Mutually Inclusive PR

Deconstructing the Blog Posting

Ike Pigott's parody of a style guide for creating blog posts is a brilliant bit of understated humour.

His template is worth checking out, including the comments, which maintain the mock-style-guide tone of Pigott's piece.  Here's a sample:

Quote lifted from another PR blogger, accompanied by an animated .gif that I cleverly assembled using Microsoft Paint, IrfanView, and unFreez — all because I am too cheappoor to buy software. Preference given to quotes from A-listers, on the off chance that my TrackBack link will drive traffic to my blog.

Tags: a-list, bloggers, AtP2, Ike Pigott, parody

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Thomas Hawk Rocks with Photos and Blog

  DM Gallery 
  Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

Thomas Hawk (psyeodonym of a San Fransisco investment guy) is the most consistently interesting photographer I keep track of on the Flickr photo sharing site.

His eye for colour, composition and compelling subjects is amazing.  If I didn't have confirmation from other sources that he really exists, I'd think he was one of those photo thieves who steals the best they can find and posts them as their own.

Check out his photo stream on Flickr, and check out his tips on how to find cool pictures. Both his photo stream and his blog (on digital stuff) are worth subscribing to, or visiting often.

Update:  I should have clarified that the photo I highlighted is from Hawk's list of how to find great photos on Flickr, and isn't one of his own.  This image is by Lawrie M. The image shows the DM Gallery on Flickr.  For people too lazy to follow the links (I know exactly how you feel) I'll find a Thomas Hawk image that can be reproduced and post it in a separate post.

Update II:  Of course, I should have also credited the original artist whose artwork is in the photo - Terry Summers - Fox Galleries, Brisbane, Australia. I'll get this attribution thing right some day...

Tags:  flickr  photos  thomashawk  blogs 

Self-Promotion: Make a Statement

  Brown Communications Billboard - The Power Plug 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

Brown Communications puts its best creative foot forward on a billboard on their Albert Street office in Regina.  The self promotion generally tries to get the observer to look twice, and hopefully think about the visual or verbal pun after they've driven by.

It's a good idea. When your office is on the main drag, use your office to make a statement. See their complete library of billboards.

Welcome Adrants readers. For more ad industry posts on this site, check out the Marketing category. Take a look around while you're visiting.

Links to this page: AdRants; Derek Leverington

A previous post about Brown by Advergirl.

Saskatchewan's Spiritual Blogger

One of the top bloggers in Saskatchewan is Jordon Cooper, the (until last week) pastor of a church near Saskatoon. His wife Wendy reports on her blog that he's found a new job, so I'll be watching to read about that transition in the family's life.

(Glad I checked his blog again. Jordon reports today he's started work with Computer Boulevard, in Saskatoon.)

Jordon's best recent post is a long think-piece about The Ingenuity Gap, in which he wonders why so few church senior officials take chances. We need to expand the possibilities we consider if we want to find solutions to our problems, he says.

Good luck, Jordon and Wendy!

 

Jordon's photos on Flickr.

Albrycht Challenges Readers to Change the World

If something you did in 2006 could make the world a better place, would you do it?

That's the question Elizabeth Albrycht is asking New Communications Blogzine readers. The European blogger points readers to challenges from the 2005 State of the Future report, issued by an American NGO. Each year the American Council for the United Nations University produces its report.

This year, the challenges include four that Albrycht thinks are most relevant to communicators:

- How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?

- How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?

- How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?

- How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

Albrycht's challenge:

"Pick one challenge and devote some of your time in 2006 to working to solve it. Report on your progress throughout the year via your blog. Tag your related posts with the Technorati tag Global Challenge (Global Challenge) and let’s regroup at the end of the year and see what we’ve accomplished. Actions don’t need to be big ones! Even small steps count."

For more, read Albrycht's post on News Communications Blogzine, and check out a previous post on her CorporatePR blog (and my post about it).

Interactive Mapping Tool - Use it for Good or Evil?

The use of GPS location information continues to be applied to web tools that identify where in the world someone or something is.

Steve Rubel points to KMaps, a service that allows you to provide and receive location information from a home computer, a PDA cell phone, or a Palm PDA. KMaps can host various directories of services, points of interest or what-have-you. And the ability to use the service while you're on the go makes it  that much more flexible.

The potential uses cited are restaurant reviews (see screen detail, right), celebrity sightings, stores, and local events.

Celebrity sightings, as in people clicking their Treos every time they see Paris Hilton trying to catch a quiet latte at a coffee bar. For celebs, who barely have any privacy anyway, this could mark a new low point in celebrity stalking. It's the end of privacy as we know it.

Now, show me how this new technology can be used to make people's lives better, and I'm all for it.

Put it in the hands of bird watchers, and let them share sightings of a rare bird, and I can see how this could save time, make a lot of people really happy, and not cause some minor movie star grief when his wife gets an instant update on who he's been seen with, and where.

Allow prostitutes to keep an eye on each other, and warn others of the presence of a dangerous John, and I can see the real value of a mobile service like this.

Back in March I posted about a similar mapping/information service, Earthcomber.

Keep it Simple

We've had our new TV for five months now, and when we watch a DVD we still go through a complex procedure that involves changing TV channels, manually flipping through the TV's menu, and praying that some glitch hasn't invalidated our cumbersome but effective technique.

The TV comes with an instruction manual and a remote control that clearly has a button on it for switching to the DVD player. We continue to follow the luddite path of least resistance, because by trial and error that's the one that worked.

The same goes for several gadgets in the house that my technologically advanced children should be able to operate. But the usage is counter-intuitive enough for them to remain stumped for weeks or months. The instruction manual is somewhere around, but wasn't the purpose of buying a gadget to simplify your life, not bog you down in poorly written tech speak that seems to have been run though an automatic translator?

We want our technology to be easy to use. We want it to simplify our lives, not make them more complex and stressful.

Fast Company takes a look at the balancing act at Google, where the extremely complex technology behind the search engine and other functions is sheathed in a strikingly simple design that eschews eye candy in favour of white space and text, ranked in a useful order.

As is typical with clean design, it's not as easy as it looks. But it's worth it. I gave up the news portal concept at Yahoo! years ago, because the customization I could achieve wasn't worth the assault on my eyes and my attention every time I wanted to do a search. I still seek out news, but I try to find portals that are designed for the reader more than the advertiser.

When someone comes to your web site, do they immediately understand the key functions it offers, and the key services you provide? Does it provide a shortcut to the kind of transaction or information exchange the visitor is likely to be looking for? Have you made that first handshake with you as simple and functional as possible?

Look again and think simple. Not necessarily Google simple. But a simple that is appropriate for your site.

Thanks to Judy Gombita for the regular tips, this one about the Fast Company item by Linda Tischler.

Blogpulse tracks the conversations about the article.

Selling Books Is SO Last Century

Marketing guru Seth Godin writes bestsellers. But even with that reputation behind him, he is leaving traditional book publishing behind and distributing e-books digitally for free.

What, is he nuts? What about the whopping big royalty cheque? And the prestige of being on the New York Times Bestseller List?

Well, for the vast majority of authors out there, the royalty cheque just isn't that big. Not when you tally the thousands of hours spent researching, writing and rewriting the book, and you add the hundreds of hours involved in any sort of book tour.

Besides, for a lot of authors, money isn't the raison d'etre. They're doing it to put their ideas out there, to make a mark in the world, to be cited as an authority. For academics, it's a requirement. For consultants, it gets their name in front of customers, and it gets them invited to speakers at conferences where they can make more connections and more customers. For anyone but the mega-celebrity or the professional author, the royalty cheque is a nice boost to that month's income, but it doesn't come close to paying the bills.

Godin argues that the e-book model works much better for him because it gets his thoughts in front of 40 times the number of people who would buy or borrow a paper-based book.

In his first e-book Knock Knock, Godin answered the question, what they hell are websites really used for?  His follow-up, Who's There? (note the connection between the two titles) defines weblogs, describes their uses, and offers some good advice.

You should read both books (they're short and easy to read), but if you don't get the chance, here are his Five Components of a Great Blog:

• Candor
• Urgency
• Timeliness
• Pithiness and
• Controversy

(maybe Utility if you want six).

He advises CEOs tempted to get into blogging to not bother if they aren't willing to bring at least four of those qualities to a blog. No one will read them.

Time Pays to Have Billboard Defaced

Time Magazine hired a real graffiti artist to deface a billboard, drawing attention to the magazine's role as an commentator on art and popular culture.

The magazine hired Fernando Carlos (known in the graffiti world as Cope2) to tag its billboard. The New York Daily News interviewed Cope2 and a local politician who was appalled that Time would legitimize anything to do with graffiti.

"Time magazine should have spent its money rewarding legitimate artists, not some punk whose (sic) been defacing our city," the paper quoted councilman Peter Vallone.

The cheque for spray painting on the billboard? $20,000.

Update:  On reflection, "defaced" is the wrong word to use in the headline. I just thought using "tagged" might be confusing, because of the common use of "tag" to describe search terms for weblogs.

Thanks to :Habit Forming for the link.

Tags: graffiti, advertising, ads, outdoor media

White Board Creativity

  White Board - Finn's Slides 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

A white board is just a tool you use to record ideas, make plans, conceptualize a project. Or in this case, record the many possible variations of slides a five-year-old can imagine.

After deciding on the kinds of slides, Finn wanted each of them to have a circular slide looped around it as well.  And a kid. What's the use of a slide without a kid?