Mar122010
Melea Mauldin
In the advertising, marketing and PR world, there are so many words flying around. There is content for a Web site, content written for ads and advertorials, product write-ups, brand summaries and on and on.
How often do we go back and review completed writing to make sure it’s accomplishes our goals and strategic direction? How many times have you re-read something and thought “this doesn’t even make sense”? Well I have found a few tips on Brian Clark’s (@copyblogger) blog. He has great insight on intentional writing and one of his co-bloggers, Steve Errey, outlines writing with confidence. I think this post is worth reading.
How to Write With Confidence.
What other tips have you found for your writing skills?
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Dec42009
Maximillian Hill
I’m a gadget freak. It it has LEDs or a USB connection, I own it.
It’s true.
But here’s a gadget that I’ll never buy and you shouldn’t ether: a baggage locator.
I didn’t know that these even existed until just a few moments ago and I thought “wow, that’s a really BAD idea.”
Now don’t get me wrong, locating your luggage in record time would be great. Heck, I’d get a gadget that let me track luggage from my phone (they call that a GPS tracker, but they’re pricey) and we could call it even, but no, someone HAD to go nuts and make a gadget that attaches to your bag and blinks/makes noise when you press a button on a cheaply-made fob.
“What’s the problem” you ask? The problem is that you’re attaching a remotely activated light/noise maker to your bag and intend to set it off in an airport. Imagine the hysteria you could cause with an odd device strapped to an unclaimed bag on the carousel that suddenly starts flashing and beeping. Put it inside the bag for more “fun” while TSA is scrambled to intercept it after you activate it from “over 60 feet away.” That’s far enough to activate it before it even gets inside baggage claim.
Just think about the look on the handlers’ faces when your bag starts making noise. Priceless.
So just say “no” to these gadgets and put a piece of string on your bag. It’ll save you $15 and it’s a much more elegant solution to a problem that no one really has.
Nov132009
Billy Barnes
You have to think through your communication carefully or else it could send a different message than the one you intended. This one, for example, makes me want to run out and buy a bottle of JD just as fast as I can.
Jul22009
Stephanie Styons
You grab your sweater if the weatherman says it may get cold later in the day. You have gum or a mint with you at the luncheon in case the meal has garlic or onions in it. You bring along an umbrella if they are predicting rain. You hide a spare key under a rock outside your home.
Why do you do these things? Because you want to be prepared…just in case.
In business, this is also important. Is your company ready if/when a crisis hits? A product recall. An incident at a plant. A natural disaster. An industry-wide safety concern. Whatever the crisis, it would better to have a plan in place of how to handle a crisis situation. How do you inform employees, customers and the general public? Do you have the contact information for all the key folks you need to reach? Who is your media spokesperson? Who is the backup for your key spokesperson? What is the protocol for crisis A, B and C?
Some crisis communications plans detail the protocol for different types of crises. Some are just a few pages long and contain the top line info needed to take action quickly and intelligently. No matter how long or short, it is better to have a crisis communications plan in place.
Does your company have one?
Jun112009
Jessica Redman
Do you have tons of old status reports or stacks of paper from meetings? I did. I went through my huge stack of my documents and pulled out any important paperwork that I need to keep. The remaining pile of paper was huge.
We have this handy binding machine here at HM&P – so I created a recycled binder – and will write on the backs of my documents that I don’t need anymore.
My new notebook!
Try it yourself! It only takes 10 minutes to create!
Apr62009
Chris Kroeper
Article from Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox about how well users understand the first 11 characters of a website’s links and headlines. Good read for copywriters.
Full Article (12 characters – oh well, but you get the drift)
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Mar302009
Courtney Beck
It’s that time of year! Sinuses are clogging, Duke is choking and the intern resumes are flowing. Faithful interns, we salute your willingness to work hard and sacrifice for (little to) no money, but unfortunately your youthful enthusiasm and vigor will only get you so far. Here are a few tips to help you move past the resume screening and into our office for an interview:
DO:
• Proofread, proofread, proofread! Proof it yourself, give it to your roommate if he’s sober, give it to your mom, proof it again yourself. For the love of all that is sacred, proofread.
• Tell me what you can do. Just starting out in your degree program and don’t have much PR experience? That’s OK, it’s just an internship and you’ve got to start somewhere. But give me something to work with – classes you’ve taken, retail jobs worked, leadership positions held.
• Write a cover letter that tells me why you want to intern at this agency. Not just any agency – this agency.
• Exploit the hell out of your school’s Career Service people. They’re there, everyday, playing solitaire and just waiting for someone to make use of their skills. Think of them as the holy grail of your internship search.
DON’T:
• Exaggerate. Instead of trying to overinflate your crappy summer job, briefly tell what you did and why it matters. Gold star if you can do it from a PR-perspective.
• List your mom as a reference.
• Misspell the name of the agency or the name of the cover letter recipient. Please. Also, be sure that the name of your cover letter recipient is correct – when in doubt, “to whom it may concern” works just fine.
• Pull a Joan Jett and not care about your reputation. We will search for you on Facebook and MySpace, so be careful what you’re posting. We’re looking for someone to work with, not party with, so pictures of you doing belly shots are not going to impress us.
• Ask me to e-mail you at HotMama@yahoo.com. It won’t happen.
Take heart, young PR padawan! Sure, internships are a lot of work to get and even more work once you’ve landed one, but do it well and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel – a paycheck! Not from us, but you know, from someone.
Mar272009
Maximillian Hill
No one can say for certain how much one email client is used over another, but Campaign Monitor has taken a stab at it. It’s interesting to me to note that a mobile device (the iPhone) has 3.6% of the email client market. It’ll be intereting to see these numbers in a year or even 6 months. It’s important to note that due to how this information was collected, not every email client can be included in the study.
Mar262009
Joshua Craig
I’m often looking for apps to help myself be a little more organized or help myself get a task done better or more quickly.
The following link will take you to a great listing of apps that you may or not already know about.
http://www.designer-daily.com/mac-apps-1915
Name Changer and Anxiety are two of my favorite lesser known apps.
Name Changer allows you to instantly rename a group of files. Very handy if you shoot hundreds of photographs at an event and need to rename and number them to reflect the event.
Anxiety is just an extremely handy to do list that ties in with iCal.
Thanks to Designer Dash Daily Dot Com for putting together such a great list!
