Why We Need "Socialized" Health Care

Thanks to Worldchanging's Andy Lubershane, we now have an easy-to-follow, entirely sensible argument in support of health care reform:



Now, can someone produce a similar short describing Congress' various proposals?

Marketing Blog Formula No. 47

Describing how sports/current events/your latest bathroom visit is like your product/service/the marketplace.



Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, stop relying on tired old constructs to develop your blog content. I understand we're not all professional writers, and some folks need structured prompts to get inspired every once in a while (I know I do). But so many of these posts are grasping at straws, creating parallels where there are none. Worse still, such constructs don't generally lead to good writing. Because even when you've drawn a nice straight comparison between Michael Jackson's struggle for sanity and the solo entrepreneur's struggle for work-life balance, you're still left with the giant unanswered question of so what?

How do such metaphors (similes?) help your readers understand the significance of your point? Too often, they don't. What they do offer is an easy way for bloggers to keep talking about themselves, rather than anything that really matters.

So here's a quick challenge: the next time you're inclined to write your post around a comparison between some current pop culture phenomenon and your own business, take an extra minute to keep writing. Write about why anyone should care in the first place, and write about what it really means for your readers. Then go back, re-read it, edit the hell out of it, and then post it.

Four Quick Email Marketing Tips

I don't usually do the standard top five tip list rigmarole, but I get a lot of email newsletters, and I'm noticing a few not-so-positive trends lately. So in the interest of easing the in-box crunch, you might want to think about the following issues before sending out that next email blast.

1. Don't send your email newsletter on Tuesday

There's always a lot of talk about the best day to send your e-newsletter, and apparently every single email marketer recommends Tuesday. I get maybe two dozen e-newsletters on Tuesday, and I can't handle it anymore. I know why this is, though: everyone's cranky on Monday because it's Monday, on Wednesday everyone's in a bad mood because it's hump day, on Thursday everyone's scrambling to get work done before the week ends, and on Friday everyone's checked out (either mentally or physically). So, Tuesday it is.

But maybe, just maybe, you should consider the possibility that picking a less-than-ideal day of the week is still better than getting lost among two dozen other e-newsletters.

2. Don't subscribe me without explicit permission. Ever.

I don't care if you think I'd be interested in your products. I don't care if we hang out on the same forum. I don't care if you paid good money for my name on a list. Subscribe me to your email newsletter without asking first, and you're getting instantly marked as junk.

I play by the three strikes rule (and I consider that generous): the first newsletter I simply unsubscribe from, then send to my junk mail folder. The second time, I reply directly with a complaint, and go through the whole thing again. If I get a third e-newsletter with no acknowledgment of my complaint, the sender gets reported to SpamCop. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one doing this.

3. Make sure I can unsubscribe easily

I know, I know. This tip ends up on every "Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing" list on the internet, but hear me out. Probably 5% of the e-newsletters I get either have no unsubscribe link at all, another 5% have an unsubscribe link that doesn't work, and maybe 20% require a whole song and dance to get off the damn list. Keep it simple: put the link at the top and bottom of your email (text smaller than 8 points is unacceptable), make sure it works (you know, actually test it), and don't require the recipient to enter their name, address, password, and favorite breakfast cereal to unsubscribe. I promise you, the animosity you save will far outweigh the number of actual unsubscribes you get.

4. Double-check your subject line

In the last two weeks, I've had three separate email newsletters or announcements land in my in-box with either "DRAFT - please review: [subject here]," or "TEST." Accidents happen, sure, but this kind of accident seems to be happening more and more. I'm really not finicky, but it just looks lazy when an oversight like this happens. The subject line is a crucial component of your newsletter, and if you're not looking at it, you're making a big mistake. Not only is your e-newsletter more likely to end up in the spam folder, you end up looking, well, less than attentive.


Now, these tips aren't going to change your life, double your click-through rate, or land you a date to the prom. But they will help keep from mildly annoying your recipients. And in the world of marketing, that's really half the battle.

Guest List at Blogs.com

I was recently asked to provide a guest "Top 10" list for Blogs.com. I went ahead and provided a somewhat theoretical list of "Ten Blogs That Explore the Reality of Your Surroundings."

Rather than focus on strictly design or business blogs, I wanted to highlight some of the blogs I read that regularly make me do a double-take. Hopefully, this list will give you some good ideas, make you question some stuff you thought you had figured out, and generally provide a second look at the mundane world we walk through every day.

The Tools of Self-Government

This looks fascinating:



Us Now is a documentary film exploring how social media tools are changing the way we handle information, and how that might impact how we govern ourselves. The concept is both timely, and a necessary one to explore given the current state of global affairs. I love exploratory stuff like this.

A brand spanking new site!

She's done, Captain! (Well, almost.)

It's certainly been a long time coming. I'd been rethinking the design of roughstockstudios.com ever since launching the first version of it back in 2006 (a full two years after starting Roughstock), mostly because of that voice in the back of every designers' head that insists this could be so much better. While it's not always necessary to redesign a perfectly functional site, I felt I had some pretty good reasons to back up my decision:

1. The portfolio was getting dusty.
2. It wasn't representative enough of the work I do.
   

Having helped other organizations update their messaging, identifying the very best way to position each of them to the various audiences they needed to reach, it finally became my turn.

A few design notes for the nerds

I agonized over everything on the new site, from copy to code (and yes, contrary to what I'd ever recommend for my clients, I hand-coded the site myself). Going it alone may not have been ideal, but I wanted to deepen my grasp of CSS, user interface, and narrative design in general. The devil, as they say, really is in the details:

• SFIR vs. image replacement vs. simple font stacks
  I knew from the get-go that I wanted to include non-web standard fonts in the site. Web designers are typically limited to the same few system fonts available to the majority of computer users, so you get a lot of Helvetica and Georgia. Initially, I intended to integrate SFIR into the code, so I could replace any text with whatever font I so chose. But there are still accessibility issues (well, functionality issues, really) with SFIR that pushed me towards something more trustworthy.
  
  I knew straight image replacement was out, because I didn't want to sacrifice potential rendering or search engine optimization for aesthetic purposes. So I went with simple font stacking. If you've got Gill Sans activated on your computer, you'll see that for the headlines and submenus. Otherwise, you get plain old Helvetica. It's controllable, and I pretty much know what everyone will see. I believe in keeping things simple—there's no sense in redesigning the site only to discover that every other user will see a completely different rendering of it.
  
  
• Pathways and user interface
  After legibility, the overall user experience was most important to me. I struggled with the structure of this site a lot; because I'm not just a designer, or just a writer, or just a strategist, I really couldn't rely on the usual constructs for those sorts of sites. Have you seen what most writers' sites look like? (Hint: think the web circa 1990.) Instead, I opted to create a site that (hopefully) pulls you through it; as you move into the site from the home page, you get to know me and my studio better without sacrificing user control.
  

I still need your feedback

After all this, I'm sure I'll be working out what few bugs remain (some blog styling and redirecting issues), making small tweaks here and there, cleaning up the code, and generally working to improve the overall usability of the site. I know, for example, that I will probably be adjusting the "Work" section to improve navigation. So, what do you think of the site overall? Better? Worse? Worth the wait? A few specific areas I'd like input on:

• Do you have preferences for how you like to view work from creative firms?
• Are you encountering any bugs or usability issues?
• Should I not use the word "pee" on a business website?

Again, thanks to everyone for their patience, and especially for all the incredible help I got from the real coding world. People like Aidan at Seed Design and Sean at Design ICU have been so generous with their time and troubleshooting skills. Couldn't have done it without you guys!

Update 3/13: The search engine should now be fully functional, as should all the links in the sidebar.

Feed update

Just a quick note that, thanks to Google's continued absorption of the internet, the rss feed URL for this blog has been updated. It shouldn't actually affect anyone in any way (the old feed should automatically redirect to the new one), but if you're having weird issues, make sure your reader is pointing to the proper URL. Which is:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/RoughstockStudios

Thanks for subscribing!

Show/World: An Interactive Map

Here's a really cool map in which countries change size to reflect their role in various global issues, including GDP, legal execution, tourism, Olympic gold medalists, and more.



[via worldchanging]

How do you choose whom to help? Sometimes, you just pick someone.

Living in San Francisco, I routinely step over sleeping bodies in the street, shake my head when spare changed, and generally go about my business surrounded by the needy. To some degree, I think, we all do this. We pick and choose our causes, because there are so many damn causes. So many people who need real, desperate, help.

Every now and then, though, I break my own "just say no or be overwhelmed" rule. I do pro bono work to balance my evil marketing side. The other day I bought a $5 BART ticket for a guy trying to get someplace. I called 911 several months ago when I watched an elderly woman pass out at a bus station (turned out her heart was slowly stopping, it was kind of scary). But I rarely—I mean almost never—bother to champion fundraising causes on my blog. It's one of my "just say no or be overwhelmed" rules.

I'm breaking that rule. Lori Hall Steele needs help, and so does her son, Jack. You may have read about Jack in the Washington Post, where Lori wrote about his reaction to watching Bambi:

"'When I'm 4,' Jack asks, 'will you still look after me?'

Will I? Of course, of course, of course. I stroke his blond curls and tell him he'll always be my baby. But it's as if he senses some disclaimer from the universe.

'Mommy?' he asks. 'Will you still look after me when I'm a grown-up?'"

[read the entire—short—piece, then come back. Just read it, really.]

When Lori wrote this piece almost three years before it was published, she was healthy and she made the only promise moms can make to a small child who asks such questions. And now, three years later, Lori is on a ventilator, paralyzed, battling both ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and Lyme disease. And while she and her family struggle to cope with the mother's brutally degenerative illnesses, they also face immediate foreclosure on their home. Oh, and over $50,000 in medical bills (and counting) that her insurance company refused to pay.

And this is where my "just say no" rule gets broken. It's hard to describe just how deeply destructive a chronic degenerative condition can be. I know this part of Lori's story, to such a milder degree, firsthand. What I can't imagine is how magnified all of it must be when the system set up to care for you turns its back on you, and you in turn are left powerless to care for your own loved ones, and promise them their safety and security. Hundreds of writers, bloggers, and friends have been similarly moved, and have begun an all-out fundraising push to help Lori keep her home and cover her medical expenses.

Please consider joining this push, and donate just a little bit of cash to the fund: the cost of a pizza, a six-pack, a night out on the town, whatever you would have tipped your bartender, whatever. We all have our own "just say no or be overwhelmed" rule: I hope you'll consider breaking yours for Lori and her family.

• Donate via PayPal (note: this is, unfortunately not a nonprofit deduction)
  
• Save Lori's House (you can also donate via this page, or send a check instead)
  
• Article in Grand Traverse Herald on Lori
• Lori's article about her son, Jack
  

Please Stop Resizing My Browser

Just a quick note in case you're involved in any way, shape or form with website design (yours or anyone else's):

When you code a website to automatically resize my web browser window to accommodate your site, it sends the message that your site is far more important than my own personal preferences.

And are you really, absolutely sure that this is a message you want to send to your site users? If you're an ultra luxury goods brand, of course, then perhaps that message isn't so far-fetched. But if you're trying to establish a little rapport with your visitor, trying to strengthen a relationship and build loyalty, taking control of my computer just to showcase your site isn't the best way to do it.

Thinking About Buying a Website Template? Think Again.

Zen goddess Dani Nordin has a great post about the pitfalls of off-the-shelf templates over on her blog, including this gem that most folks overlook:

"It takes time away from activities that you're already good at, and takes you away from growing your business. When you went into business for yourself, was it because you wanted to learn HTML, SEO or logo design? Unless your business is graphic or web design, the answer is most likely no. Forcing yourself into a situation where you are doing all of the marketing, logo design, etc. for your business not only takes your valuable time away from your business, it forces you to do a lot more work with a lot less results than if you had found the right designer to partner with on your materials."

DIY seems to have a stranglehold on popular culture right now. But when you get down to the real nitty-gritty, business success relies on knowing when to get your hands dirty and when to invest in professional expertise. We're all on a budget, but if you're not willing to invest in your own business, how can you possibly expect your customers to?

Simplify This.

One of the easiest ways I have found to simplify my life is to stop reading the absurdly long list of ways to simplify your life continually posted by life-simplifying blogs.

Spreading an Ideavirus

Seth Godin makes a very interesting point when he talks about how best to respond to the virus that is fundamentalist terrorism:

"The best way to counter an ideavirus, any ideavirus, is not by challenging the medium in which it spreads. It didn't stop pirate radio or salacious TV shows or online porn. What has always worked the best is countering one ideavirus with another one. To use the same medium to spread a different, better, more powerful ideavirus. You don't counter racism by making the act of uttering racist statements against the law. You do it by spreading an idea (racism is hateful, wrong and stupid) that keeps the racist from expressing his ideas because all his friends will shun him if he doesn't.

If you want moderate ideas to spread in a community, promote the people who are spreading those ideas. Make them heroes. Amplify their message and help it spread..."

A Serious Blow to Internet Censorship?

Right on the heels of my recent post about internet censorship comes what might very well be a solution. Picidae is an project created to bypass governmental spying and censorship via the internet. The project has seen a mild flurry of publicity across the internet as it nears release, and now as I try to load the site once again, I get an internal server error. Uh-oh.

The program (which, I believe, was developed by someone in Germany) is based on the technique used by governments like China in which a user's internet habits are tracked as they enter information online. Typically, censoring governments log search engine entries and URL entries, and if the offending site is restricted the user either is denied access to the site or gets their internet connection shut down completely. So, for example, Googling "Tiananmen democracy movement" might either return very few results, or shut down your internet connection.

Picidae allows you to enter an URL via their servers, and returns an image map of the target URL, as opposed to an html page. The links remain clickable and simple forms can still be filled out (so you could search Google all day long).

It's a brilliant concept, a potentially revolutionary system. I can only hope that the inability to access picidae.net at this moment is due more to some kind of access overload than to something more insidious.

[Edit: The Picidae site appears to be up and running now.]

Internet Without Borders? Think Again.

Technology has broken down global barrier after global barrier, bringing the outside world into some of the most geographically obscure localities. American TV shows are exported to countries still jonesing for our brand of "culture" and products cross oceans both ways, scratching that consumerist itch that continues to spread like a rash over the earth's surface (the number of Chinese products, for example, imported to the U.S. more than tripled in the last twenty years¹). China would seem to be reciprocating the favor, opening the mainland to U.S. imports as well.² But some borders will not be breached no matter the price paid by the country's citizens.



China has the dubious distinction of joining a dozen other countries in enforcing an internet "black hole." The above map, produced by Reporters Without Borders, shows us who is not allowed to freely surf the net throughout the world. Some of these countries filter out sites that disagree with the ruling government, some monitor and log users' internet activity, others ban private service providers and still others go as far as to imprison those who use the internet to freely express themselves.

While it strikes me as unforgivably unjust that our global economy continues to support such political oppression, maps like the one above remind me how deeply graphic depictions of this kind of injustice can strike a chord. With so much visual clutter bouncing off our retinas, it's nice to see some meaningful messages being sent through the airwaves and internet tubes, too.

(Don't forget to ask yourself: how does the U.S. fare in all of this?)

[via Strange Maps]