In celebration of Say Yeah’s 10-year anniversary, we gathered experts from our team and trusted service providers to answer your burning digital transformation questions.

Held at The Spoke Club in downtown Toronto, the event featured a cross-section of industry experts, from digital strategy to team building, public relations to research, content to building a culture of innovation.

The early evening started off with cocktails, hors d’ourves, and great conversation. Attendees and experts got to know each other over their favourite end of day drinks. Then, it was time for the ask-an-expert breakout sessions.

Our lineup of digital transformation questions were facilitated through the following topics:

• Challenges in bringing digital excellence to your team with Lee Dale, Say Yeah!
• Digital foresight with Janice de Jong, Say Yeah!
• Building your team with Trina Boos, Boost Agents
• PR for emerging products and services with Morgan Craig, Eighty-Eight
• From research to actionable insights with Nick Drew, Fuse Insights 
• Content in the digital age with Tara Hunt and Carlos Pacheco, Truly Social
• Coaching towards innovation with Mark Kuznicki, The Moment

Attendees alternated between breakout groups to get a dose of insight and ask their burning digital transformation questions across each topic. Others were comfy on the outdoor couches whilst in in-depth conversation.

Nearing the end of the event was a defining moment for the Say Yeah team. CEO Lee Dale shared his congratulations with Say Yeah President Matthew Rintoul and the rest of the team for reaching 10 years at Say Yeah! Hearty thanks to the clients who got us there and those who joined us for the evening followed.

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“The design industry has changed so much over the past 10 years and we’ve had three major arcs in our business over that time. I couldn’t be happier with where we’ve taken the business, both in being able to serve our local community through impactful work and helping our clients reach new heights by coaching them towards digital excellence.”

~Lee Dale, CEO 

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The sound of toasting champaign glasses filled the patio as everyone cheered with excitement.

To conclude the night, attendees relaxed beneath the setting sun and enjoyed the ongoing conversation with their peers.

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We’re opening up our doors for Startup Open House this coming Oct 30th from 4 – 7 pm.

This is a chance to visit dozens of startups across Toronto, along with those of us in the west end, including Say Yeah!, Indiegogo, Freshbooks, Stylekick, Gelaskins, and a half dozen more in Liberty Village.

It’s also Lee’s birthday so it will be a double-celebration.

Come by and talk product design, MVPs, or just to high-five Lee!

Sign up for Startup Open House

And please RSVP if you’re coming to see us so we know how much cake and ice cream (or other munchies) to have on hand.

RSVP to visit Say Yeah

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Say Yeah, 100% template-free design.

These same-looking websites which take over your scrolling, essentially breaking 15 years of web standards, limiting differentiation, and starting with a splash screen are a pox on the internet.

Hopefully they have a very short shelf life. By then, of course, mobile app templates will be de rigueur and we’ll have another bottle against mediocrity to fight.

(Apologies for this rant from Lee, but no value comes of these over-designed, standards breaking shortcuts.)

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Our new website may look like an exercise in flamboyant, textured, digital design—exactly what Apple is moving away from with iOS 7—but there’s no digital trickery here. We made and photographed every element of the site, just adding a little digital text to tell our story. And this video shows how we did it.

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We’ve done well to develop an internal naming process where we gather details about product, target, corporate personality, and competition before mapping out concepts which lead to related, suitable name options.

Even this process, however, invites surprise. Emotion can sometimes take the lead, as it did with Say Yeah, or you can find yourself staring down well-considered metaphoric, literal, and other options while someone comes in from left field with new party suggestions, as with Kipu.

Yet, in both of these cases, by understanding the product and recognizing the strategy behind it, we’ve been able recognize when we find a name that resonates with the company and product culture. In the end, it means we’ve settled on a name that makes it all the more easy to share our passion around the product. That’s really exciting!

Beyond that, you’ve got your due diligence to do. Trademark searching, domain registration (the most difficult area of compromise for any new product), along with linguistics and other research which is dependent on target and geography.

Marty Neumeier, who wrote the exceptional book, The Brand Gap, shared this slide a few years ago, highlighting key naming styles:

• Descriptive
• Suggestive
• Metaphorical
• Neological
• Historical
• Arbitrary

Once you’ve gathered product, target, marketing strategy, and competitive info, this is a good starting point for naming discussions. And if you want any help in this area, give us a shout. We love collaborating on such creative and fun challenges.

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Here are all 24 buttons:

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