Archive for June, 2007
Walt Mossberg had a good, albeit over 5 minute video on the new phone. Good pros and cons. Anyone in line on Mich Ave?
Check out this bit about Third Thursdays on the WCIU site. Third Thursdays, created by Don Pogany, president of Sticky Worldwide, is designed to be a convergence of Chicago’s creative talent. Check it out. Also interesting is this recent article by Media Post’s Video Insider:The Currency of Creative. (Note: MediaPost requires a log-in, but it’s free.)
Trying to figure out how a marketing team let this site get published. This could be used as a tool of torture for prisoners of war. Make someone sit and watch this for 30 minutes.
… anyone is interested in visiting the actual Quipsologies site (which my previous entry did not include a link to… oops!)— I would highly endorse paying it a visit. Perhaps NOT with the regularity of Milkweed Studio, but I’m sure most of you are far more disciplined than me! In any event, its often chock full of interesting (mostly) design-related links and info. (Hopefully I didn’t manage to completely alienate the group from checking it out by my previous posting episode of brand-geekery!) I promise its a worthwhile link. Also, these sites are part of the Quipsologies family and are cool and interesting too: Speak Up, Design Encyclopedia and BrandNew. See what you think.
Change is a wonderful Week 1 topic on this here blog, since many of us have been dying to get into the blogging game. Now we have a terrific way to do it! I’ve instituted several new things lately designed to get new clients and manage the ones I have. For several months I’ve been a member of Freelance Success, a forum for practicing journalists and some corporate writing types (including our very own Anne Ford!). The people in this group are some amazing examples and resources, and I’ve utilized their advice on everything from book proposals, bidding projects, and especially the intricacies of magazine pitching. I can definitely say that I’ve got some trade magazine jobs in the last few months because of what I’ve learned on the forum. Several times a year they hold a “Query Challenge,” a friendly competition designed to encourage more productive and frequent magazine pitching, with the end goal of more magazine assignments. The current challenge starts this week, and I’ve signed up. I am determined to send out more, better queries, and get some assignments from national magazines! My goal is at least one query a day, and so far it’s tough, but rewarding. In the meantime, I’m still focusing on my growing roster of marketing/corporate clients. I’m getting a lot of work lately, which is terrific. But its taxing my organization abilities. And that brings me to another big change I’m working with. I just picked up Getting Things Done by David Allen. I’ve been seeing his name and “GTD” on blogs everywhere, with lots of support. I’m always leery to buy things by “gurus,” because of the culty connotations Anyone else had experience with GTD or similar systems?
I’m not sure how many folks are brand geeks such as myself, so this may be appreciated by a very small audience… Last week, I was in the midst of my (daily) anti-time management regimen and stumbled upon this entry on Quipsologies. It was a pretty interesting piece on the trend toward “flexible identities” and how the days of the Corporate Standards manual are seemingly coming to a close. I noticed today on another one of my productivity-fueled visit to Quipsologies that a follow-up link had been added. Like I said, this topic may put some of you to sleep, but I thought it was kind of fascinating…. And besides, it fit in sooo nicely with our Theme of the Week, I just couldn’t resist sharing it. Heck, if nothing else, you could always use it to get a good night’s sleep!
Okay, I’m going to break the ice here: How do you REALLY feel about change? Where has it taken you? Where do you want to go? This survey is completely anonymous and just five questions long. Once I get the results in I’ll give you a full report!
Thanks, Jenni. Great topic. While you’re doing yoga hooked up to your computer, I’m feeding my anal tendencies learning to use new organizational software. Have been using Basecamp from 37 Signals for the past few weeks (thanks, Sandy!) which is an awesome project management program. If you haven’t tried it, it’s worth checking out. And yesterday I found that icalendar is a whole lot more than just a cute icon. It’s another great collaborative tool which I realized after someone sent me an ical message to log into a conference call. So today I’ve started moving my print calendar online (since I spend most of m time there anyway according to my husband ). As long as the power doesn’t go out, all is well. Stay dry, all.
Now I just need to find a headset with a chord long enough so I can do yoga and write at the same time! Seriously, though… not to sound too “writerly,” but it’s forcing me to re-think how I write. After 20 years of working as a published writer and editor, my patterns and habits are deeply ingrained. In my early days of writing, I thought a lot about process, but in recent years I’ve grown very comfortable in my own skin, and haven’t thought much lately about the how of the work. After using Dragon for a few days, here’s what I’ve learned: I like to edit as I go. Sounds simple enough, but speaking a document is very different; you have to slow down mentally, and envision the sentences in your mind. This is much different than typing a phrase, backing up and revising it, jumping around in a document… you get the picture. Stephen King has his pen and paper (yes, he really has written first drafts by hand!) and talks about his old-school (but still abundantly successful) process in On Writing But until I reach mastery, I would love any advice on offer regarding “process.” Any tips on retraining the brain? And if you’re using Dragon, I want to hear from you for sure!
This is the first week of the ideaXchange blog, and our theme is “change is good.” What are you changing about the way you do business? Are you learning something new, adapting your office space, exploring new technology, picking up new habits? |
But so far I’m really jazzed about the book. Some very practical and relatively simple recommendations for organizing not only my professional life but personal.
. While it’s frustrating to plug away at it in the beginning, I can see the potential for it to increase my productivity significantly, once I get more comfortable with the commands in various applications.