A Successful Content Strategy Minus the Content
This months Web Smart Newsletter is all about developing an effective content strategy, something I admit is a tough and daunting task. If you read this newsletter and felt intimidated, boy have I got just the motivator for you...
In the latest issue of Wired Magazine, the cover story, Internet Famous: Julia Allison and the Secrets of Self Promotion, concerns celebrity Julia Allison. Never heard of her? Neither had I...apparently for good reason. Allisons claim to fame is essentially her claim to fame. Shes not an actress, really, nor a singer, artist, intellectual, expert, or entertainer of the typical kind. However, she has leveraged the promotional tools of the internet to build an entire brand around herself, which seems to simultaneously attract, repulse and generally confuse the many who find her online. She puts out many blog posts, incessant tweets, and borderline embarrassing (ok, theyre completely embarrassing) videos on YouTube, but ultimately has not produced any content that really holds any value.
And yet... shes on the cover of WIRED magazine! She hangs with the rich and famous. Her websites get crazy traffic. Shell probably be able to monetize her quasi-celebrity before the majority of gawkers come to their senses.
What does it all mean? It means that if she can do it, anyone online with something of value must be able to do it too, right? (After all, shes using the same free tools we are: Facebook, blogs, twitter, etc.) That is, unless there is some connection between online popularity and the depths of vapidity... did I just write that???
Buckminster Fuller: Doing More with Less, Part 2
I recently posted that I would be visiting the Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. I did indeed attend that exhibit, which was one of the better museum experiences I have had in a long time. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the exhibit, so I wont be able to share any of my own images.
However, one of my favorite displays at the exhibit was one which showed several versions of Fullers dymaxion world maps, which he created with a primary purpose of allowing people to view all of the major land masses without any of the maps borders passing through, and therefore dividing, the major land masses...without grossly distorting the continents relative (to each other) overall size and shape. They are fascinating.
Another display concerned Buckys Cloud Nine concept, which was essentially the idea that enormous geodesic spheres could be constructed and made to float by heating the air within them. Because of their mass, they would be potentially strong enough to hold cities within them. Incredible!
Finally, the exhibit also included several volumes of Buckys Dymaxion Chronofile, a comprehensive documentation of his life, which he started in 1920 and maintained until his death in 1983. Because of this document, Fullers life has become know as one of the most documented lives in history.
I love typography, but this is a stretch.
Chris Butler recently posted a link to an article by David Appell claiming that most of the blogosphere is pure fluff. I was skeptical of this claim but since coming across a blog devoted completely to the ampersand Ive started to rethink Davids point.
Interview: Samantha Berens, Fresh Creative
Samantha Berens
Resourcer,
Fresh Creative
In addition to her Resourcing work, Sam contributes significantly to crafting the strategic direction of Fresh Creative client accounts with leadership and expertise in marketing strategy, media planning and negotiating, integrated branding programs and the creative process.
CB: What fascinates you about the web?
SB: Increased efficiency and resourcefulness. Those who know me personally might chuckle at my answer because they know that those two attributes are at the core of how I approach life. I’m part of the generation that grew up in the technology age– computers
and the internet have been mainstream for most of my life. Living with this technology has trained me (and many of my peers) to resource and process information quickly. No problem is unsolvable and the speed with which we’re able to access information allows us to find solutions quickly.
CB: What would you change about it?
SB: I’d like to make it more personal and slow it down. Although it’s made us more efficient, provided more information at our finger tips than ever before, and made geography mean nothing, there has been a decline in our ability to build meaningful professional relationships. Some even say that all this increased technology has bred a group of young people whose ethical standard is weakened. Since email is so
quick and web meetings so easy, we no longer rely on someone’s good word and handshake, when, quite possibly, that’s worth more than technology can provide. The second part of my answer, slow it down, might seem in contradiction to my above
stated drive for efficiency, but efficiency is worth nothing if it’s not delivered with accuracy. We’re so accustomed to having it now– we no longer value the time spent in intellectual thought and our standard of accuracy has suffered.
CB: Do you have a blog? If not, what are you waiting for?
SB: Ok– so I don’t have a blog. What am I waiting for? Time! Maybe if my suggestion to slow things down a bit were taken, I’d have time to blog. For now, I’m content adding my two cents on others’; but I know one day (and probably soon), I’ll have to jump on the bandwagon.
CB: What technology has had the greatest impact on how you do your job?
SB: Wireless communication has made a big difference in how and where we operate. I can take a laptop anywhere and check email on my phone. Maybe this hasn’t been a positive impact, but a major one nonetheless. We now must make the conscious decision to put work away.
CB: Who has influenced or helped you the most in your career?
SB: The first account executive I worked under at my first agency job gave me a wake-up call on my second or third day on the job. I was a junior in college and she gave me a research assignment. I happily “researched” for a few hours and went back to her with my findings. She perused it and threw it back at me, saying something like “If you can’t get more than that with all the resources at your fingertips, then you’ll never make it here. Get resourceful.” I was an A student… I had never had an encounter like that, but she was right. That was my wake-up call to understanding that good isn’t always good enough. Learning to go the extra mile is probably what has made me most
successful in my career so far.
CB: You recently changed roles to be the Resourcer at Fresh Creative. What makes you uniquely suited to this role?
SB: I would say that my commitment to efficiency, accuracy, and resourcefulness is what makes me best suited for the role of Resourcer. Although, some here would say that it has more to do with my ability to be a @#$*&%. Those who understand the role of Resourcing will get my humor. My position is all about staying on time and on budget while delivering a superior end-product to our clients. Anyone who is willing to let any of the three elements I mentioned above slide will never make resourcing work.
CB: What makes Fresh Creative a cut above its competitors?
SB: We value thinking over doing. We dont spin our wheels crafting solutions until we know what our clients problem is and have purposefully and thoughtfully considered it.
CB: If you had one sentence to pitch a potential client, what would it be?
SB: We turn away more work than we accept.
CB: I believe that everyone has a specific and unique talent that comes in handy at just the right time. It might be something most people know about you or something very few know. What is your super-power?
SB: I dont like to hear no. So, I work hard to strategize every possible scenario so that no hurdle is impossible to jump. I guess that means my super-power is perseverance. X-ray vision would still be cooler, though.
CB: If the worlds technological and economic systems were to collapse and revert society to locally-focused, agrarian communities, what role would you assume?
SB: I think Id still be a Resourcer. Somebody would need to make sure seeds were planted and crops harvested all while turning a profit!
Design Guidelines for Agencies, Part 1: Calibrating Your Equipment
Newfangled is always looking for ways to improve our agency relationships and make the web development process more productive and enjoyable. With that in mind, Ive decided to write a series of how-to posts to help agencies create useful, well-organized and properly calibrated design files for the web.
Hardware Calibration
If youre designing on a Mac, its important to set your monitors gamma and color space to accepted web standards in order to produce consistent results between what youre designing and what will be displayed on the web. Gamma is a technical term for your monitors luminance and color space refers to your monitors ability to display a range of colors represented by RGB (red, green and blue). If you need the science behind the terms, check out these articles on gamma correction and RGB color space. There are different standards for Macs and PCs when it comes to displaying color (youre not surprised, are you?) and web standards most closely match those of the PC. Macs come with a default gamma setting of 1.8 and PCs are set to 2.2. So if youre designing on a Mac with a gamma of 1.8, your layouts will be darker when viewed on a PC and some of your subtle design elements may disappear altogether.
Important: The following calibration instructions pertain to creating images for the web. If youve already calibrated your equipment to be optimized for print, make a note of those settings (or save them as custom settings) so you can return to them later.
The simplest way to set your monitor to the correct gamma and color space is to open your system preferences panel and choose Displays under the Hardware category. Select the third tab, Color. Youll see a list of Display Profiles on the left. The highlighted selection is your current color space. Scroll down until you see sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and select it. If you have a laptop with an external monitor, make sure to adjust both your laptop screen and external monitor. Viola. Now you can close the System Preferences panel.
To calibrate your monitor for the lighting conditions of the room youre working in (I recommend this) click the Calibrate… button in the color preference window. Apples Color Assistant will guide you through each step and allow you to set the gamma and white point manually. Simply select 2.2 for the gamma and D65 for the white point and save the custom calibration with your name and the date so you can find it in the profile list later.
Software Calibration
Now that youve calibrated your monitor, your Photoshop color space needs to match your monitors color space. In Photoshop, select Color Settings from the Edit menu. This will bring up the Color Settings panel. From the Settings pull down menu, select North America Web/Internet. This will set the RGB color space to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and fill in the appropriate settings for the other fields. You can save this setting as a custom by clicking the Save… button and giving it a name.
Next time: Whats So Great About Photoshop?
Font Conference
Shout out to Able for telling me about this.
See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
Interview: Anaezi Modu, ReBrand
Anaezi Modu
Founder,
ReBrand™
ReBrand™ is the global resource for visual examples and case studies on effective brand transformations: the repositioning, revitalizing and redesign of existing brand assets to meet strategic marketing objectives. As a Fast Company blogger, Anaezi explores the integration of seemingly disparate ideas and industries to achieve strategy-driven transformation. Through the lens of a designer, she shares learning from pragmatic ingenuity, one of the terms she prefers over innovation. She is inspired by those rarely credited for brilliant ideas: the worlds poor that face dire challenges daily. Anaezi received her training in architecture and design at Princeton and Harvard.
CB: What fascinates you about the web?
AM: So many things! One I marvel at the most is the ability to run a global enterprise from a remote dashboard. All that’s required is a great idea, planning, perseverance, marketing strategy, and incredible hard work to make things happen. While some of these elements aren’t new, what the web provides that has appeared over the last decade is the ability to accomplish much with a fraction of funds investment the “off-line” world required in the past.
CB: What would you change about it?
AM: With the good often comes challenges. The low barriers to entry mean that there’s much erroneous or even harmful information that can just as quickly or easily get air time as does helpful information. From a technical perspective, I can’t wait for the day when putting up a site and maneuvering CSS would be as simple as using Microsoft Word for us technically-challenged creatives.
CB: Do you have a blog? If so, what makes your blog unique?
AM: I recently accepted an invitation to be an expert blogger with Fast Company magazine. My blog is called Cross Thinkers. Just in case anyone reading this might have some thoughts that I should consider for it, please feel free to share if you think it makes sense. Just visit the blog and leave a comment. I’ll be starting one for ReBrand, hopefully soon. What am I waiting for? Great question. No more excuses! You great folks at Newfangled have been incredibly helpful and supportive about getting one started.
CB: What technology has had the greatest impact on how you do your job?
AM: Easy answer: The web! Being able to have some semblance of autonomy in running an organization and using a content management system like Newfangleds to update our site has been incredible.
CB: Who has influenced or helped you the most in your career?
AM: A foundation of faith in God and practice of prayers and meditation have been key in guidance when things have been overwhelming. Love and support from my family has also been essential. There are countless others from friends to colleagues, past managers, teachers, consultants, and strangers along the way.
CB: What makes you uniquely suited to your role with ReBrand?
AM: I embody many aspects of my mission for ReBrand. I am a result of a multidisciplinary collection of professional interests and background, and I have first-hand experience in solutions that result from integrating seemingly disparate ideas from so many sources. I believe this is what makes the world go ‘round and how great ideas, products, services, and systems evolve. With our marquis program at ReBrand, the annual ReBrand 100 Global Awards, I insisted that no one discipline “owns” the effective “branded experience.” With that in mind, I stipulate that each year’s jury panel must consist of people from various professional, experiential, national, and ethnic backgrounds in assessing these effective transformations. I’m especially passionate in broadening the conversation on strong brands to include and respect perspectives from far and wide. I am also trained in and have worked professionally in architecture, interior design, urban design and planning for some years. In running ReBrand and through an executive education program I initiated at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, our teaching team is able to share how devising optimal experiences is key in every industry. In this case, the principles apply to all, even though this particular certificate program titled Revealing the Brand Story: How to Create Meaning, Value, and ROI, is targeted to built environment professionals. It is also rare to have the combination of these two backgrounds – all that helps inform my approach to ReBrand. The passion is in helping guide and showcase ways to transform experiences for some strategic purpose. That purpose may or not be for direct financial benefits, but can certainly be in reach, influence, or to some other qualitative end. I’m stumbling over the words, so the actual description of the two-day program may be clearer. All are welcome to register and earn a certificate while learning from respected, renowned brand strategists and principles of the nation’s most prominent architectural firms.
CB: What makes ReBrand worth paying attention to?
AM: There is only one ReBrand.com. No other! ReBrand is the expert-led resource at which “before” and “after” case examples of brand transformations exist. These examples are from around the world and span over 40 industries. The range is from one-person entities to companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Virgin Airlines, Cisco Systems, and so much more. It’s all there for anyone to learn from, at no charge. We get great focused attention from channels many dream of reaching, and we’ve become a respected, go-to source for corporations and agencies alike. We are often approached for references and advice on branding consultants from small, non-profit, regional and global organizations. Fortunately, because the URL is the term used for brand transformations, we’re often interviewed by business publications such as the Wall Street Journals, Fast Company, CNN Money, and others, that find and approach us. I see all of these as opportunities to help further our collective goals as strategic, creative folks- that of getting across the fact that effective crafting of experiential branding is essential for the bottom line. I even recently learned that we are one of four sites noted in the book Branding for Dummies as a go-to resource. It’s worth discovering us and re-visiting as we continue to expand on a number of initiatives and as we showcase more work from the past 2008 winners showcase.
CB: If you had one sentence to pitch your latest and greatest idea, what would it be?
AM: Visit ReBrand.com, enter the annual ReBrand 100 Global Awards, learn, be recognized for, and share in how so many “Transform to Thrive.” That’s our latest tagline, by the way. Business, as in life is an ever-evolving process. See how other organizations are doing it, and model those ideas when it makes sense. You’ll be in great company; you’ll have your firms capabilities showcased, celebrated, and given prominent, potentially client-generating press, if you’re a winner. You can’t beat that!
CB: I believe that everyone has a specific and unique talent that comes in handy at just the right time. It might be something most people know about you or something very few know. What is your super-power?
AM: I’m a connector who’s pretty good at inspiring others to work together towards a common goal. This has been key to building ReBrand and getting it to the point where over 20 countries now participate, and prominent folks come to us requesting to serve on the jury panel.
CB: If the worlds technological and economic systems were to collapse and revert society to locally-focused, agrarian communities, what role would you assume?
AM: After years spent living in a remote West-African village, this one is a no brainer. I would work with folks to design and make useful and creative items with natural materials so readily available in their environment. I would also help local builders in designing and building homes with local materials. This ties in a bit with my Fast Company blog. I believe, and have seen evidence of this, that ultimate geniuses, are those that must survive and thrive when much is stripped away and the “primitive way of life” is the given. Design ability is a great tool for solving a number of social, economic, and business challenges. The ways in which we can use our skills to help, with or without technology, are countless.
> View Anaezis LinkedIn profile.
Buckminster Fuller: Doing More with Less
Ill be traveling in the next couple of weeks, and am planning to attend Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe at the Whitney Museum of American Art while in New York. I cant wait.
I first learned about Bucky as a child from a great book that my Step-Father owned called Inventions: The Patented Works of R. Buckminster Fuller, which is apparently now out of print. At the time, Im sure I didnt get what he was all about, but I was fascinated by the architecture.
Later, while in college, I re-connected with Bucky along with my wife, Carolyn, who began reading Buckminster Fullers Universe: His Life and Work, a fantastic biography which is currently on loan to the Mark OBrien Library.
If youre not familiar with him, read one of these books, go to the exhibit, or just find him online. His unique way of thinking and incredible contributions to the 20th century and beyond will inspire you!
Your Q&A
In previous posts about blogging, Ive recommended being an active commenter on blogs and forums other than your own. Not only is this a good way to increase your visibility and reputation within your area of expertise, but it is also a great way to learn and be fed with information and material that will lead to better blogging.
Another similar opportunity that I havent mentioned before is participating in LinkedIns Q&A. If you have a profile with LinkedIn, you submit questions or answers to other users questions within particular categories. You can even set your profile to show you the latest questions within the categories most relevant to you. Once you have answered some questions, LinkedIn will begin to learn what other subjects you are interested in and suggest questions more appropriate to your subject profile. Additionally, the user that created the question has the ability to rank the answers as either best or good, which furthers the reputation-building of this feature.
Eric has answered 30 LinkedIn questions so far, 6 of which have been voted as best answer. You can see this right away on his profile, which is a helpful way for any visitor to get a quick overview of his expertise and a bit of a recommendation by virtue of other users voting his answers as best. (You can click on the image below to read all of Erics answers.)
Ive answered 15 questions so far since Ive started using this feature, and asked 1 question, for which I have yet to get any answers. I have a feeling that getting answers will be tougher than giving them! However, participating in this has generated a significant increase in profile views and visits to this blog, too.
The Cost of Good Service
As weve grown as a web development firm, weve accumulated a deeper understanding of the roles we need to have in place in order to ensure a consistent and repeatable client experience. In the old days, when we were a small group of massive multi-taskers, many things we now have processes for just happened automatically. Automatic is nice, but things werent perfect. The problem with that system was twofold. One, it was not scalable - at all. Two, it was overly-dependent on specific individuals. This makes the loss or promotion of any one person impossible - not good. All in all, things worked out pretty well, but our clients werent actually quite as coddled as Id prefer them to be. We were in a situation that worked while it lasted, but it was not a good long term position for us.
We now have very distinguished roles for management, sales, project management, development, engineering, design, resourcing and billings. Since we very much tend to be an internally promoting firm, our people tend to touch more than one of these roles as they grown with the company.
What might strike some clients (particularly those that have been with us for a while) as odd is that what used to take 2 hours and cost $75 now takes two days and costs $300. Raw deal, right? Well, no, actually. Even though some things have become more expensive and take a little longer to do, what we are creating is a very dependable and consistent system that can reliably handle variously complex tasks. In years past we could be considered a small, intense and all around great web development company. Because of our size then, getting small items done nearly immediately for nearly nothing was easy, but stability was not our strong suit.
In the long run, what do great clients need? Do they need simple implementers that can get menial tasks done quickly and cheaply, or do they need long term, stable and reliable web development experts that can get the job, however great or small, done right the first time? Well, there are plenty of clients out there of either kind, but we aim to serve the latter group. There are plenty of other great companies out there that seem to specialize in the former.
I hate to alienate all you non-golfers with yet another business-golf analogy, but this is too pertinent to ignore. The deal with golf is that you need to have a repeatable swing. Basically, youre swinging the same way every time, whether the ball needs to go 300 yards or 90. The club is the tool, it dictates the loft and distance of the ball. Your body is just the motor that powers the tool. If you have a consistent, repeatable swing, the club will do its job and the ball will follow. You are the only real variable here, but what a doozy of a variable a human being is! That darn brain of ours is both our biggest obstacle and greatest asset. If I know, when approaching the ball and gripping the chosen club, that I can rely on my consistently reliable swing, chances are pretty good that the ball is going to go roughly where I am intending. If I can rely on my golf swing, I am going to look forward to going to the course and enjoy my time playing. If I am not confident in my own abilities to simply provide the motor that the club and ball require, my swing is going to fail in an utterly perplexing combination of ways, and things will not be pleasant. Our project manager, Mitch Rothrock, knows a lot about these difficulties on the golf course.
Our intention is to be that consistently reliable motor - including the brain part - for our clients. Being as intentionally structured as we are now, we have put ourselves and our clients in a very good position to reap the benefits of a reliable engine. It all comes down to that. If you know youve got us as the engine that powers and guides your web needs, your going to take a calm, optimistic approach to the project and a pure sort of creativity will flow from that and we rely on that input from you to help form things. It really all can be quite pleasant and rewarding. These days, we are the company that can confidently offer this feeling as our main deliverable - both during the initial project and the long term growth of the site after the initial launch.