(4) The RFID Journal Mark Roberti Interview: How design influences are

critical to his success...

In this next part of the interview, Mark talks about his business influences

and reveals his biggest influences for his successful approach.

John:

We all enjoyed that approach that you used on Twitter and on your blog

recently about your announcement for president.

Mark:

Yea, that was something a little different that I thought played into our

use of social media. I thought there would be a lot of talk over the next

two years as things happen with the presidential campaigns. I thought I

could play off of that in a humorous way.

One of the things you have to be mindful of is that you have to entertain

and you have to keep things interesting for folks. If you keep saying the

same thing over and over again, it doesn’t get you very far. Hopefully

we’ll have a little fun with that one.

John:

Are there any marketing people who you really admire?

Mark:

The person I admire most in business is Steve Jobs.

That’s probably no surprise because a lot of people admire Steve Jobs.

I think that he is an innovative person who takes design very seriously. I

take design very seriously as well.

A lot of people in my position either as a CEO or as an editor don’t take

design very seriously.

In my view, the high quality of our speakers at our events and the high

quality of our editorial would be deeply undermined by sloppy design.

When people see sloppy design, they think sloppy and low quality.

If you have a poorly designed website, then they would think what is

written on that website is poorly written or of very little value.

To me, one of the keys of RFID Journal’s success over the years has been

good design.

We take a lot of pride in the signage at our shows, the stage design, and

those things. Steve Jobs gets that. Design is absolutely critical to

everything that Apple does. I think that most CEOs really don’t get that.

Most businesspeople really don’t get that having good design is really

essential to having a good product in most cases. So, I really

tremendously admire him.

John:

I’m a big fan. I have three Macs myself. I echo your feelings on that.

You’ve certainly accomplished that with your logo design and the

continuity between everything that you do is really impressive. I was

down in Orlando and I got that feeling. I’ve been to hundreds of trade

shows over the years and many with automotive manufacturers. So,

kudos to you. It was really a good event. I understand what you’re saying

about design and signage. You really do accomplish that.

(In the fifth and final part of this interview, Mark share his predictions for

RFID in the future. You can’t miss his insights on the RFID trends.)