Original Production

It's coming….

2010-08-21T15:23:00.001-05:00

I'm working on an ad for Carolyn Morris and the 2010 North Texas Walk for PKD. I've created the sponsor poster for them the last few years, and this year Carolyn asked if I would also work on the flyer (to be displayed at local businesses and such), and the print ads. The national PKD Foundation office sent the flyer file; I just had to add the local sponsors' logos to it.

It's beautifully done, but it was created in InDesign. I use QuarkXpress. I decided I would give InDesign a try.

I now have a few things to say about it. And even more to say about Adobe.

This is just fair warning — there's a rant coming. If you're an InDesign fan, or if you think monopolies are good for business, you don't want to read it.

Working on Saturday?!?

2010-08-14T09:44:00.002-05:00

A few years ago I decided I was no longer going to schedule work in the evenings and on weekends. (I still have to do it occasionally, but it's no longer a regular thing.) This weekend, though, I'm finishing up a group of 25 articles for a Monday morning deadline. The very last step is uploading them; the next-to-the-last step is writing "teasers," the metadescription copy that appears with the Google search results. They're very much like teasers on TV, the short bits that are designed to get you to watch the next episode or stay tuned for the following show. I used to have a hard time writing them. But then I got interested in Deadliest Catch, and decided to catch up (so to speak) by streaming the first five seasons on Netflix and watching one episode after another. Now all I have to do is imagine Mike Rowe saying, "Next time, on Deadliest Catch…" and I swear it just comes to me.

If only I could find a way to do that with titles. I'm not great at titles, I freely admit it. Fortunately, the topic I'm working on this month is pretty serious and calls for titles that aren't too flip or glib. Otherwise, I get kind of stymied. H. Allen Smith, one of my favorite writers, wrote once about a magazine writer named Quentin Reynolds. He cranked out articles by the dozen, and hated coming up with titles. It was hard for him, and even when he did come up with one he thought was good, the magazine's editors would inevitably change it. So eventually he started calling every article, "Christmas in Many Lands with Quentin Reynolds."

Works for me.

Oh! And before I forget, if you're a Baby Boomer, or know any, in the DFW area, don't miss Jean Keener's talk this coming Tuesday, 8/17, at the Keller Library. She'll be giving advice on Social Security and how to maximize our benefits. From the flyer:

Five factors to consider when deciding when to apply for benefits
Why you should always check your earnings record for accuracy
How to coordinate benefits with your spouse
How to minimize taxes on Social Security benefits
How to coordinate Social Security with your other sources of retirement income

Apparently SS benefits aren't just cut-and-dried, and it's probably a really good idea to know how and why. Jean is smart and very well informed, and these talks are a great opportunity to ask questions — for free — and get advice from a financial expert.

See you there. Now, back to work!

Maybe music will help

2010-08-10T11:50:00.002-05:00

In the Lifehacker.com article I mentioned yesterday, Clay Johnson talks about using noise-reducing headphones to listen to lyric-free music in order to help him stay focused on his work. It may be possible to achieve even more, just by picking the right music. An article on Discovery Health (helpfully tweeted by @HowStuffWorks, and you should follow them, BTW) gives some excellent information about the link between music and mood. Apparently it's hardwired in our brains, and can be put to good use.

Getting things done

2010-08-09T15:03:00.006-05:00

I'm really good at multitasking. Really, I am. Um, but sometimes I also have a little trouble getting things done. Wonder if the two are related....

There's a lot of information out there that indicates multitasking is pretty much a myth. According to San Diego Union-Tribune, our brains appear to have a finite amount of space for tasks requiring attention, and when we try to perform two demanding tasks simultaneously, we do neither one as well as we do each one alone. And if we take on three tasks, one of them gets dropped. Furthermore, Seattle Times says,

Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.
These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.
While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.

Stress. Yup.

There is hope, though. According to an excellent article on Lifehacker, it is possible to rebuild our attention span and re-learn to focus. The first step, apparently, is to have fewer of those bursts of information. Well…okay, I do have a business coach/speaker/effectiveness expert friend who insists his students turn off the "you've got mail" alert sound while they're working, and he himself actually only listens to voice mails and returns phone calls twice a day! And, yes, I've learned that I have to quit out of my email client altogether if I have a big deadline. I can't leave it running in the background because I'll check it. Regularly. And often.

So if my choices are to know instantly when LinkedIn has some updates I might be interested in, or to actually finish that 500-word article in under three days, I guess I'll choose the productive route. Just don't be too shocked if I'm not particularly cheerful about it, okay?

I'll keep you informed on how well it's paying off!

Tonight (different night)

2010-04-22T15:35:00.002-05:00

Tonight is the Joint Chamber Mixer at the Hilton Southlake. It's members of the Southlake, Colleyville, Keller, Grapevine, HEB and Northwest Metroport Chambers all getting together and mingling. Should be fun!

I understand there are a very few tickets left. Call one of the Chambers if you're interested.

Tonight

2010-02-26T17:42:00.002-06:00

Southlake Chamber of Commerce is holding its Annual Awards Banquet tonight. I missed last year's event because I was at a Stars' game. (Hey, I had my priorities. And pre-paid tickets.)

If anyone wants to join us, be at the Hilton in Southlake Town Square tonight!

Quote of the Day

2010-02-24T11:03:00.000-06:00

His mother had often said when you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.

— Lois McMaster Bujold, writer (1949- )

Words to live (and work) by!

Twitter

2010-01-03T09:33:00.003-06:00

Sometimes it's hard to explain why I find so much value in Twitter. Most people who don't participate (and some who do) think it's nothing but short messages about pointless things, like what you're eating for lunch or the exact task you're working on at that second. It isn't, and David Carr, in the 1/1/10 New York Times, explains it really well. A few highlights:

By carefully curating the people you follow, Twitter becomes an always-on data stream from really bright people in their respective fields, whose tweets are often full of links to incredibly vital, timely information.

The service has obvious utility for a journalist, but no matter what business you are in, imagine knowing what the thought leaders in your industry were reading and considering.

Nearly a year in, I’ve come to understand that the real value of the service is listening to a wired collective voice.

At first, Twitter can be overwhelming, but think of it as a river of data rushing past that I dip a cup into every once in a while.

The best people on Twitter communicate with economy and precision, with each element — links, hash tags and comments — freighted with meaning. Professional acquaintances whom I find insufferable on every other platform suddenly become interesting within the confines of Twitter.

Twitter helps define what is important by what Mr. Shirky has called “algorithmic authority,” meaning that if all kinds of people are pointing at the same thing at the same instant, it must be a pretty big deal.

There was some news event a few months back (I think it was the helicopter and small plane colliding over the Hudson River) that I read about on Twitter and I naively assumed that it had happened the day before, maybe, or at least a few hours earlier. In reality I had heard about it within minutes of it happening. That's the whole atmosphere of Twitter. It's immediate, and it's fast.

You understand, this is completely separate and distinct from the value of Facebook, which I've heard described quite accurately as 'talking to the neighbors over the back fence.' (Or—a little Facebook reference here—hearing about how the neighbors played Farmville or Mafia Wars, and refusing—over and over and over—invitations to join them.)

And just from the perspective of posting my own Tweets, Twitter does very good things for me. As Carr points out, every word has to do a lot. It forces me to keep copy tight, no empty rhetoric, no fluff. 140 characters to get the idea across, and that's it. It also helps keep ideas tight. Pick your slant and get it out there, no hedging, no waffling. And that's a good thing, too.

So a big 'thank you' to David Carr and the NY Times. Your article will help explain to Twitter muggles why I keep checking my phone.

Funny stories

2009-12-10T07:28:00.008-06:00

Author Anita Brock will be speaking at the North Richland Hills Library this evening, telling stories from her two travel books, Out, About and Around, and Mileage, Memories and Mishaps, plus some never published.

There are many anecdotes in her books to which I can relate, especially one about losing her "good" tweezers in her car. In her steering column, to be exact, after using them at a stop light (I can also relate to that). She tried to jar them free by speeding up and slamming on the brakes. That is so something I would try.

I have to admit, though, that having experienced 'squatty potties' in China, one of my favorite sections is her commentary on toilets around the world. In particular, she describes a situation in a hotel in Ephesus, Turkey. The toilet in their room was obviously intended to have a seat, but it was missing. She had to explain to the desk clerk, who spoke no English:

"I stood at the desk flapping my arms imitating a toilet seat going up and down…and watched the clerk's eyes glaze over in incomprehension. I know what he was probably thinking.

"This woman is chattering ninety miles a minute and the only word I understand is 'toilet.' She is gesturing like the men in orange vests on an airport runway. Is she telling me she wants to fly away and take the toilet?"

He followed me to the room. I showed him the toilet sans seat. He sighs. The glaze leaves his eyes and he chatters. I only understood the word 'toilet.' I think, as it turned out, he was telling me, "You ladies need a toilet seat. While you are at dinner I will have one attached."

He may have been saying, "I will have someone escort you to the airport."

Seriously. Funny stories.

Tonight, 7 – 8:30, at the North Richland Hills Library, 9015 Grand Avenue, North Richland Hills, TX, 76180-7901. Free admission and refreshments.

I promise you'll laugh.

Jeff Klein and better 30-second commercials than you've ever imagined

2009-09-22T13:37:00.006-05:00

Jeff Klein has spoken to a couple of networking groups that I belong to, and every single time I learn so much! His talk at the Southlake Chamber Friday morning Leads group was about 30-second commercials, and his suggestions are amazingly simple yet amazingly astute.

His advice: First, make it about the listener. Duh. Since that's what I do all day in everything I write (and what I gently suggest to everyone I work for or work with), you might think that would have occurred to me already. Not so much, actually. Simply construct your commercial to focus on the people who are hearing it, not on yourself.

Secondly, ask for something specific. My favorite quote from his talk:

If you tell me who you're looking for, specifically, I probably know someone I can introduce you to. If you say, "I want to meet everyone you know," I can't help you.

And, finally, ask for one thing. Let people know you want to meet school principals or small business owners who want to start blogs or plumbers who work in Watauga. Whatever. A bonus — a really great bonus if you attend a number of networking functions or attend the same ones regularly — is that your 30-second commercial isn't the same every time. Think about all the commercials you've heard over and over, to the point where you really don't have to listen any more to know what they're about. Having something different to say each time will keep people listening longer!

At our meeting, Jeff helped a couple of people with their commercials.

Jeff also had a couple of great offers for us. His tele-seminar, "Networking Your Way to Success," a six week course for up to ten people, begins again on 9/30. He guarantees exponential results within 90 days of implementing the system he teaches in the course. Sign up here.

He's also conducting a 90-minute "30 Seconds to Success" workshop, which will continue the work he started in this talk. Everyone in the workshop will get detailed one-on-one help with their commercial. He's been kind enough to offer a special price for those of us at the meeting (or any other Southlake Chamber members). The workshop is normally $97, but we can sign up for $75. The 30-Seconds to Success workshop is scheduled for 10/23, and we need two more people to register for it. I myself actually won this workshop, so I'm really anxious to get two more people signed up!

Get in touch with Jeff, or contact me if you have any questions about any of this. I highly recommend his workshops, and he's a great speaker!

Thanks again, Jeff!

Jeff was great!

2009-09-11T10:47:00.003-05:00

Jeff Klein was great this morning! I've heard him speak before, on this same subject, and I still learned a lot. He's a very organized speaker, presenting a lot of information in a short period, in a way that's easy to understand. If you can get him to talk to your organization, do it!

I'll be posting some video clips and sound bites from both Jeff and Erin Steed. Stay tuned!

Comparative complaint

2009-09-02T09:24:00.008-05:00

Okay, I try not to get on my soapbox too often. I'm not actually the grammar police. But I have to say something about this. Lately, for no apparent reason, English-speaking people seem to have forgotten that our language actually has two ways of creating comparative (and superlative) forms. You create a comparative by adding "-er" or put "more" before the word. Here's the problem: you don't get to just pick whichever way you feel like doing it. There is a correct form, and there is an incorrect form! There's a veritable epidemic of otherwise intelligent people — particularly on broadcast news shows — using the "more" form for everything.

It is not EVER

more happy
more easy
more cool
more old
more tall.

And by the same token, it's never

moderner
effectiver
beautifuler
expensiver
intelligenter.

The rule of thumb is that one-syllable words, and two-syllable words that end with 'y,' use "-er." Other two-syllable words, and words of three syllables or longer, get "more." Got that?

And while we're at it, keep your quotation marks on the outside of your punctuation. For heaven's sake, it makes you look Canadian!

Who is your ideal customer?

2009-08-20T10:54:00.002-05:00

Last summer, one of my networking groups, Northeast Tarrent Networking (or Net-Net) worked through the workbook for the great Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port and Tim Sanders. It's a step-by-step guide to getting as much business as you can handle. One of the first exercises the workbook has you do is to define who your ideal customer is. Which of your customers do you care most about, which do you most enjoy enjoy working with?

So who do you like? When you network they ask what kind of referrals you're looking for, what's your answer? Who's your ideal customer?

Special offer from Keener Financial Planning

2009-08-14T12:17:00.005-05:00

My friend (and co-facilitator at our Southlake Leads group) Jean Keener announced today that her company, Keener Financial Planning, has a special offer for anyone who's beginning to put together their own financial plan. She'll do an overview for you, with a look at insurance, saving, how to start investing and more. This financial check-up is normally $540, but for the rest of the month the price is only $249.

Jean is smart and runs her business with scrupulous integrity. Give her a call!

Twitter for business

2009-08-11T10:05:00.005-05:00

If you use Twitter for your business (and there are many, many reasons to), make sure you read the very informative article offered by Twitter itself on the subject, Twitter 101 for Business - A Special Guide. The article points out that the most immediate benefit is...well, its immediacy. A restaurant goer tweeted that her party was having to wait longer than they liked for a table, and within a few minute a restaurant staffer found her, apologized for the wait and offered her party a free appetizer. Imagine getting immediate feedback from your customers and being able to respond that quickly!

The article also points out how Twitter lets you build a relationship with your customers, one in which they feel like they have an effective way to give direct input. That kind of connection can be a potent tool for creating loyalty. The customer feels like they have a say in how you do business, in how they're treated. That's something you're not going to get from an ad, no matter how effective it is.

YourBusinessChannel expert Mark Shaw has some advice about how to tell if Twitter will be useful for you as a business tool:

Updated website

2009-08-10T15:26:00.005-05:00

Okay, finally. Finally. Our redesigned website is up.

There'll be more changes coming, but it's functional. What do you think?

(And yes, that really does say Bad Joke. I love riddles and bad one liners, and I thought my valued customers might appreciate a chuckle break.)

Charles Brown's Twitter workshop

2009-08-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

If you ask entrepreneurs and small business owners in the Metroplex to name an expert on using social media for business and they'll say, "Charles Brown." (I know this to be a fact because I've tried it.) And they're right.

I was fortunate enough to meet Charles a while back. I remember it clearly: It was the first time I had ever met another writer at a networking function. He was impressive from the start, an attorney and talented writer who had a passion for supporting small businesses. His focus has refined even further now, and he specializes in making Twitter, Facebook and other social media work for business. Or, more accurately, he specializes in showing people how they can make it work for their businesses.

Charles spoke about social media to the Southlake Chamber Leads group that I facilitate. He was dynamic and extremely informative -- the buzz that one appearance created is still spreading. (From my perspective as facilitator, his talk became the standard others are measured against. And a tough one, too!) I kept hearing his name anytime anyone mentioned using social media for their business and, like I said, I really did start asking, just to see if his reputation was what I thought. It was!

So he's the man to ask. And I mention it now because your chance to ask him is happening next week.

On Tuesday, Charles is offering a low-cost, hands-on workshop showing you how to generate leads using Twitter. Among other things, he'll demonstrate how to:

Build trust and credibility before you attempt to sell.
Drive massive, targeted traffic to your website, without relying on search engines. [N.B. -- this is a very good thing to know.]
Use Twitter as a free market research tool.
Plus a whole list of other things.

All that for fifty bucks!

The workshop is at the Fort Worth Business Assistance Center, 1150 South Freeway in Fort Worth (I-35 South @ Rosedale). You can register or get more information at Charles' blog (which is an altogether fine place to get a bunch of useful information on other topics, too), or email him at chbrown@webmarketin g.

This is the best chance you'll have to get the best advice around. Seriously. Take advantage of it.

New website coming soon!

2009-08-05T09:48:00.000-05:00

Original Production's website is changing! We'll be introducing our new, updated and fantastically useful website in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more information, and special offers!

Global Group & Direct Marketing Alliance

2009-07-24T14:38:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, Global Group Inc. had an event at their plant in Fort Worth to announce that they have joined forces with the Direct Marketing Alliance. This is big news. DMA is a major player (their customers include, oh, eBay), and so is Global. Together they should be a formidable force.

Thanks to my friend (and all around stand up guy) Donnie Bouvin for the sound bite.

Welcome to Original Production

2009-07-24T10:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the brand new blog for Original Production! Thanks for stopping by!

This will be the place to find information about networking and happenings in the North Tarrant/DFW business community, as well as tips about getting your own message out clearly and effectively.

I (Cindy) just left a great meeting of the Southlake Chamber Friday morning Leads group. We were fortunate enough to have Jeff Crilley speak to us this morning. He was charming, entertaining and informative, as always! Thanks again, Jeff!