Adrian Shaughnessy, writer of the amazing “How to be a Graphic Designer Without losing your soul” at the Design Observer:

We’ve reached a point, in the homogenized West, where good graphic design is everywhere. The battle has been won: every business knows it needs good design —you don’t have to tell them anymore. It’s enshrined in the business schools, established in the corporate HQs. Even small businesses understand that good design is good for business. It’s a universal truth, like “customer service” and “value for money,” and all the other boardroom nostrums that drive modern commerce.

The battle has been won, Adrian says. I don’t disagree; I can’t, or I wouldn’t be in this business. However more often than not I see people worry about design before everything and anything else (even the user), and herein lies the mistake. Without the user, without the eyeballs, there is no design because there is no purpose.

So the rule is: in your products, establish the purpose, remember the user, and then think about how fancy it can look like without compromising usability, experience, and your ultimate goal - to serve the viewer. Shouldn’t that be the point of design in the first place?

A few months ago when I was flying back from California into Europe (Portugal, if you’re wondering and didn’t know) I did a lot of thinking about what the difference really was, in terms of business and innovation between the two continents. The answer isn’t really easy, and I’ve posted some thoughts on it before, but there are a few easy points to follow:

• There are less conversations between european entrepreneurs
• Europeans don’t take as many risks in terms of innovation
• US Head-hunting gets the talent out, not in
• Less VC investment to stimulate idea development

It doesn’t take much to give out some practical examples based on these four points:

1. There are less entrepreneurial weblogs from europeans (to be totally honest, I only read a few, like Tom Coates’s Plasticbag) and there are few conversations between us here in the old continent.
2. There’s less risking getting things out the door in the european IT industry (other industries like design or architecture don’t seem to have that problem).
3. Good people get acquired or work almost exclusively for US firms - we can use our own example: over 90% of our client base is from the US.
4. Even though the need for (the old kind of) venture capital is slimmer and slimmer every day, it stimulates ideas - it forces people and their projects into becoming better.

So what can really be done?

We’re going to be making a conscious effort to get the conversation going between us here in Europe. There are several parts to this effort and I’ll blog about them soon, but for now the important thing is to get out there and do things, talk to people and create. We’ve been doing our part, and would like to hear about your own efforts. Drop us emails or comments, we want to hear from you, if you’re in Europe and have been innovating.

Seth Godin has a great post about how “global warming” doesn’t worry us because everything in that name reminds us of good things (warm, global), and goes on to say how we’d be paying a lot more attention if the phenomenon was called “Atmosphere cancer” or “Pollution death”.

A name is, by far, one of the most important things in any brand - and specifically in web applications or online identities. Your name is usually your first point of contact. A name automatically generates an image in the viewer’s mind about a product or activity. It automatically defines it for you - good or bad, it’s a first impression and you know those count.

Don’t follow trends in naming your products. Repeating vowels because Google did it means becoming generic, and your point is to stand out from the crowd. There’s a huge difference in a name - trust me when I say this, people ask the funniest things about our name being “Webreakstuff”. Remember this when building the next “Froobloogle”.