a garden

The Gigantic team is delighted that our newly designed website has gone live. The process of redesign, including a new identity, is something we take clients through all the time. Going through it ourselves reminded us of three ways a website is like a garden.

1. From seed to sprout, it always takes longer than you think. Redesigning and freshening content for a few web pages —- how hard can it be? Pretty challenging, actually. The website needs to reflect who you are, where you are going, and what you do..AND it’s got to do it in clearly organized, attractive and memorable chunks. Inevitably, internal differences are revealed as the organization re-examines its mission, values and direction— good discussions ensue, but they need time to be resolved. We typically allow six to eight months for a full re-design.

2. Choose easy maintenance over a gardening service. Websites can have so many cool features these days, but time and again we see organizations that have to rely on outside technical assistance to change a comma or upload a new photo. It’s important to:

  • Be realistic about internal capacities and get training on site upkeep as needed;
  • Have enough staff who understand and can use the content management system;
  • Document, document, document your procedures.

3. A living thing needs careful tending. Remember when when we overprinted time-limited brochures, or someone missed an error in a key headline or messed up the date of the newsletter? The advantage, but sometime headache, of websites is that they are living entities. On the upside, that means you don’t have to live with errors and can make changes anytime you like. However, it also means you need to supply new content nourishment and occasionally prune what’s there. So the launch of a site is just the beginning and needs to be accompanied by a manual of procedures and style. The manual should include guidelines on updating content, maintaining SEO, organizational tone, evaluating traffic and staff responsibilities. Otherwise, that healthy new site can wilt very quickly.

The new Gigantic-idea.com came to fruition with the help of our partners at Jiva Creative. We look forward to helping our next client with their rebranded website. We know we’ll approach the project with renewed enthusiasm, not to mention a bit more humility, now that we’ve walked in their shoes!