Reason #564 to love my iPod

My iPod is a wonderful thing. Aside from the fact that it has all my chick rock, Beatles records and yoga music on it (among others), my favorite feature is this: it saves me paper.

That's right—in its brief life as mine, my iPod has prevented me from printing out countless sheets of directions to various places, text from websites, and it's occasionally served as a replacement jump drive in times of need.

For those who might not be aware of this feature, those of us who are on Mac OSX already know that the iPod is set up to sync with iCal and your Address book. What I do is cut and paste directions to wherever it is I have to go from Yahoo Maps into the "notes" section of the iCal event (it's important to note that when you do this, you have to manually type in the R's and L's that normally appear in circles in the Yahoo directions, as they don't show up in your iCal text). In doing this, I have managed to save about a half a ream of paper thus far that would normally be used to print directions from Yahoo Maps.

Another handy little feature I've found is that you can also move text-only files over into the "Notes" section of your iPod and read them on the screen. This works well if you have BBEdit Lite —I've found that Text Edit leaves funky characters in the text.

Designers vs. NotSoMuch: The DIY Debate

Lately, on several of the various design blogs I visit, there's been a heated debate over this book, DIY: Design it Yourself. It's a collection of do-it-yourself design projects and inspiration compiled by students and faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art and edited by Ellen Lupton. The comments on the AIGA debate seem to mostly indicate a separation among the designers into two camps: those who think that a bit of design education is good for the masses, and those who think that putting design tools in the hands of amateurs is the ultimate Bad Thing.

To be honest, I have a few opinions on the subject. For one, I think it's rather silly to treat this book like it's a new idea: doing a search for DIY on Amazon nets over 6500 results, and the first several of them are really not that far off from the book in question.

I had a chance, at a recent ICA mixer, to check out a bit of the book, and I have to say: some of the stuff is pretty good. At the same time, however, I really don't consider the techniques in the book an example of what genuinely constitutes effective design. DIY is a book that teaches you how to make things that look cool, but it doesn't teach you how to come up with a good concept, or to think of design in terms of the specific business challenges it's meant to address. It doesn't even run the gamut of all the things you REALLY need to know about how to do a successful project/campaign. It is simply a resource for people who want to express their creativity in new ways, just like a thousand other books before it. It is not a substitute for formal design training. So why all the fuss?

Honestly, I think it's a matter of ego. And I can understand it from my own experience - we're in a world where access to the "tools" of design is unprecedented, and the marketplace is overflowing with people who call themselves designers because they downloaded a copy of Photoshop last week. We spend our days being pulled between being appreciated for the value we bring to our clients' businesses and defending our livelihood to the myriad of potential clients who can't seem to understand the difference between what we do and what their secretaries can throw together in Word. I'd like to think that with experience and establishing a solid practice, the ratios will change and we deal with more appreciation than misunderstanding, but that only seems to happen to the rare individuals that actually work in or run larger agencies. The rest of us, who remain smallish (and decidedly so), find ourselves dealing with this frustration day in and out. So on that level, I can understand the annoyance.

But given this, who is DIY really speaking to? Certainly not the secretary who's going to be doing the uneducated client's newsletters in Word, but the individual crafty person who wants to learn how to make things that look really cool. Perhaps the person who, like me, couldn't afford to take out $90K in student loans to attend RISD and found herself just "playing around with things," and from that developed an unending passion for design that has turned into a fulfilling career. And what, I ask, is wrong with that?

Brand as Experience—Creating an Instant Association for Your Potential Clients

One morning, as I was walking through Harvard Square to meet a client, I walked past a building that was newly available for lease. Not a particularly spectacular experience, but what intrigued me enough to write about it was the bright green border at the edge of the glass door that immediately brought about one thought: “Oh; it’s a Citizens. Or, was a Citizens.”

This is what a brand is, beyond just a logo or a selection of fonts. A brand is about an experience - a small moment that connects you with an organization’s product or service. There’s a certain shade of green that will always remind you of Citizens Bank; another shade of green that will always remind you of Starbucks. UPS might as well have a patent on the color brown; and those three red circles help you recognize something as connected to Target from three miles away (in fact, I just saw a hurricane relief poster in the latest HOW International Design Awards whose only connection to Target was the three circles somewhere in a tree. Looking at it, I thought “hmmm…Target?” and there it was in the notes.). This is what companies pay thousands and thousands of dollars for - to give their customers an experience so compelling that it prompts them to come back again and again.

Can I do this for you? Perhaps…but not alone. Because a brand, ANY brand, is what YOU put into it. I could make you the prettiest, most effective website around, but if you don’t promote it, by including it in your printed materials, email communications, and telling people you meet, even the craziest SEO tricks won’t get people to visit. I could create a terrific logo for you, but if you can’t tell me the story of your business, the experience you want your customers to have as a result of your product or service, how can I communicate your business effectively to your customers? How can you?

Every business, no matter how big or how small, has a story. Your brand is that story personified - through printed, online or direct communication with your business. A chat with someone at a networking event? That’s part of your brand. Your business card? Your website? Your store, or phone message, or email signature, or customer service representative? That’s part of your brand. Treat it, and your customers, with respect, and you can’t go wrong.

How the Internet Can Help (or Hurt!) Your Business

These days, it seems like everyone has a website. And why not? Once it’s created, an effective website can be an invaluable marketing tool that not only provides an easy way to get your business recognized, but it can provide a substitute for printed marketing materials, which saves the environment and saves you money. However, in order for your website to work its magic most effectively, you need to make sure that it’s putting your best foot forward. The following tips can help you get the most out of your Internet marketing.

1. Think of your website as an ongoing series of job interviews with thousands of anonymous employers. If it doesn’t look good, you don’t look good. Remember, many of your potential clients are looking at your website before they’ve heard of you or your company. How does it represent you and your business? Can your clients tell what you do and how competent you are by looking at your site? Or does it look like it was thrown together, just to “get something up there?”

2. Keep an eye on your language. Keep your copy simple, accessible and to-the-point, and make sure things are spelled correctly. Nothing can hamper your credibility like a website or e-mail message filled with poor grammar and typographical errors. Consider hiring a professional copywriter, who has experience in writing for your target audience.

3. Hire a professional. Unless you are a web designer by trade, it’s a good idea to have a professional develop your site. Not only can a professional designer give you a site that effectively represents your business in a unique and compelling way, it will save you a considerable amount of time and hassle. You have enough to worry about without having to learn web design as well!

4. Use Web Standards. Building your website with web standards means a faster-loading, more affordable site which works in every browser. This means that, unlike some sites that only seem to work for Internet Explorer on Windows, your site will continue to represent you effectively on every browser, no matter what.

Get Over It! Handling Presentation Jitters

At a recent seminar I attended, a woman who was in the seminar with me expressed her nervousness about an upcoming speaking arrangement. Having just done a speaking engagement in March, I understood completely. Getting in front of a room full of people and performing (because let’s face it—that’s what you’re doing) can be nerve-wracking. But eight years as a theatre major and three years as a performance poet have taught me a thing or two about dealing with that nervousness, and I thought it would be good to share some of the tips I’ve learned.

1. Write your script beforehand, but don’t memorize it. The worst thing you can do is read from a script, or sound like you’ve got this thing memorized and you’re reading from a page. Remember Ben Stein? Bueller, Bueller… okay—old reference—but seriously, that’s what it sounds like. Write a complete script for yourself, rehearse it once or twice, but when it comes down to presentation time, speak from your outline (see next tip).

2. After you’ve rehearsed your script, create an outline and use that to guide you through your presentation. It’s very tempting to use the bullet points of the presentation to guide you (especially if you have it on a screen in front of you), but often, that will come out like you’re reading from a script again. Find the essence of the points you’re making, and create a brief outline, or “flow,” of touch points that will guide you to the topics you need to cover. Repeat the flow to yourself a couple of times just before you go up. Then, speak from your heart and your passion on the subject. After all, you likely didn’t accept a speaking engagement because you were bored!

3. Rehearse the day before, not the day of. Doing it ahead of time puts you at ease when the time comes—that way, you’ll be more prepared and less nervous.

4. Forget about it for a while. The day of your engagement, find whatever you can do relax and get your mind OFF the presentation until about 20 minutes before your presentation, and then review your flow just before you go on. The day of my first big presentation, and the day of any performance I’ve ever done (and I’ve done hundreds) I sang. I sang in the shower, I sang in the shower, I sang whatever song I could think of to sing for at least an hour before the performance. Then, about 10-20 minutes before the performance, I looked back at my notes, practiced for a little bit, took a few deep breaths, and went to it. That worked for me, but everyone is different. Find what works for you and commit to it.

5. Speak from your heart and remember your “why”. This was just covered, but it bears repeating. You’re doing this for a reason - maybe it’s to get new business, maybe it’s to get recognition, maybe it’s just because you love talking about the subject and want to share your knowledge with people. Whatever it is, figure out why you’re doing this and let that why guide you through your presentation. Show your passion for the subject, or your business, or whatever you’re speaking about.

6. Breathe. This can not be emphasized enough. Observe your breath for a few moments before you begin and make sure that your breath is full and complete. If it’s shallow, try this trick, common in yoga: breathe in for a count of five breaths, hold for a count of four, and breathe out for a count of eight breaths, expelling all the air. As you breathe, make sure that your breath is coming from your belly, not your chest. Your belly should be expanding as you breathe in, and contracting as you breathe out. Breathing this way will also help you project, which is key in large groups.

Hopefully, these tips will help you the next time you find yourself in front of a crowd, sharing your knowledge. Break a leg!