A Royal Birthday Gift

The Captain really outdid himself. Last night, on my birthday, he presented me with this:

Recently Published in HOW Design Magazine...

The current issue of HOW, one of the leading professional graphic design magazines, features Jess' article Deflate the Tire Kickers. Every profession has their version of the tire kicker: those not-so-serious prospects that eat into your profitability. This five-page article walks designers through the client intake process, offering practical advice on how to identify and effectively handle this segment without losing your cool.



The magazine is currently on the newsstands at most major bookstores, and can also be purchased online. [Update: HOW Magazine has now posted the full text on their site, so you can read the article online.]

(And am I the only one who thinks the illustration looks like David Bowie? Which is, of course, totally rad.)

How a Marketing Plan Builds Your Business

It’s time to dust off that old marketing plan that’s been crammed in the back of your bottom drawer next to your business plan,and crack it open. Oh, right - you don’t have a dedicated, stand-alone marketing plan. But that’s okay, because you’ve got it all in your head, right? Wrong. Without a written, comprehensive marketing plan, you’re throwing money away without even realizing it.

What’s So Important About a Written Plan?

There are plenty of reasons why you, savvy businessperson that you are, need a written marketing plan, and the most obvious is that you don’t yet have one. Ask yourself: does the competitor down the street (or online) have a written plan? If they do, then you’re a step behind already and you better catch up. But if they don’t, which is far more likely, then creating one for yourself will give you an instant competitive edge.

A well-written strategic plan will provide you with several necessary insights:

• It makes clear where your money is being spent and where your money should be spent. A good plan includes an audit of your current marketing activity, which accounts for both direct and indirect marketing expenses. It also defines workable budgets for the future.
• It reveals strengths and weaknesses in your tactics, and provides specific ways to fix the weaknesses and maximize the strengths.
• It tells you if your marketing tactics are effectively aligned with your goals.

But even more importantly than holding a mirror to your current marketing activity, a thoughtful marketing plan provides you with a tactical step-by-step plan to reach those business goals. This necessarily sets you in a clear direction, making decisions about which marketing tactics to use, how to implement them, and how much money to spend on them, much easier to make in the heat of day-to-day business.

It’s important to realize just how inefficient on-the-fly marketing decisions can be. Making such last-minute, high-pressure choices will almost always dilute your efforts, which means you’ll yield a lower return for the time and money you’ve invested in those off-the-cuff, time-pressured decisions. Creating a strategic marketing plan that you can turn to in these moments will significantly reduce wasted time, money and resources.

So What Does a Good Marketing Plan Look Like?

Realistically, your plan can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it. You’ll have to balance your available resources with your ideal plan, of course, and find the level of detail that works best for your business. A full-blown strategic marketing plan, however, should include at least the following elements:

• An analysis of your brand position, market segments, and product delivery strategy
• A set of specific marketing goals and objectives
  
• An audit of your current marketing tactics
• A step-by-step action plan to reach each goal (each action should build on the others to create a cohesive strategy)

There’s more to it than that, but those are the essentials. Without them, your marketing plan is more of a marketing notion. Remember: a plan should be executable, appropriate to your needs, and effective.

Can You Do It Yourself?

If your business is already struggling to come up with the cash flow to execute each individual marketing tactic already, it can be tough to convince yourself that it’s worth dropping the cash on a professional strategist. After all, who knows your business better than you? And you’re no stranger to bootstrapping. A DIY marketing plan is certainly better than none, and it will obviously save you money in the short term (though probably not over the long-term).

Start with a simple, one-page plan that you can put together yourself. It should include:

• Your overall business goals
• A short list of marketing tactics that can best achieve those goals (be picky)
• What steps you need to take to implement those tactics.

You must be aware, though, that this is not an ideal approach and it will not be a reliable plan over the long haul. Creating the above plan successfully is often harder than it sounds. Identifying appropriate, reachable goals, understanding which marketing techniques work best for those particular goals, and then identifying the specific steps you’ll need to take to maximize the effectiveness of your chosen marketing techniques, all require a level of marketing expertise you may or may not have.

If it’s not reliable, then why bother with a one-page plan? In actuality, it’s more of an exercise to prepare you for working with a professional strategist. Preparing such a limited marketing plan for yourself will reveal what you know and don’t know, and where you might need outside expertise. This is important information: the best business owners recognize their own weaknesses, and find ways to correct for them (usually by hiring someone for whom their weaknesses are actually strengths).

A professional marketing strategist will inevitably bring a different set of skills to the table: they’ll provide you with a broader market context, a better understanding of your competitors, insight into the most effective marketing methods available to you, and an understanding of how to combine everything into a holistic, effective strategy. And perhaps most importantly, a professional will bring a level of objectivity you simply can’t achieve on your own. When you spend all day, every day making your business work, it’s easy to lose perspective and begin to see everything through the lens of that business. Hiring someone who has both your best interest in mind, and the ability to see beyond your business, will result in a marketing plan that you can easily implement, and implement successfully.

And Finally...What To Do With That Plan

Whether you choose to handle your marketing plan yourself, or hire someone to help you with the process, it'll be useless if you cram it back in that drawer and let it gather dust. The best way to make sure you actually use your plan is to start with a solid foundation. Take the time to do it right from the start, and implementing it will come naturally.

Once it's written, review it regularly. At the very least, you should be reviewing your marketing plan every quarter, but every month is even better. This will allow you to align your cash flow with your upcoming marketing expenses, make adjustments, and generally avoid being caught with your pants down (as in, I meant to start putting money aside for my new catalog last quarter and now I have no budget!).

Reviewing your plan regularly will also give you the satisfaction of checking off action steps as you take them and making adjustments as necessary. It's awfully rewarding to cross things of your to-do list, especially when you can watch those to-do items turn into sales. And that might be the best part about creating a written marketing plan: seeing that plan turn into reality before your very eyes. Because the very nature of such a plan is to build momentum and, ultimately, build your business.

How Will People Find My Business Blog? 20 Useful Directories

One of the most frequent questions I hear from business bloggers is How on earth do I get visitors to my site now that I've set up my blog?! This ain't The Natural - if you build it, they won't come unless they actually know it's there. So how do you get more eyeballs on your blog? The easiest ways to promote your blog also happen to be the cheapest (how often do you get to say that?!). Try this:

1. Blog regularly. Frequent bloggers typically get ranked higher in search engines.
2. Tell everyone you know about your blog. If you use MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn or any other social networking site, let those networks know about your blog.
3. Add your blog to any forum signatures you have.
4. Link to your blog from your website home page.
5. Comment on other people's blogs (make sure your comments are useful and relevant).
   
6. Register your blog in as many free blog directories as possible (see the list below).
   

Free Blog Listing Directories:
Bigger Blogger
Blogarama
Blog Catalog
Blog Flux
Bloggapedia
BloggernityBlogging Fusion
Blog Hints
Blog Hop
Blog Listing
Blogoozle
Blog Rankings
Blog-search.com
Blog Top List
Eaton Web
Globe of Blogs
MyBlogLog
SuperBlog Directory
Top of Blogs
WeBlogALot

When using the above directories, look for a "Submit Blog" or "Add a Blog" link and follow the instructions carefully (most directories will disqualify your blog if you don't read their directions and terms line for line). There are plenty of additional directories you can turn up with a quick Google search, but I've avoided listing those that charge a fee or require a reciprocal link. I guess I'm just a no-strings-attached kind of girl. You will, however, often have to create an account with most of these directories (just be sure to opt out of any mailing lists, unless you want to be bombarded with silly tip sheets). You should never pay to list your blog - it's just not necessary.

Finally, some folks suggest adding your blog URL to your email signature and/or your business card. I've found that these approaches tend to be pretty ineffective, and the latter may well distract viewers from your business URL (which is where you really want them to go).

Headline Hilarity, or Giving the Vag the Respect It Deserves

The SF Chron is often accused of being a rag, and headlines like this one don't help dispel such a reputation. The play on words shown below is, while hilarious, a little too much personal info for my taste. Nothing's funnier than a nice play on words, but please mind the images you conjure up!



I also feel the need to point out that such a headline seems to reinforce the lack of respect given this particular body part. The headline manages to completely ignore the actual point of the article: Eve Ensler's visit to the Bay Area in support of V-Day, a campaign to stop violence against women. The sad truth, too, is that a headline about an anti-violence campaign is likely to draw in far fewer readers than the cheap joke that ran.

Six Word Memoirs Summarize It All

My sis sent me a link yesterday to Six Word Memoirs, a new book from Smith Magazine. It's exactly what you'd think: a collection of memoirs only six words long. Have you ever attempted to summarize your life in six words only? It ain't easy.

Go ahead, try it.

Like many of the examples on an NPR feature about the book, my initial attempts tended toward the philosophical:

The world confuses me – always will.
Wonder when I’ll figure it out?
Fear is powerful—love more so.

These kinds of creative exercises are important to any writer, because they make you focus on word choice, on intention, on voice. They force you to decide what exactly you're trying to accomplish - am I summing up my entire life, or just my views on life? Should I take a single moment and spend six words describing it and what it meant to me in the grand scheme of my more-than-six-word life? This was the list I ended up with:

The memories are mixed – mostly good.
Angry early on; I’m calmer now.
Over time, life became about love.
Never thought I’d be a writer!
My family is nuts – me, too.
Boston born...California bound...home soon?
I don’t see my nephew enough.

I found that with just six words to spare, there's room to convey only a single emotion, or expose only a single moment or sentiment. You have to choose between silly or solemn. I suppose that's fitting, like life.

How does your six word memoir read?

Inside the Mind of a Type Designer

I am a sucker for process. I drool at the thought of reams of artist sketches, I love the behind-the-scenes letters sometimes exhibited in museums to accompany a given collection, and I absolutely, positively get a kick out of reading the how of a what. So I owe a big thanks to Kris Sowersby for exposing the shadows of his type design process to the light, for all to read.



Kris doesn't just provide a behind-the-scenes how-to. He also reveals his own personal approach to designing typefaces, and he gives us a little hint at just how much work goes into something as "mundane" as making letters. This is such a great example of how the ever-so-slightest details, imperceptible to most non-designers, are the be all and end all for those of us who spend our time making things that look nice actually work.

The Utterly Brilliant Limerick Database

Yes, I am a dork. But I have a deep love of limericks for no good reason, other than that I am a dork. Thanks to Coudal, I now have a huge (though sometimes hit-or-miss) repository to distract myself with.

From the Limerick Database:

Famous books rewritten as limericks: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
In PJs, no planet, oh poo!
What is the last earthman to do?
In despair with no tea,
he's now forced to flee
as his brain now explains 42
---

, ` & #
$ @ | + . -
8 7 6 5 4
" * _
? ; ! AS;DOFB2

(Comma tick ampersand hash,
Dollar at pipe plus dot dash.
Eight sev'n six five four,
Quote star underscore,
Question mark semi-colon bang MASH.)
---

A woman in liquor production
Owns a still of exquisite construction.
The alcohol boils
Through magnetic coils.
She says that it's "proof by induction."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No comments from the peanut gallery!

First Punk Planet, and Now This...

R.I.P. No Depression.

How Word Choice Influences Behavior: The Hotel Towel Example

If you ever need to influence people's behavior, you might consider Dr. Robert Cialdini's approach. Cialdini has conducted numerous studies exploring how different types of messaging impacts the public's actual behavior. One such study focuses on those cards in your hotel bathrrom urgng you to reuse your towels. As it turns out, how those cards are worded makes a big difference in whether or not guests pay attention:

"In this series of experiments, Dr. Cialdini and his colleagues created four cards asking guests to reuse their towels. Three cards contained a pro-environment message, while the fourth informed guests that the majority of hotel guests reuse towels when asked. In rooms with the fourth card, towels were reused 34 percent more frequently." [from the Inside Influence Report [note: link broken, try the home page, emphasis added]

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this research:

1. Word choice matters...a lot;
2. People are more likely to act (or not act) based on what they think others are doing (or not doing);
3. It is possible to realize dramatic behavior change with very low investment.
   

So the next time you're trying to get someone to do something, think carefully about how you deliver your message.

How Do You Stack Up? The Freelance Switch Freelance Statistics Report Is Here

If you participated in the Freelance Switch 2007 Freelance Survey, then you've already got your copy. If you didn't, then you might want to go purchase one. Why? Because it's got some eye-popping stats from 3,700 creative freelancers throughout the world that could teach you a thing or two about how you run your business.



A few interesting results and their implications:

• Result: "The amount of billable hours a freelancer is accumulating accounts for a large percentage of their overall happiness. This is in stark comparison to hourly rates and net income which have no significant impact on a freelancer’s overall happiness."
  
  My take: When you only charge $30-$40/hour on average (the most common rate range across multiple industries), you have to work more billable hours. It's no wonder, then, that the apparent business is what makes these freelancers happier, as opposed to their low hourly rate or their overall income, which will inevitably be lower thanks to their rate. If they were to raise their rates, thereby increasing their income, perhaps they would then respond that their rates or income influence their happiness. I can't help thinking that this boils down to a crisis of confidence.
  
  
• Result: "This survey suggests that the following activities have no noticeable impact on your income:
  

  Your age or your gender
  Your experience
  Where you live
  The marketing techniques you use (emphasis added)
  The additional goods and services your offer.

  This leads me to the only remaining possible conclusion – it’s all about the skills...I don’t think it would be bad advice to suggest that if your income isn’t what you think it should be or need it to be, it might be time to upgrade your skills and worry less about marketing and diversifying."
  
  My take: I'm not sure I'd agree with the above conclusion based on the actual question asked: "Where do you find work?" Such a question does not measure the efficacy of one's work-finding techniques (which include referrals, portfolio website, internet job sites, social networking sites, blogs, cold calling, and advertising). It simply measures which techniques freelancers are using. If you don't do any cold calling, for example, you won't get any work from it. This is a major flaw in the analysis, as it sends the message that referrals are the only method freelancers should rely on to find new clients. While I know several freelancers who have been successful over the years relying primarily on referrals, I'm not sure how much job security it actually offers.

Overall, the survey is a fascinating collection of data about a business lifestyle that we generally don't get much data on. It's great to see these numbers, particularly with such a large sample size. And while I'd certainly encourage all freelancers to pick up a copy, I'd also strongly suggest thinking critically about what the numbers really mean to you.

Hoisting a glass in honor of Repeal Day

The following is an article from the New York Sun dated September 6, 1930. It's the story of one family in the restaurant business—my family—and not only is it a fascinating look at hospitality and daily life in the first half of the last century, it also seems an appropriate way to honor Repeal Day.



"A recent transfer of a lease for a restaurant property in Chambers street, near Broadway, brings back memories of a family who for fifty years or more catered to the eating and drinking appetites of some of the best known men in New York. It was the house of Schmidt—headed by the father Louis, and his two sons, Ollie and George. They actually put the liquor or saloon business on the business map and conducted it as one might conduct a banking institution.

Louis Schmidt opened and ran for many years the place at 6 Center street and it was known far and wide as Pier 6. Just why this name became attached to the place is not of record. It was in this place that two sons were instructed into the mysteries of drink mixing. From the start they liked the business and stuck to it as long as Andrew Volstead kept his ideas to himself.

It must be conceded that the Schmidt menage was good when it had upward of a dozen competitors in the triangle on which now stands the Municipal Building. It was then bounded by Tryon Square on the south, on which the Staats-Zeitung Building faces; Center street, Chambers street and Park Row. In the newspaper building there was a famous rathskeller. Next door was Pier 6. Then came Leggat's hotel and bar. Two doors away was Humpy Hanover's Curio and on the corner Paddy Shea's.



While all these places were going full blast, the Schmidt boys and their father kept right on selling good things to eat and drink. George, the younger son, was born over the saloon on Center street and has been in business barely three blocks away from there during his life. Ollie, being older, took over the burden when his father died and continued the name of Schmidt in the purveying business.

Not far away from the Schmidt domicile was the home of the Stender family in William street, just around the corner from Spruce street. Ollie was a live wire and so was Emma Stender, the niece of the elder Kate, who established the famous Kate's, which ran until a few years ago and which went out of business because liquor was taboo in the premises. Good food could be had until the day the key turned in the door for the last time. Some years ago Ollie died. His wife, Emma, assisted by sisters, Kate and Frieda, tried to carry on. Many of the old customers stuck, although they had to forgo their accustomed whisky sour or the seductive cocktail or a schoppen of Rhine wine with their meals.

Ollie had died and Emma had followed in a few years and the load was left for Kate and Frieda. It was too much of a load with only a few hours of eating each day, and they closed the place.



But to get back to the Schmidt boys. Ollie had a following. The Center street place was not magnificent as far as appointments went, but the bottled goods were of the very best. The small priced luncheons were tasty and the free lunch good. So when the place was forced to close the boys looked about to see what could be had to take over the trade who constantly reminded them they should stay in the neighborhood.

The place at 81 Chambers street long had been an established place and they took it over. Then the difference of opinions of the two brothers became known. Ollie thought the place should be closed at 7 o'clock each evening. George thought a later hour would be better. But the hour was 7 o'clock, and if a customer happened to be in the bar at that hour he was asked to take a "nightcap" on the house and everybody started away from 81 Chambers street, but the records do not show they always went directly home.

From the start the Schmidt ownership prospered, but Ollie thought he should have a place of his own and he therefore opened on Park Row at the apex of North William street, one of the handsomest cafes then to be seen in lower Manhattan. It was not a success and Ollie lost practically all he had saved and dumped into a place that was not wanted on a street of people who were rushing to catch subways and elevated trains. Brooklyn Bridge terminal was in those days a wonderful railroad terminus, but the Schmidt place did not seem to appeal.

Ollie therefore took over the William street place made so famous by Kate. City officials and newspapermen of note of other days congregated here and pleasant hours of reminiscence often brought to light interesting news stories that found their way into print. The Schmidt boys as well as the Stender girls were known to writers and public officials generally, but their support was not adequate to pay the overhead when the Volstead law became a part of the dictum of the day.



But George Schmidt stood his ground. When the law against the sale of intoxicating liquors became operative he stood by the law and never sold an illegal drink. But he did try to make his restaurant stand up a little straighter and reorganized hi place with full restaurant equipment and with this he has gone along until he decided he had been in the purveying business long enough and barely a stone's throw from the place he was born.

The Chambers street place had a couple of things to its credit that did not call for the use of alcoholic stimulant. True the corned beef and cabbage on Wednesdays have tasted a little better with a glass of real beer, but George's customers knew the value of the food and were satisfied to forgo the stimulant. On Saturday's he had a dish of pork and beans that attracted men from far and near. Men who had never called except on Saturday could be counted in the throng, for such it was, during the bean season, which seemed to run the year round.

George Schmidt has not served a drink behind a bar for many years and he probably will never mix another, but he has fond memories of his lifelong experience catering to men in public life in New York city. He has known personally Mayors and their cabinets and the writers followed him around as they did Kate and Ollie. Now he plans to retire from active daily routine and take a rest that may eventually take him up to Connecticut, where he has his eye on a cozy place that will be his home for the rest of his days.

Many years ago the Schmidts—father and sons as well as sisters-in-law—wrote their names into the hearts of good eaters and drinkers. All sorts of men—and no women—found their way into 6 Center street and the other places. One of the customers wrote a piece of poetry of fourteen verses which he had printed on good paper and was distributed to the patrons of the place. The man was retiring enough to withhold his name, but the author was known to those on the inside. On the first page titld "Pier 6" is a cut of Ollie and George Schmidt. It points out that Ollie is the owner and that George and Fred and Ollie Curtis are 'a brave quartet of bartenders, who only serve the best.'"

Now please, go out and celebrate.

How does your language define your future?

The Aymara language reverses past and future by referring to forward-occurring events using language denoting the past. Huh? Simply put, Aymara speakers do not subscribe to the same past-present-future tenses that almost the entire rest of the world does.

Just imagine what it would be like if your future depended on your past, and the only way you could communicate "will" or "want to" was to speak as though you already "had" or "did."



When we communicate with one another—be it in words, pictures, or hand gestures for that matter—we make some basic assumptions. We assume the other person is parsing our message the same way we would. We assume that the other person believes in a chronological past-present-future, connects the dots the same way we do, implicitly understands what the hell we are talking about.

But this isn't always the case and our assumptions often cause our messages to fall not on deaf ears, but simply different ears. Or eyes—let's take another example: about 10 million people in the U.S. have difficulty distinguishing red from green (a simple form of color blindness). What does that mean if you are a mapmaker and you color two neighboring countries red and green, respectively? Or if an architect uses these two colors to signify where load-bearing columns should go? These are unlikely examples, of course, but they demonstrate how imperative it is to consider our assumptions about the viewer.

While most of us don't encounter many folks like the Aymara, we still must carefully consider our messages and how we deliver them to others. Whether we're exchanging pleasantries with the coffee shop clerk in the morning, talking our way out of a speeding ticket on the freeway, or teaching surgeons how to handle a scalpel, the words and images we use to convey meaning may have a much different effect than we anticipate.

So don't let assumptions about your audience ruin your chances of communicating your message. Think about how they process information, what they value, how they speak and read and write. Just think about them and then worry about how to say what you want to say.

"The Sustainable Studio" on 100 Things

This is kind of old news because the site went live this summer, but The Sustainable Studio is featured on 100 Things Designers Can Do to Save the Earth. Landing at number 92 (which actually puts me toward the top of the list thanks to the magic of reverse chronology), my column is described as "one worth watching."

You know it!

Six Essential Questions for the Business Blogger

Six Essential Questions for the Business Blogger is now available in the Articles section!

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been toying with the idea of starting a business blog, or if you’ve been feverishly blogging about your company’s widgets for years: you have plenty more to learn. A quick look through Google’s list of “business blogs” reveals some common problems: lack of activity, poor readership and appalling representations of the businesses they’re meant to promote. These issues do more than render a company blog ineffective; they can do real harm by giving potential customers the impression that the business simply can’t be bothered to get it right... [Read the full article]

Fulminate: Behavior-Influencing Design

Just found a great blog called Fulminate, which focuses on design intended to change user behavior. This is such a cool world to explore, and is relevant on so many levels, across so many industries.

As a company, how we deliver our message to customers, or the world at large, matters. If we want to increase sales, for example, the message delivery mechanism (a print ad, a website, an e-newsletter) must be designed to influence behavior.

If we want to educate people, we need to design a message delivery system that engages the recipient, and encourages information retention. I'm struggling with this particular challenge right now, as I try to balance how much information to include in a training program for a client. I need to provide enough information to make it useful (providing context, applying the information to the reader's own personal life, etc.), but I don't want to provide so much information that it overwhelms their ability to hold it all in their head at once.

Fulminate explores the various methods designers might use to influence us and make us do (or not do) particular things. Wicked cool.

Unmarketable: Read This Interview

From Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity:

"...those of us that actually are dedicated to ethical, sustainable, and autonomous cultural production—is really tiny, and kinda lonely, and we’re rapidly running out of beer. And all we can do when we run into each other is sigh deeply."

Read the whole interview with her on Murketing; it's worth it.

Target Practice

As the anti-consumerism wave ebbs and flows, so does the ubiquity of advice for simplifying your life. From there, it's a short skip to advice for getting things done. Most of this stuff is just common sense, some of it is a load of hooey (yes, that's hooey), and some of it is pretty solid.

In the pretty solid category falls Open Source Inspiration's incredibly simple, incredibly sensible, and ridiculously doable target practice.

Articles Section Is Up!

As promised, I've created an Articles section in the Roughstock Library. Check out the latest addition: Killing Off Five Design Myths, which should help anyone looking to hire a graphic designer or already working with one.

Eventually, this section will include reference articles focusing on general business practices, marketing and branding, graphic design, copywriting and other useful topics. Feel free to suggest additional ideas.

Talking About Important Things

It's been just over two weeks since I was in that auto accident and one week since recovering from a gnarly bacterial infection (I'll spare you the details save to point out that when the doc prescribes the highest dose of antibiotics and coma-inducing barbiturates, you know you've got something vicious running around inside you). Normalcy is still nowhere near my peripheral vision, and yet I can't deny that I've got it easy.

I don't generally get too personal when writing online but I've decided to break with tradition because, well, I feel like it and I need to find a way to start writing online again, a transition. I've noticed/discovered/learned several things over the past weeks, most of which have appeared to me in question form, and mentioning them seems to be a good way to get back into writing about the things going on outside of my own life. The stuff circulating through my brain these days includes but is not limited to:

• When I think "how much worse it could have been," am I belittling the experience of those who are, say, paralyzed? Am I effectively saying, "I could have ended up like them, god forbid"? That seems both rude and ignorant to me. And yet I feel enormously lucky.
  
• Why has western medicine still not integrated elements of yoga and other eastern practices into the treatment process?
• Why do people think it's okay to do things other than drive when they're behind the wheel?
  
• How can I make Roughstock a profitable business that ultimately serves the interests of the whole, not the few?
  

I think mortality and death are beautiful phenomena, because they strip away the bullshit so that we can see "what really matters" (an ephemeral, constantly changing collection of things). My late uncle, conversely, is fondly remembered for having paid close attention to the details of life: colors, textures, pauses, shared words. I think the details allowed him to overlook the terminal illness he lived with for years. He knew he was going to die but not when; why worry about the big stuff when there are beautiful things to marvel at and words to string together in new ways?

All of which is to say, you can feel two different emotions, believe two opposing things, at the very same time. So I'm going to start writing online again, with no promise that my words will be relevant or on time. I'm just going to do a little exploring, throwing ideas out there. Let me know if anything resonates, or ticks you off.

Best,
Jess

Great Examples in Copywriting: Big Agnes

When The Captain bought me a Big Agnes for my birthday, I was in heaven. The sleeping bag was wide enough to allow me to toss and turn at will without feeling like I was being strangled by a giant slug. And it had no filling on the underside; instead, there was a giant pocket for my sleeping pad, ensuring proper insulation from the cold ground without the weight of added stuffing.

Big Agnes is my new hero. The Captain just came home with his latest installment: a two-person backpacking tent weighing naught but three pounds, fourteen ounces. And the best part? This little zinger found buried within the tent's setup instructions:

"Helpful Hints For Tent Set Up:
• Our tents are easy to set up but we suggest you practice once at home before using them for the first time to avoid late night bickering with tent mates while fumbling around in the dark..."

Why is this such a brilliant example of copywriting? Because it acknowledges an important camping reality: tents are a bitch to set up in the dark. And you will fight with whomever you're trying to set it up with if you've never done it before. It is clear and concise, yet speaks to the camper as a fellow camper.

I love copy that is truly helpful without going overboard, and this is a great example.

June's Roundup Now Available

The June issue of the Roundup is now available! To get your free subscription to the Roundup, which features monthly marketing tips, studio news and a smattering of links to new and unusual ideas, just fill out this brief form (or use the form to your left under "The Newsletter").

The Commoditization of Creativity

An interesting interview on Murketing, and the cheap art in limited editions it discusses, has me thinking (again) about the role of experts and commoditization of creativity. Our economy has embraced the "idea as artifact" so enthusiastically that we keep overlooking some really important things:

1. People who produce ideas (a.k.a. creatives) are being transformed into production lines. This results in commodity ideas that are less organic, less researched and more simplistic. The ideas are, in fact, often crappy or hogwash.
2. Access does not equal quality. Just because something is online, or available cheaply, doesn't mean it's worth owning or reading or believing.
3. Who owns all these ideas?

It's the last question that worries me. I'm no copyright expert but I am a writer. And as a writer, I consistently bump up against publications who want it all—all rights, that is—and don't want to pay for them.

As a designer, too, I see this. Clients don't know the difference between a useage license and copyright ownership. In other words, they don't differentiate between the finished product and the creative process used to produce it. Now that everyone can "create," there is no longer a distinction between the challenges of problem-solving/thinking/experimenting/innovating and a factory assembly line.

Of course, this argument begs the question: isn't a mass-produced artifact the fruit of someone's creative idea? Not really. It may have been when it was just a prototype, but once it becomes mass-produced, it becomes a commodity.