We got to brainstorming the other day on the current economy and what we could do about it. This is a strange time, and we understand how rough it is -- even as we work to maintain optimism and push for a large-scale shift to a more positive attitude. We decided we could do something to help, something that would lift everyone a little.
So starting now and running for at least a little while, we're offering some of our services at discounted rates to small and/or locally owned businesses who could use a boost during tough times.
Specifically, we're talking about individual projects like:
We're firm believers in the idea that strong identity and branding have a positive impact on the bottom line. We also realize that small businesses often don't pay as much attention to it as they should, especially when times are tough. We want to help.
Now, just so we're clear: the services we're offering here are not designed to substitute for a comprehensive program. We offer that, too, but the focus of this particular idea is more narrow. It's all about small and/or local businesses that could use a boost but which aren't, for whatever reason, able to implement a full program at the moment. We want to help you with an affordable way to communicate better, grow your business, and stay strong in tough times.
Sound like something you'd be interested in? Or do you know someone who owns a small/local business who might want to talk? Please pass around a link to this post and/or email us directly. Let's make it happen.
]]>We're pleased to announce the completion of our most recent project, the website for elevator/escalator consulting firm Atlantic Consulting.
From start to finish the project work involved:
Pretty stoked with the way this one turned out, and it's a great example of our belief in the power of WordPress for small businesses who need an easy-to-implement, easy-to-manage content management system. Back that up with solid strategy and copywriting and, well, there you go.
]]>It started with a post I put up on Twitter back on March 6. "I'm declaring today 'bottom' for the economy," I said, "and tomorrow 'day one' of the recovery. Who's with me?"
I have no illusions about my reach or influence. Both are moderate on a good day. But I have had the good fortune of developing relationships with some very fine folks with whom I enjoy mutual respect. And so I'm reaching out to all of you, those I know personally and those I don't, with a simple idea: let's get shit rolling.
I think it's time we stop waiting to be saved. You and I are not getting bailouts no matter what happens with Citibank, GM, et al. If we wait on help we'll be waiting forever.
Instead, I propose we start the rebuilding effort now. Piece by piece, day by day, using the influence we have with friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and people in our network.
How? Simple: invest. In valuable things and valuable ideas. To the extent that you have any disposable income, spend it wisely. Buy a handmade item from a local craftsperson like Imogene or Sweet Pepita or the equivalents in your city. Go out to eat at a locally owned restaurant. When you do, skip the appetizer or drink and leave that extra cash as a tip for your server (believe me, he/she needs it). See a movie at a locally-owned theater, or a play by a local company. Buy some stock in an American business you believe in.
Do whatever you can, however small it might seem. Hell, do something as simple as clicking the google ads on your favorite independent websites. It helps. Most importantly, stop thinking that we're in a recession and start thinking that we're in the early stages of the recovery effort.
Do this right now, then tell other people you're doing it and invite them to join you. Does this sound silly? A little Pollyannish? So be it. Bottom line is that things won't get better until we start believing they're getting better and acting accordingly. No reason that can't start right now.
]]>I happened upon CNN the other day while Rush Limbaugh was talking (I swear this was an accident), and I caught him saying that he's hoping Barack Obama will fail.
He made his case. It was fair enough, as those things go. He said he didn't believe in Obama's policies, and offered up the argument that it was only logical for him to want those policies to fail. Pretty standard political bullshit.
Politics isn't something to talk about here, but Limbaugh's speech got me thinking in broader terms.
Believing in something is tantamount to wanting it to succeed -- to win -- but the question becomes whether or not that's the same thing as rooting for the failure of something else. I don't think it is.
Instead, I'd argue that rooting for failure is a kind of quiet proof that whatever it is you do advocate isn't strong enough to begin with. If you truly believe what you're about is better, you've got no compelling reason to feel passionately about anything else.
The better strategy is to not waste energy and attention on what you don't like, and instead pour that effort into things you can actually control. Or, in other words, you can want to beat someone else without simultaneously wishing them harm.
It's a fine line, but it matters.
]]>Why? For two reasons. One, I'm honored to have been a part of this event. Each speaker brought something interesting to the table, and all in all it was the kind of event that reminded me why I'm happy to live here.
Two, I'm happy with the talk itself and it's my hope that you might find value in it. So without further ado, here it is (or, direct YouTube link):
And here are the slides (or, direct Slideshare link):
This is a talk I'm hoping to give again in a more expansive setting, and it's something I intend to write about in more depth. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment and/or contact me if it piques your interest.
Beyond that, enjoy.
]]>On Sunday, I decided to finally replace my kitchen faucet. It was long overdue, as the cold water valve had broken some time ago. In the intervening months it had leaked to the point where the bolt that connects to the water line had rusted pretty badly. This wasn't going to be an easy task.
If you've never tried to replace a faucet, it only gets difficult at one point. Because the sink basin drops down and the faucet is mounted behind it, reaching the plastic nuts that hold the fixture in place means you have to navigate a sea of pipes and water lines and contort yourself into a position where it's next to impossible to generate leverage. Coupling that with significant rust meant I had zero chance of loosening by hand.
First I tried a hammer, figuring that if I could give it a gentle nudge it might loosen up enough to turn. All I managed to do was break one of the wings off the nut.
Then I tried different kinds of pliers, but the leverage problem remained.
I was at the point where mounting frustration was about to become bad, desperate decisions. I went to Home Depot instead.
I found the plumbing section, where I was greeted by a wall about seven feet high, six feet wide, and full of plumbing tools with highly specific purposes. There was a "confined space hacksaw," a miniature pipe bender, and a host of others. These are serious, professional tools that, for the most part, aren't useful in the least for a layman. Except when you really need them.
A bit of digging and about $20 later I left with the Ridgid plastic nut basin wrench, a foot long, tapered steel tube with notches on either end. It's heavy and strong. It's made in the USA. It's expensive because it has to be. It was designed and built to solve one problem and one problem only -- the one I had.
It worked perfectly.
I mention this because as I finished the job it occurred to me that I'd learned a few things that I could take with me into creative work. Understand the nature of the challenge. Seek out the specific solution. Execute the task at hand. Don't let frustration win out.
Easier said than done, sure, but it felt good. Felt right.
]]>It happened the other day, in fact, when I was watching Obama's inauguration. I was in awe of the sheer optimism on display. I'd never seen anything like that. So much negativity in the news lately and yet here were millions of people cramming themselves into the mall and crowding around their TVs and computers, just waiting to turn the page.
The soaring rhetoric was there, of course, but I was also struck by the new President's focus on responsibility and the need to put in time and work to actually make things happen. He made it clear that we have to roll our sleeves up.
I'm all for it, and I'd like to think that even those Americans who disagree with him politically -- who are an important part of our system, by the way -- can get on board with that.
It got me thinking: what happens when the hype dies down? When the confetti is swept up and the lights turned off? What does this new era mean, for both those who supported Obama and those who didn't?
So I put together a little art project: WouldYouDoThatIfBarackWasWatching.com. It's a simple site, designed with only one goal in mind: to get you thinking. No sides taken, simply a question. It's as much for me as it is for anyone else, but I think there are some other folks out there who could have some fun with it.
In other news... Slant Six Creative will be growing soon. Look for a new site in the near future. This site was intentionally set up as a blank slate, function over fashion all the way. That idea remains important to me, but it's time to flesh things out just a bit. Keep an eye on these pages for an evolution in the first quarter of the year. And, as always, thanks for reading.
]]>A nice conversation with a friend of a friend on New Year's Eve turned (naturally) to what we do. When I told him that I had spent time writing comic books, his eyes lit up. He had made some inroads of his own in the illustration world, and we talked for awhile about the comics business.
Then he asked me what I was up to now, since I'm less active in comics than I was, and I explained that I'd been doing a lot of marketing/advertising/design work, some PR, and working to build this business. To that, his eyes decidedly didn't light up.
Instead, he said "well at least you're still writing...sort of." I chuckled at that. It's something I've heard before. The implication being that it's more rewarding to do creative work than it is to do "creative" work. The thing is, it's not true.
If you show me a really great designer, or copywriter, or creative director, or marketer, or editor, I'll lay odds on that person also having a background and/or interest in something else. Photography, creative writing, painting, illustration -- something. An art.
There's a reason these people are called "creatives." The best of them are at work applying the exact same principles they use when they work at night or on weekends on novels, sketches, films, and music. If they've never done any of those things, chances are their work is average at best.
The advertising, marketing, and design work that really moves people is born of the same creative impulse as art. It's not the same thing, obviously, but it comes from the same place. It's a desire to communicate something that gets people thinking. To do work that inspires.
I have a healthy disdain for agencies and firms that try to turn the process into something else. There are always going to be compromises. We all understand that. But if your focus is primarily on bottom lines and focus groups and ROI, you're missing out. And what's more, it won't matter what the numbers say -- you won't be doing anything that matters.
You might be making money, but you won't be making a point. The best "creatives" do both.
]]>Last Friday, after putting the finishing touches on my redesign for The Loss Column, I spent time catching up on some sites I hadn't been to in awhile.
I ended up at the Sawmill PR blog, where I was drawn in by Susan Anthony's post, There's a Simple Way to Help Verify 'Expertise'. In it, she talks about her feelings towards "two companies in the mid-Atlantic that, according to their Web sites, offer an impressive menu of social media services with each of them wrapped in a security blanket of their “expertise.”
Her basic take? That these firms don't participate in social media enough on their own behalf to warrant "expert" status on behalf of someone else. It got me thinking quite a bit about my own perspective on social media and how to effectively advise others on how to use it.
I've been involved in social media on a personal level since my family had the Prodigy internet service when I was a kid. I didn't know what to call it then, but I started learning the ins and outs of online communication pretty early. I used that understanding a lot in college, especially when I took to message boards to promote the shows I was booking. I started my first blog in 2002, and since then social media has been -- literally -- part of my daily routine.
I've used it to (among other things) market books, develop relationships with people all over the country (like my good friends at Tomorrow's Brightest Minds), amass and offer advice and knowledge, create a successful sports talk website, and launch Slant Six. I've consulted others on using social media, in both official and unofficial capacities. There have been quite a few missteps and failures along the way, and I've learned from every one of them.
I don't call myself an "expert" because I don't think there is such a thing as a "social media expert," but I'm confident in the value I offer. Otherwise, I wouldn't offer it. From that perspective, I agree with Anthony's main point that one should be actively engaged in the field in order to claim the ability to make it happen for someone else. Her basic reasoning is solid.
But, I take issue with the statement that "a blog, a Twitter account, LinkedIn and Facebook are typically the foundation of a social media strategy." These things are important engines in the social media sphere, but they aren't necessarily essential. Participation in social media is not fundamentally different from participation in real social situations. The absolute most critical element to a good strategy is understanding where you fit and what kind of participation makes the most sense for you. I love my Twitter account, but that service is not for everyone. On the flip side, I don't participate actively in Facebook even though I understand it and recognize its value. Seth Godin doesn't participate in Twitter or Facebook, and he also doesn't allow comments on his blog. Raise your hand if you'd like to make the case that he doesn't have expertise.
Claiming that an effective social media strategy must include Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin/blog is akin to claiming that a trip to the grocery store must include milk, eggs, and meat. These are staple items, yes, but what if you're a vegan? Or lactose intolerant? Or allergic?
There may be a "typical foundation" to social media strategy, but it's likely only going to be useful to typical people. How often do you really meet one of those?
]]>Every attempt to convince someone -- or, even better, to sell them -- brings with it a moment of decision: what constitutes deception? Unfiltered facts and details might not (and often won't) make any sense to the person you're talking to. It's usually necessary to find a container, a way of presenting things that makes the point and (hopefully) elicits a response.
This is true in any conversation, but the stakes are high in mass-communication formats like advertising, design, marketing, blogs, Twitter, and the like. Here's the rule of thumb I go by: making something up is fine, lying never is. The difference being that one is a (positive) act of creativity while the other is a (negative) act of deception. One's acceptable -- even helpful -- while the other is disingenuous.
By "making something up" I mean finding a story. Finding a way to make sense of a complicated set of factors that you might understand but which aren't necessarily important to the person to whom you're speaking. It's about streamlining details and facts. That story doesn't exist on its own -- you're creating and telling it. To lie is to pursue the above beyond the boundaries of what's honest and verifiable.
A quick case study: I got a piece of direct mail in early December from a christmas tree lot I'd bought from in the past. The cover read "get your $10 off coupon inside!" Turns out the coupon was actually for $10 off trees over $60, and $7 off trees from $40-$60. And it had an expiration date of December 12th. The cover, in other words, told a lie. Not in the strictly technical sense (it was theoretically possible to save that much money), but in the sense that it employed tired tactics of promising one thing and then delivering another.
Imagine, though, if the cover made the same promise but it was followed up on the inside with something like this: Please accept this coupon for $10 off of any tree on our lot. We're sending this offer to past customers as a way of saying "thanks." If you're not planning on getting a tree from us this year, please pass it along to a friend. We hope to see you soon.
One approach tells a lie about what the offer is actually worth. The other crafts a compelling narrative about how much they value the people who buy their trees year after year.
Which approach do you suppose is more likely to generate good will, positive word of mouth, and repeat business?
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