Brian Wallace AMA on Infographics, Startups and LinkedIn Optimization

Brian Wallace is the Founder and President of NowSourcing , an industry leading infographic design agency based in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH which works with companies that range from startups to Fortune 500s. Brian has been named a Google Small Business Advisor for 2016-present and joined the SXSW Advisory Board in 2019.

In his Ask Me Anything session with Hacker Noon community Brian has shared his views on infographics, shared useful advice for startups, explained how to build great LinkedIn profile and much more!

1. Do great infographics need animation?

"I firmly believe that rich media is a great attention grabber as well as a method to keep the visitor attracted to the content.

That said, much of the web is arcane and held together by bubble gum and scotch tape , so we are purposeful in making a lot of flat, 2-dimensional infographics for this reason that we can’t count on standards being supported. "

2. What's the Number One mistake startups and small business make when starting up ?

"Most businesses fail before they start and don’t even know it.

A lot of people are subject matter experts - good at a specific skill - but don’t belong in biz for themselves.

If you don’t know how to sell and how to market, you better find a partner, hire someone good at these, or go back to work for someone else."

3. On the importance of education for career in tech or tech business.

"Even though I have extensive formal education, I feel that unless you are getting a terminal degree (lawyer, doctor, HVAC tech, etc), there isn’t as much of a need as there was for this formal career trajectory as in former years.

Many companies have come out on record saying that degrees don’t matter. Also there are lots of certificate programs and microcredentialing programs these days to help you. "

4. 3 Top Tips for LinkedIn profile optimization.

"Here’s a 3 step flywheel to ensure that you’re successful on LinkedIn (which btw is incredibly hard to do well):

1 - Make an outstanding LinkedIn profile
2 - Make it super clear what you do for a living
3 - Make regular (doesn’t have to be daily, but maybe 1-3x a week), original, great content - including video"

Read the full AMA.

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