My new book, Big Enough, arrives on September 15th and I can't wait to share it.
Big Enough tells the Common Craft story over a decade, with a focus on the experiments and decisions that helped us create a thriving two-person business that doesn't require an HR department. The book is for anyone interested in saner, healthier approaches to building a business that supports their values.
Pre-order the Book
Big Enough is available for pre-order in both ebook and paperback, using the links below. I hope you'll consider pre-ordering because you'll be the first to receive it and pre-orders help the book earn attention when it launches. The 90-second video below will make it clear.
Note: You can also pre-order from the book's home page and I'll send you free stickers and maybe Big Enough socks. :)
Explainer: Why Pre-Orders Help to Authors
From the Back Cover:
An eye-opening antidote to the endless-growth mindset, Big Enough offers an alternative path to career success
In this illuminating book, entrepreneur Lee LeFever gives an inside view of building a scalable, product-focused business—while never compromising on quality of life. Lee and his wife, Sachi, responded to the promise of the internet by building a home-based business, Common Craft, that was profitable yet small enough to pivot and innovate.
Lee takes you through the multiple business models they pursued—marketplace, digital product licensing, subscription services, distribution partnerships, and more—and offers his best tips for how you, too, can build a lightweight business that supports a life you love.
A must-read for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, business strategy, and e-commerce, Big Enough arms you with insights into how technology and innovation are changing the face of business—and how the science of happiness and the pursuit of values can help redefine what it means to be successful.
"A refreshing, personal guide to designing a business around the values that matter most to you. I found a lot to steal here, and I think you will, too."
—Austin Kleon, New York Times–bestselling author of Steal Like An Artist
"A practical business autobiography, approachable and useful."
—Seth Godin, founder of Akimbo.com
"If you are an entrepreneur with heart, you’ll love this book."
It's easy to think that, in research, more information is better. The reality is that research can feel overwhelming. That's why academic databases matter. They make it quick and easy to search, filter, and evaluate sources for your work.
Research can feel overwhelming when it’s difficult to know what sources are useful and trustworthy. Academic databases help solve this problem by making sources easy to search, filter, and evaluate. This video explains Academic Databases and teaches:
Why quality matters more than quantity in research
Where to find academic databases
What types of publications and subjects are available
We now have 112 explainer videos in our library. Each video is designed to explain a subject clearly in a few minutes. Common Craft videos can help save time in your classroom, course, training session or presentation. Here are the most recent additions:
Join Common Craft's Lee LeFever for an in-depth look at making simple animated videos using presentation software and screencasting.
This webinar is a follow-up to a recent event that introduced the COVID Communication Kit. The forthcoming webinar will use videos and visuals from the kit as a starting point for creating your own videos. Attendance of the previous event is not required.
In addition to receiving the COVID Communication Kit, attendees will learn:
A simple and affordable process for making animated videos
How to animate visuals for video scenes
How to use text animations that don't require a voice-over
How to create and edit simple visuals
How to edit an existing video
If you are looking for a quick and simple way to communicate clearly with video, this webinar will help you develop a new skill that can be applied immediately.
Each attendee will receive the COVID Communication Kit, provided by Common Craft free of charge. A link to the downloadable kit will be sent to all attendees and includes:
Over 140 COVID-related Common Craft Style images (hi-res PNG)
Ready-made videos that succinctly explain masks, contact tracing and social distancing
PowerPoint presentations that provide a starting point for your message
Templates for clear communication and explanation
All materials in the kit are licensed for reuse, remixing, and sharing with a Creative Commons license. We encourage you to use our work and media as a starting point for your project.
The workplace has been disrupted and office life may not be the same again.
But one thing is clear: organizations will need to communicate new policies and procedures in the context of COVID safety. These new policies all have the same challenge: being read and clearly understood by employees. This is a challenge we want to help you overcome.
We recently published a free resource for communicators called the COVID Communication Kit. The kit is designed to help communicators get a head start in COVID-related communication projects. It contains:
100+ Common Craft Style Cut-outs (PNG) related to COVID
3 original videos that explain the importance of masks, social distancing, and contact tracing
Video source files for easy edits
Explanation guides from the Explainer Academy
Reference documents
Links to trustworthy sources regarding COVID and the workplace
Yours to Edit, Remix, and Share
We've licensed these materials with a Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-commercial) license, which means we're encouraging communicators to use the Cut-outs and videos for their own projects. They can be copied, edited, remixed, and shared. We only ask that you use them for non-commercial purposes and credit "Common Craft".
This is your invitation to join me for a free, 30-minute webinar that will help you get a head start on communicating COVID-19 workplace policies.
As employees return to the workplace, organizations will need to clearly communicate new policies related to COVID-19. This free webinar will give you a head start in developing these communications.
Each attendee will receive the COVID Communication Kit, which is provided by Common Craft free of charge. The downloadable kit includes:
Over 100 COVID-related Common Craft Style images (hi-res PNG)
Ready-made videos that succinctly explain masks, contact tracing, social distancing, etc.
PowerPoint presentations that provide a starting point for your message
Templates for clear communication of policies
All materials in the kit are licensed for reuse, remixing, and sharing. Use our work and media as a starting point for your project.
With so much information at our fingertips, it can be difficult to know what is trustworthy. A solid first step is understanding the differences between statements of fact and opinion.
Every day, we see both facts and opinions in media, education, and more. Being able to tell them apart is an important and powerful skill. Using multiple examples, this video explains the difference between facts and opinions, and how to use that information to your advantage. It teaches:
How to recognize factual statements
How to recognize statements of opinion
Why factual statements can be true or false
How to verify the accuracy of factual statements
Why understanding facts and opinions matter in evaluating media
