Strategy, Operations, Communications
For more effective organizations
Founded by Pilar Castro-Kiltz in 2014
Inbox organization strategies can be a powerful tool. Effectively organizing your inbox can improve communication efficiency, reduce stress, increase ease of information recall, and ensure email availability. In pursuit of this goal, our team at More Canvas investigated several inbox organization strategies. While there is no one best strategy—that will depend on your own and your organization’s working style—one of these strategies may be right for you.
As a savvy business owner or entrepreneur, you’re well-versed on the value of digital marketing. You know the impact social media has on your company. You know all about your potential reach and the value of reaching new customers. There’s also a good chance you don’t have time to stay on top of producing daily and weekly content on your own. The good news is there are platforms that can help.
Drip campaigns are a customer communication approach that both large and independent businesses can benefit from. By streamlining your outreach and automating the follow-up, drip campaigns can effectively bring in new clients and help you to stay in contact with current ones.
One billion people globally are living with a disability. As a business operations and strategy consultant, More Canvas is often asked, “Why should my business care about accessibility?” The quick answer is to point back to those one billion individuals. Digital accessibility is no longer an option—no longer a nice-to-have feature. Without making it a priority in your organization, you are potentially excluding a seventh of the global population.
As part of More Canvas’s online accessibility initiative, More Canvas Accessibility Consultant Calvin Van Zytveld continues his blog series giving a deeper look into accessibility topics. In today’s blog, Calvin discusses an important point: while some sites are technically “compliant” according to various web accessibility standards, this does not mean that the sites offer a smooth interface for disabled users. User testing for accessibility is an important and valuable step when it comes to ensuring your site offers a rewarding experience for all.
While there are various tools and systems that can increase the accessibility of web content, one of the key ways visually impaired users access web content is via a screen reader. Still, the infrastructure of many websites makes accessing web content challenging , and unless you understand how a screen reader works in practice, it can be difficult to shape web content so that it can be easily understood via screen reader software. More Canvas Accessibility Consultant, Calvin Van Zytveld, is here to help.
For entrepreneurs and growing businesses, staying connected with your audience is one of many keys to success. Big endeavors, such as captivating social media campaigns and costly advertisements may come to mind. While those are an important part of the communications package, there are also some low-cost and low-risk methods at your disposal…
People love videos. In case anecdotal evidence isn’t enough, the statistics demonstrate their ever-growing prevalence. Videos are viewed on social media platforms billions of times each day (on each platform). None of that should come as a surprise. However, learning that a staggering 85% of viewers watch videos with the sound off may cause marketers to think twice about how they approach video creation.
An independently-owned business may want to offer a retirement plan to its employees for a variety of reasons, which may include: incentivizing talent to accept a job offer, encouraging employees to stay with the firm, providing tax benefits to the firm, or enacting internal firm values and principles.
Planning for retirement is a critical part of life planning, but with only half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 actually saving for retirement…
In the age of technology, data is becoming increasingly available to companies of all sizes. With many softwares and systems collecting information, all of that data can make it overwhelming to understand what is worth analyzing or even worth collecting. Most companies, however, have access to common data sets from information on employees to project success rates that can yield great insights if analyzed correctly.
At More Canvas Consulting, we have witnessed first-hand the hardships that the pandemic has brought upon the artistic community. Initially founded by artists for artists, we hope to help our clients be adaptable to changing market needs and grow their careers, from the viewpoint of a business owner and entrepreneur. One of the biggest challenges the arts had to overcome this past year was how to make art at home.
More than just a tool, an Issue Tracker is a critical cultural shift that empowers your teams, leverages the experiences at every layer of your organization, and de-stigmatizes mistakes, transforming them into opportunities for learning, understanding, and improvement.
Whether we’re pushing through summer break, struggling with a national pandemic, or perhaps juggling an ongoing, fully remote career, more families than ever have experienced a rocky work-family balance in the past year. And with major companies (Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, and more) transitioning to allow some (or all) employees to continue working from home, it’s becoming clear that remote work is here to stay, at least in some capacity. According to…
Alveo Creative invited More Canvas Consulting founder Pilar Castro-Kiltz to write a piece on how to reframe your side hustle or survival job as a small business. While the piece is directed at artists with “survival jobs” to support their art, the principles of shifting your mindset and applying proven business techniques to your side hustle can apply for anyone balancing multiple income sources.
For any business owner or effective collaborator, creativity and problem solving are important ingredients to a successful outcome. However, getting into a creative mindset and fostering those “aha!” moments of connection can be challenging.
Entrepreneurs know the importance of a unique company name and an eye-catching logo. Those business requirements are right up there with opening bank accounts and registering an LLC. Though, while equally important for successful start-ups, brand identity is often put on the back burner.
In just days, New York City will be embarking on a new experiment in how to nurture its arts ecosystem.
As Peter Marks of The Washington Post writes: “Arts in New York to get shot in the arm with celebrity-filled pop-up shows” with New York’s new “NYPopUp” event as part of the state’s “arts recovery initiative.”
Leaving many artists lacking in mental and financial support, COVID-19 continues to impact the performing arts sector. Some artists have transitioned to virtual performances or discovered other work alternatives, but many remain questioning how to survive the day-to-day, unknowing of what their futures hold. It is important to the team at More Canvas to continue shining a light on resources that are currently offered during these difficult times - many of which are gearing up for new rounds of funding in 2021.
The new Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program is included in the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act, which was signed into law on December 27, 2020. Eligible organizations who experienced a loss in revenue due to COVID-19 will have the opportunity to receive up to $10 million in grants. This may include: live performing arts organization producers, live venue operators or promoters, theatrical producers, talent representatives, and more.
2020 saw some major shifts in the US’s workforce due to COVID-19. Companies implemented work-from-home models, allowing employees to work from just about any location. Some tech-driven industries have seen business boom, while others have been hit hard by COVID restrictions, driving up unemployment. With vaccination rollout commencing, 2021 is sure to bring new changes that could shift us back to normal, or a new normal entirely.
