As this illustration says, strategy is about saying “yes” to some things and “no” to others.  This is especially true about complexity.  Simple is generally better, but not always so. 

For instance, in Remarkable Tributes, there is a great deal of complexity around inviting others to join you in creating a tribute and making that as easy as possible.  It would have been simpler for us to leave that out, but then it would just create more work for our tribute organizers (our customers) and we couldn’t stand for that.  We made a choice.

As this holiday season is among us, I am reminded again of the importance of the choices we make as we are faced with so many entertainment and service options.  May this season and 2010 be fantastic for you and may you have just the right level of complexity!

This cartoon from GapingVoid.com expresses it well.

Organizing tributes is easy and free!

We have been working on a bunch of new features and enhancements to Remarkable Tributes.  The great news is that you can access all of these for free without downloading software.  It is all available at http://www.RemarkableTributes.com. 

When you create a Tribute you can upload a picture thumbnail, making it easier for you and your contributors to identify the right tribute.  This is just one of literally hundreds of enhancements to the software that is free for you to use.  You only pay when you choose to publish the tribute as a coffee-table style book or as a website (at a Fill-in-the-Blank Link that you select), so there is no risk to starting a tribute today!

• Tribute books are the perfect personalized gift!
• Collaboration tools help you involve friends and family, no matter where they live
• Easy to use, with no software to download
• you publish it in a book or on the web.

Show someone how much you care, while saving yourself a ton of time, with Remarkable Tributes.

Here’s how to enter . . .
 
1. Visit http://remarkabletributes.com/.

2. Come back here (http://www.aRemarkableBlog) and leave a comment telling us why you’d love to win this. Be sure to leave your e-mail (in a format like “name[at]website.com” to avoid the spammers),  if you don’t have a public blog profile.

Who wants extra entries?! 

If you want extra changes, you can do the following and each will count as an additional entry in the drawing:

3. Become a fan of Remarkable Tributes on Facebook. 

4. Blog about and link to this giveaway. Please leave your blog post url in your comment.

5. StumbleUpon this post or www.RemarkableTributes.com

6. Tweet about this giveaway (put @RemarkableTweet in your post or comment here leaving a link to your Twitter post).  A sample post is below:

Win a $50 Gift Certificate from @RemarkableTweet. Visit http://wp.me/pgkQy-47 for details. Please RT.

Open to residents of the US.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on Sunday, November 1st, 2009.

Good luck and we can’t wait to see your entries!

Here is a little more about Remarkable Tributes and its founder

I am a mom of two, wife of 16 years, a daughter, aunt, niece, sister, and a technology executive. I developed Remarkable Tributes to make it easier for people to honor people that they love with a lasting, personalized keepsake gift.  I guess you could say this is a personal passion of mine.

What is your business and where can we find it?

Remarkable Tributes joins friends and family to create a tribute to celebrate someone’s special occasion, be it a birthday, graduation, baby blessing, or anniversary. You can find it at http://www.RemarkableTributes.com. You can see more about Remarkable Tributes.  The gift certificate can be used towards the purchase of a coffee-table style Remarkable Tributes book and/or a website published at a Fill-in-the-Blank Link. 

Is it mom-owned and invented?

Yes and yes.

How did it all start?

The business idea started to percolate in May of 2007 when we celebrated by grandmother’s 85^th birthday. You can see more about the inspiration behind Remarkable Tributes. Later that year, the concept was defined, the development team chosen, and work began early in 2008. The site went through several private pilot stages, starting with family and friends, before launching officially in January of 2009.  We have loved the journey so far and are so honored to be invited to be a part of your special occasions and celebrations!

First and foremost, we have totally revamped the way you can invite others to contribute to a tribute, by submitting their photos and greetings.  Instead of emails with restrictive links, you can now copy an invitation link into your own emails, Facebook messages, or even to a printed flyer or invitation:  anywhere your friends and family are sure to see it!

It has never been easier to invite someone to participate in a tribute, to send out reminders to those who might not have responded yet, and to make sure your next Tribute project gets great participation from your family and friends.

This new approach allows you to pre-authorize people to submit (by entering their email addresses on the Contributors tab), otherwise people request access by visiting the link and you grant it to them on this tab (they show up as pending “Requests to Contribute”).  We have added a “Super Secret Mode” which allows you to hide the name and occasion of the tribute on this invitation, so that no surprises are ruined. 

Like always, new features and enhancements are immediately available with no software to download or files to upgrade.  All tributes are automatically updated and you can see the new features in place today at http://www.RemarkableTributes.com.  Check it out and start a new tribute today!

One wanted to use it for a special birthday tribute to her husband.  Another one for her mom’s 60th birthday celebration.  Click for an example of a birthday gift tribute.

One commenter, Vickie, summed it up when she said “This would be a unique gift that I know would make my mom cry.  She could have a book with not only her favorite photos, but also with stories and special thoughts from all of us.”

A few others wanted to create graduation tributes for high school and college graduates.  Another a 50th wedding anniversary tribute, “as a special reminder of their love and lives together.”  Another wanted to create a baby tribute (click for an example of a new baby blessing tribute).  Creating a tribute in memory of a loved one who had recently passed was on someone’s mind.

So many occasions and one perfectly thoughtful gift, a tribute from Remarkable Tributes.

For weeks I have been thinking about some online demos, some video clips that would describe some of the main functionality of Remarkable Tributes and make it easier for people to get started with the site.  I have dreamed about how I’d have professionally-produced videos that would inspire clients to new heights of appreciation.  Yet, time passed and I was frustrated that I wasn’t making progress.  I am sure I am not the only one that is a prisoner to perfectionism at times.  We have high standards and love to impress.

Yet, in the end I felt it was more important to start sharing the information, so today I used a simple and powerful tool, still in beta, by Pixetell to record an ad hoc demo of one of the benefits of Remarkable Tributes, sharing tributes online using Fill-in-the-Blank Links and the online publishing tools we’ve built into the software.  You can find this demo here.   I welcome your feedback on this little demo (but go easy on me as you know how I can be) and on other topics you’d like to see covered in future demos.    And thanks for letting me think outside of the boxes!

So, in terms of catch up, my son finished up his first year of “real” school and summertime is upon us.  My husband is in the midst of building a chicken coop as our three chickens need a home that is more right-sized for their growing bodies.  Our garden is growing nicely and we’ve already had two trips to the zoo, one Vacation Bible School participation, and are planning some fun events this summer.  I hope yours is shaping up equally cheery.

Remarkable Tributes is doing well, considering we are so new, and there are new users to welcome and new tributes starting every day.  I am humbled by all the great feedback and the projects that we have been honored to participate in.  Tributes for birthdays, graduations, going away farewells, and even an adoption day anniversary book.  Awesome!

Keep up the great work and I look forward to writing more soon!

P.S.  I am still twittering all over the place at http://www.twitter.com/remarkabletweet and I’ve been posting some cartoons and thoughts over at http://jenniferbdavis.blogspot.com.  But those are no excuse for me to ignore this blog.