Say “Hello!” to Jason Spinell. He’s joined us in a new position: Ventures Director. He’ll be managing our relationships with the startup community, helping us develop new ways of doing business with companies in all lifestages, and generally keeping the idea of commercial adventure alive at Undercurrent. Just after earning his MBA at the University of Colorado – Boulder, Jason co-founded Precog, a TechStars alum focused on creating a platform for developers to build and deploy advanced analytics and visualizations. We’re thrilled to have Jason on board.

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In the last several years, we’ve spun up several “lab” efforts with our clients. Some of them were more traditional – a new department, new (plus existing) people, special budget, clear mandate, all that – and others looked more like a blended approach. In preparation for a discussion with a new client, Vlad was kind enough to lead a quick info-dump/whiteboard chat that led to an Evernote, that led to the following: 21 thoughts on lab development.
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Everyone, meet Osei Kwakye, Undercurrent’s newest Associate Strategist. He’s been with us for about a month and we’re thrilled not only by his contribution to the team, but also by his incredible vocal talent.

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Over the last year, we’ve become more aggressive about tracking and visualizing things that are valuable to our business. And while it’s no replacement for simply paying attention to what’s happening in the office, on projects, and in client workspaces, the data are beginning to corroborate our feelings. Which is fun.

I’ve started collecting connected bits of data in a Numbers document – tenure by individual for everybody who’s ever worked at Undercurrent, monthly sales totals, headcount, project types/durations/fees – and building crude visualizations of data that seem interesting.

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Two years ago at our Web2.0 Expo talk, Alex and I posed the question: “How much does your startup make off one million users?” It’s still a worthwhile question, especially when companies can answer, “Zero, actually” and be taken seriously. And oddly enough, two companies that are in the magazine publishing industry are able to answer the question with confidence. They’re not startups, but like many in the digital world, they aim to monetize content. Read more