http://carsonified.com/

Ryan started his talk by having us listening to an abstract from the Amelie soundtrack. He wanted the audience to close their eyes, and think about something nice.

He then went about his experience for running and being a great company. For him 8 conditions need to be met:

1 –Have a passionate leader (that is different concept from Charismatic), opinionated.

2 – Love your customers: meet them physically, no back talk, use your product everyday (so that you can experience the pain if required)

3 – Treat your team like royalty: good offices, be generous

4 – Give back to your community (it doesn’t have to be expensive): you can gather them once or twice a year and offer a meal, or training, or make a small event. Then you tweet and blog about it!

5 – Make a kick-ass product

6 – Invest in good designer –This adds credibility, and the company pride. It isn’t difficlt, just hire a designer.  (I was surprised by the number of team in the conference who didn’t have designers, and asked “how can you get good design?”)

7 – Be more creative than what you need to be – spending one week away and do different stuff. It will pay off, and sometimes produce nice tools. As yu do so, take footage, and use it too.

8 – Get good at publicity. Tips from Kevin Rose, provide “invite only” beta (so that people talk about it more) and talk to junior bloggers so that they can write for you (junior because they have time, and need you too)

Carson, then explained that you cannot be great if you miss a single one of these 8 points… and it is important to be great, so that it is cheaper to recruit, you will have lower marketing cost in the long run, and because it is simply valuable for your staff and customers!