“No Honey, We Can’t Get Business Cards for the Cats!” How Far is Too Far When It Comes to Your Personal Brand?

August 12th, 2011

“No honey, we can’t get business cards for the cats!”

Mantra: I will capitalize on my personal brand, I will...ohhhh, squeaky mice!

These words cheerfully greeted me from my computer screen when I staggered out of bed to check up on what happened on Twitter last night. The first thing I did was laugh (really, really hard) at the mental picture of what my three furry feline monsters would do if I handed them a stack of business cards. Tooth marks would definitely mark them as theirs!

The second thing I did was scroll down the screen. Apparently, cats aren’t the only ones dipping their feet in the business card pool. There were dozens of posts featuring creative card ideas and clever new swings.

Then there was the woman who suggested exchanging mommy business cards should be standard etiquette for play dates. This one stopped me in my tracks. Business cards? When my kids were little, contact information for other moms was scrawled on napkins or paper doilies and slapped up on the fridge. I found the concept of entire business cards with the name of the mother and child and their contact information laid neatly out both intriguing and oddly frightening.

Once upon a time, business cards were reserved for salesmen and high level executives. Now we’re seeing them everywhere, from mommy bloggers to job seeking college kids. Cats might be a new one, but somehow I don’t doubt that there are a number of show pooches out there with their own calling cards, carefully cultivating their personal brand.

So let me ask you this. How far is too far when it comes to promoting your personal brand? Is the easy availability of business cards leading us to overdo it, or are we just seeing the newest trend? Will business cards soon become as commonplace as cell phones? What do you think?

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Is It Time for Some Lipo in Your Printing?

August 10th, 2011

Liposuction. I still haven’t figured out if it’s a dirty word, still spoken in hushed tones by Hollywood starlets who don’t want to admit they’re slowly creeping into old age, or if technology and the advent of reality television have made it the next best thing to a household word.

Stefanie Wilder Taylor got me thinking about liposuction earlier this week, but not the kind that involves sucking the fat out of your thighs. I’m thinking more about the kind that sucks the fat out of your printing.

How Much “Fat” Are You Printing?

It’s impossible to spend enough time discussing the sheer, unequivocal awesomeness of digital printing. It’s fast. It’s detailed. And, most importantly, it steps in as the laser that sucks the fat out of your printing.

When you’ve got fat hanging around on your thighs, it slows you down. Bogs you up. Forces you to expend additional resources just to get through the day. You’re working twice as hard to get the same result.

That’s what happens when you’ve got too much fat in your printing.

Scenario #1: You’re giving the recycling guys a backache.

It can be hard to estimate how many of any given piece you’re going to need. Especially if you’re getting ready to launch a new (fill in the blank) that you’ve never tried before, because you have absolutely, positively no idea what you’re getting yourself into.

Hey, it’s cool. I get it. Less is more…unless more is more. But how much of that “more” is finding its way to the back of your storage closet and, eventually, to the recycling bin? What could you be doing with the money you spent on those posters/flyers/etc? (Hint: You’ll get more results taking your employees out to lunch. Just sayin’)

Scenario #2: You’re printing things you really don’t need to print.

Business cards are a need. Company stationary is a need. But are there things you’re printing you really don’t need to be? I love printed post-its as much as the next guy, but when they start falling off the top shelves it might be time to start scaling back. And how many forms are you using? Could they be consolidated into one?

Not only will your printing budget thank you, your customers will too. And the goodwill you’ll get from not forcing them to spend their day hunched over 101 pieces of paper?

Absolutely priceless.

Is it time for some lipo on your printing? How has your company started to cut the fat?

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8 Shocking Secrets of Working Weekends

July 15th, 2011

Aaaargh! Oh, wait. There's cake? Well then...

1) It will usually be viewed as an informal party, and should always be accompanied by food.

2) If done too often, employees will begin sluffing off on Friday, because they know they’re going to have to make up the time on Saturday anyway and they need to enjoy their weekend while they can. (This may not pertain to your employees, per se, but I’m surprised at how often this one pops up.)

3) If used rarely, productivity and creativity can almost double on these days because your employees now it isn’t their usual 9 to 5 and they need to come in with their game faces on.
4) Starting at 10 instead of 8 will go a long way toward tcutting back on the complaining when it’s time for your team to get out of bed.

5) Nobody really needs to wear a suit and a tie to the office on Saturday.

6) If you know you’re going to need your team to work on Saturday, consider taking them out for lunch during the week. Unless that hour could get you out of working on the weekend, in which case you’re better off staying right where you are.

7) Make weekends project driven, not time driven. Knowing they have to get the first three stages of a project done by Monday morning, your team will bust their humps to get those stages out and get out of there as quickly as possible. If they know they’re stuck until 4 regardless, they’re going to drag the process out under a case of the weekend “I don’t wannas” for as long as possible, and may still be cutting it close at the end of the day-if they don’t just decide to roll over what they haven’t done until Monday morning.
8) Opening the windows might seem like cruel and unusual punishment but there’s almost nothing more painful than a grey, gloomy office on a bright, sunny Saturday. So let the sunshine in, take it with a grin, and go out there and get ‘er done!

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8 More Essential iPad Apps for the Deisgner on the Go

July 14th, 2011

Yesterday we talked about essential iPad apps for mobile designers. I had so many people touch base with me about their favorite apps and the sheer awesomeness of taking th eiPad out on the road that I thought I’d stop in and mention 8 more insanely awesome iPad apps for design professionals:

1)      LiveSketch HD: You’d never be caught without a sketchpad. Now you can have the digital form. LiveSketchHD works just like a regular sketchpad, but it’s embedded into your iPad for traveling convenience and protection from prying eyes, little or otherwise!

2)      AutoDesk Sketchbook Mobile: Painting and drawing software for the artistically gifted designer. Now also available for Android, designers who have used AutoDesk (I haven’t personally taken it for a test drive yet) really like its versatility and the way it doesn’t pen them in to any specific type of design media. You’ve got your 3-D and your stick figures all in one!

3)      TypeDrawing: Typography for photos and fun for fonts, typography takes calligraphy to a whole new level for designers. People who have used it are raving over its ease and speed, even for an iPad newbie.

4)      Photopad by Zagg: A high-quality photoediting app for a mobile device, if there’s something you want to do to your photo with a regular photoediting software you can’t do here, I haven’t found it yet. It doesn’t, however, seem to have the capabilities of Photoshop and may prove more helpful to photographers than graphic designers.

5)      Filterstorm: Filterstorm seems to offer more versatility in photo editing for the iPad than Photopad. This is another one I haven’t had the chance to play with yet; however, their product description page claims that they’re a favorite with photojournalists.

6)      Omnigraffle: Charts. Wireframes. Diagrams. Page layouts. Omnigraffle. Check it out.

7)      Moodboard Pro: Moodboard creates mood and inspiration boards for your family. I’m really not sure how to describe it, aside from the finished products are absolutely gorgeous and offer a definite improvement over the same same-old same-old.

8)      Brushes App: Another app takes the artist’s easel out onto the iPad. This offers realistic layering, a number of brush options, and the opportunity to digitally create works that look like they were made on the easel and brought out into the digital world…

What are your favorite iPad design apps? What, besides your iPad, do you always have with you when you’re on the go?

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Best iPad Apps for Designers

July 13th, 2011

True confession time. I still haven’t jumped on the bandwagon and picked up an iPad. It just hasn’t really bleeped on my radar as something that I absolutely, positively, cannot under any circumstances live without. I know plenty of people that love their iPad, however, and consider it a necessary part of their tools out on the road-and they’re taking their apps along with them!

Here’s an updated look at the 8 best ipad apps for today’s mobile graphic designer.

1)      Adobe Ideas: Adobe Ideas acts as a mobile digital sketchbook and, with the awesomeness that Adobe design tools have long been known for, offers up to ten design layers, making it a favorite for iPad design out on the road.

2)      iMockups: iMockups acts as a design board, allowing you to quickly design wireframes and mockups for your website or other project. Also available for iPhone.

3)      SketchyPad: This one, I have to admit, intrigued me when I first saw it laid out. Sketchy Pad does exactly what it says it does-offers you a place to “sketch” your website or app. I’m really at a loss for how to explain it beyond that, but it’s well worth checking out.

4)      AirDisplay: As someone who regularly uses their mobile phone as a minicomputer, this thrilled me. I mean seriously thrilled me. Why? Because with AirDisplay, you can use your iPad as an additional monitor to your other mobile devices. Deceptively pointless, this provides a large scale view of something you’ve spent months trying to squint at. (Also makes a great tool for entertaining the kiddies when you’re out on the road!)

5)      MindNode: This mindmapping/brainstorming tool for your iPad is the perfect place to expand and connect ideas, which is great when you’re having a brainstorming fit mid-marketing campaign!

6)      FTPOnTheGo: You love FTP. I love FTP. So there’s no point in pretending that something that doesn’t make accessing, editing and moving FTP files out on the road without giving yourself a massive migraine isn’t the coolest thing since sliced bread. Seriously.

7)      Freeform: Freeform is a vector drawing tool for the iPad that allows you to create just about anything, then export it in an easy to use JPEG, PNG or PDF format. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult, and it’s compatible for use with most other mobile programs and applications.

8)      iThoughtsHD: Another fun brainstorming tool that’s easy to export, this is fun for designers but brutally necessary for project managers out on the road.

What are your favorite iPad design apps?

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Unmarked detours, getting lost, and where we can go from here

July 12th, 2011

The best thing about summer is, for me, the amount of it I get to spend out on the road. I LOVE to travel, to scope out new sights, to visit family I haven’t seen in forever. Last week we took a road trip to see my parents out in Connecticut (and pick up a very excellent tan) and I was sharply reminded of the one part of road trips I don’t like.
Getting lost.

What ho, you say? If I could follow directions I wouldn’t lose hours driving around in the middle of nowhere looking for my turn? If I got a GPS, I wouldn’t be stuck sitting there staring at a tiny atlas with poorly marked roads? You’re probably right. But where’s the fun in that???
On this last roadtrip, I saw something I’d never seen before. The Interstate bridge was closed to traffic while they did roadwork. (You know the one about the three seasons in the Northeast, right? Snow, Snow and Road Work? Oh, so true…) Now, usually this would mean there was a well-marked detour that would eventually get you where you wanted to go, even if it took a few extra minutes along the way.
There were a few extra minutes involved, all right. Let me tell you what there wasn’t. A well-marked start of this detour. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a well-marked anything anywhere on this detour. After about fifteen minutes of driving, followed by another fifteen minutes of staring aimlessly at the atlas trying to figure out how I was going to get across the Hudson River without having to swim, I had to use my phone-a-friend option to grovel someone into opening up Google Maps and figuring out how to get us out of there!
It’s funny how many similarities I could draw to business out of this. Because it’s easy to get lost along the way when you’re building a company, or planning a marketing campaign, or plotting out a new product launch. And sometimes, the tools we have to determine whether our next plan is going to pass or fail just plain aren’t up to the job. So we have to phone a friend, one that’s either already traveled that route or who has newer tools and technology that can help us find our way.

But what do you do when you’re at that unmarked detour and you can’t quite work up any genuine desire to admit to your friend that you can’t do it? That you need help? This is what gums up the works for many businesses, who wouldn’t’ find themselves in the predicaments they find themselves in if they’d look around and think, this is how they did it. Maybe they can help me do it better. Instead of, “I’m goin to close my eyes and guess, then see what happens next.”

Pick up a phone. Phone a friend. And leave that pride behind.

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Women in Printing: Balancing Home and Work and Actually Getting a Life

July 11th, 2011

First things first: If you’re out on Twitter, I want to know why you haven’t come by to see me yet. Hanging out in the Twitterverse has sparked some great conversations with fellow printers, including this one about what it’s like to be a woman in printing and where the biggest challenge lies.

When I gave a shout-out to my printing ladies in the Twitterverse last week, asking them to tell me what they thought was the hardest part of being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated industry, I was surprised by the answers I got. I figured at least one of them would have something to say about banging their head against the typical glass-ceiling, boy’s club environment. That wasn’t the case. Most of them were concerned about trying to balance their home and work lives without feeling like they were being a horrible wife or mother for putting their career first.

When I read through their responses (and they were plentiful), I had to smile. Because it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you’ve got a family, whether it’s husband, child, father, mother, sister or second cousin twice removed, at some point you’re going to have to make a choice. Who do you spend time with? How dead are you going to be if you skip a family dinner because you have a HUGE deadline Monday morning and you need to get a head start on Sunday night? (If your family’s anything like mine, the answer to that is pretty darn dead. Make that decision very, very carefully.)

So how do our printing ladies do it? Several had been known to take their kids to work on their days off, and invite their husbands along on their business trips. Working at all hours of the night to have their days free wasn’t unusual, and many of them recommended working from home as often as possible. And all of them agreed that unless something major popped up, like a deadline that was going to blow up in their face if they didn’t jump on it, like, yesterday, work hours were work hours and family time was family time, and ne’er the twain shall meet.

The struggle to balance work and family life certainly isn’t exclusive to our ladies of the press. How do you balance work and family?

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Are You So Worried About Where Your Business is Going That You Forgot About Where You Are?

July 8th, 2011

What sets a business apart? Seriously? Awesome products? Well, yeah. A fun, unique approach to their industry? Of course. But you know why consumers are still doing business with little mom and pop shops when there’s a major supplier of just about everything out there, and the Internet is available to conveniently bring it to them? Because they take the time to turn their heads from product development and where they want to go and make the most of where they are.

I think a lot of us fall into the trap of losing sight of the balance between where we are and where we’re going. If you’re a big business, you’ve got a whole team of people whose sole job is to come up with awesome new ideas to keep your business moving into the future. If you’re a small business like us, however, you have to split your resources. You have to divide your day between taking care of the customers you have now and the customers you’re going to have tomorrow, and if you think a bunch of customers that don’t even exist yet aren’t going to take up a whole lot of your time, you’ve got another think coming.

So how do you make sure your customers are satisfied without digging your business into a rut you can’t get out of? I have three words for you: Marketing, and Time Management.

Set aside a certain number of hours each week to plan for the future of your business. Those can be hours spent out in the field, talking to your customers and getting a feel for what they want and expect from you, or hours spent in your office brainstorming ideas and/or implementing ideas you’ve already put into place. Once you have that idea, kick it over to your marketing and development people and let it go. Let it breathe. Let it take shape. And let it transform.

Once that time is done, turn your attention to your business today. Get to know your customers, they love being recognized when they walk in the door. Figure out what you can do to make their customer experience better right now. A coffee pot on a cold winter day? Cookies and candy bowls at Christmas?

Yes, I’m a compulsive feeder. The kids in my neighborhood swarm at my house like little locusts because my cookie jar is never empty. Which is exactly my point. When you’re planning Christmas dinner but your cookie jar is empty, your place is going to be packed on Christmas day and empty the other 364 days of the year. Keep that cookie jar full, and make sure you’re taking the time to appreciate where you are, and the people who love you now, as well as where you’re going to be.

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Of Fighting and Freedom: A Word of Thanks

July 4th, 2011

There are many things in this life that we have the privilege of taking for granted in my little corner of the world. Like the fact that I can be a woman and run a business and nobody thinks anything of it. I can let my kids go outside to play without having to worry that they’ll be the victims of a random act of terrorism. I live in a diverse neighborhood, where you never know what language you’re going to hear walking down the street or what color skin my daughter’s next best friend is going to have. There’s food on the table, a roof over our heads and the promise that someday, our kids are going to be able to enjoy everything we’ve worked so hard to build.

I know who I have to thank for that. So today, I’m going to keep this blog short and sweet and focus on giving thanks to the men and women who laid down their lives in the American Revolution so we could be an independent nation. To those who fought in the Civil War to push slavery out and let everyone have a fair shot at success. To those who stepped forward in World War I and II, Korea, Vietnam. To those who are still in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Japan, Australia and our home soil who are doing their part to make this world a better place for our kids. I salute you.

Happy 4th of July.

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When Marketing, Don’t Lose Touch with Those Childhood Ways

July 1st, 2011

How many times have you caught yourself walking around the singing, “I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map” for hours on end after that morning’s episode of Dora the Explorer? That cheerful, repetitive voice can play over and over in your head, all day long. The next time you’re in the toy store, you’re going to look at Map and know not only who he is, but his theme song as well. And if you can make it through the day without singing, “Forest, mountain, little blue tree!” you’re stronger than I am.

That’s marketing that works.

Amazingly enough, that same catchy tune and repetitive theme works on adults too. There’s a reason kids learn faster than grown-ups do. Not only are their minds blank slates, absorbing everything around them without  any of the prejudices, back-stories or pre-conceived notions that adults bring to the table every time they learn something new, they also learn it the right way. In relation to their natural world, with constant repetition to reinforce the idea and create an actual neural pathway into their brain.

Adults learn like that too. Tell me you saw the State Farm Cars 2 commercial. It’s fantastic. Not only does it have fun, colorful characters that most of us know and remember (I have a Finn McMissile car taped to my dashboard as we speak), but every adult in America had to fight the urge to sing, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there!” Why? Because constant repetition and a cheerful tune have burned the company’s catchphrase into our brains, and now? Now there’s no going back.

How does your marketing campaign use repetition and those childhood ways to reach your clientele?

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