All a -twitter

A recent study by some mob called “Pear Analytics” has determined(1) that roughly 40% of twitter traffic is “pointless babble”

Unsurprisingly, they have something to sell you based on this startling factoid(2). Gotta love these new “online social marketing experts”.

I’m not going to respond because as always Stephen Fry says it best.

(1) the study is really shonky – I’d have been embarrassed to hand it in as an undergraduate. Stephen Dann has the best analysis – and if you read through the comments you can find one of the researchers trying to defend it, which is pretty funny.

(2) a made up fact – commonly believed to be true because it sounds plausible.

Job Vacancy – Financial Services

Sadly it’s been taken down now – but I do hope they found someone…

I couldn’t have said it better myself

As, thanks to GFC, climate change and general crapness, it increasingly seems the world is going to hell in an handbasket, I refer you to the wisdom of the British Ministry of Information circa 1939

Why oh why…

As I’ve mentioned earlier we’re going through a re-branding exercise here. In fact we’re nearly done, The designers sent us the CD with the finished artwork on Monday

Now, when I briefed them I explained that things like our proposal template had to be useable in Word, and that the website design had to be easy to to install and use in our CMS.

I, however, was not responsible for signing off on quotes and those requirements weren’t reflected.

So on Monday I got a CD containing templates in InDesign… This is a mjor pain in the neck, but not impossible – I can, and have, converted them the word. (Although changing elegant simple InDesign into crappy Word hurts me in my heart)

We also got the the Website design

In Photoshop.

I could rant about why this drives me insane  – But the ‘vark guys have already said it better – go and read their comments on Photoshop as a web design tool.

And if you are a designer. Please learn – there is a difference between screen and paper.

Should I stay or should I go…

Every Australian who lives in a bush-fire zones knows there comes a point when you have to decide whether to stay or go. The general advice is that, if you are well prepared, then it is (relatively) safe to stay, to defend your house.

If you’re going to go, you need to go early, before the smoke makes driving hazardous.

The problem they had in Victoria is that the fire moved much, much faster than anyone really expected…

Gary Hughes from The Australia, explains how his family nearly didn’t make it.

The Red Cross are taking donations if you want to help.

What I am doing today…

I’m trying to develop a marketing plan and copy for our direct mail campaign. This would be much easier if the process didn’t go like this.

I write a draft

I fight with the Managing Director (MD) over what we’re planning to do
I fight with the other Divisional Director (DD) over what we want to do
DD fights with MD over why can’t we do more of the stuff that she wants to do

I write a draft that attempts to incorporate both their changes.

MD makes secret changes to DD’s stuff
DD makes secret changes to MD’s stuff
DD has a hissy fit about the changes to her stuff
MD has a hissy fit about the changes to his stuff,
DD comes to see me to explain that MD is an idiot and she doesn’t care what we do it’s just that she knows way more about this than anyone.
MD comes to see me to explain that they are both idiots and we should do whatever I think is best since I’m the expert, but since he has a wealth of experience (and is the boss) he’s sure I’ll decide to do the “right” aka “his” things.

I write a third draft

MD calls a meeting between all of us so we can ‘come to a consensus’
They argue to a standstill.
I doodle in my notebook and think about how badly I want a beer.

Meeting concludes with
“So Lindsay, you’ll get us a fresh draft in the morning?”

No prizes for guessing what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

I can do that – just let me get my magic wand

Last year the company I work for decided it was time to update our image – to get away from our eighties inspired pink and grey corporate colours (I’m not joking, it’s like working in Miami Vice!) and move into the now – or at least the nineties.

So, over *many, many, many* months (I love design by committee – NOT) we tried to do the re-branding ourselves with, unsurprisingly, very little success. *Finally* we hired professionals who took a lot less time to give us a new look. Although I think their job was made easier by the fact that everyone was sick and tired of the whole process and just wanted it OVER.

Of course because we’d taken so long the project then got de-railed by economic downturns and the actual re-branding process got put on hold.

Yesterday I get a phone call from the MD…

MD: “The calendars we mail-out are they in the new design?”

Me: “yup”

MD: “Oh. We’d better go ahead and do all that re-branding stuff then.”

Me <thinks> Ya think? “Guess so”

MD: “OK then – can you get that done by the end of next week?”

Me: “Uuuuh…”

MD: “Great!”  he hangs up.

So in one week’s time I need to have new letterhead, new business cards, new templates for documents, PowerPoint, reports, new website, new email addresses, credentials documents, invoices, pay slips, forms, and god only knows what else ready to go.

Thank goodness I have this magic wand I can pull out of my arse when I need it.

Fantastic review of two new blackberries and a G1

Stephen Fry, as well as being a noted actor, writer and raconteur is a bona fide gadget freak (Seriously – he made a film celebrating 25 years of GNU Happy Birthday to GNU)

He has recently reviewed the Blackberry Bold and Storm, and the GI It’s a fantastic review describing the Storm’s keyboard thusly

Watching someone writing an email on a Storm is like watching an antelope trying to open a packet of cigarettes.a

and anyone who has every travelled with more than one electronic device with empathise with the photo of his hotel room desk.

Do yourself a favour – Read it

Blogging for work

One of the MDs came to me yesterday and said

“What do you think about adding a blog to our website? I mean are blogs a good idea – or are they just a passing fad.”

Given I’ve been blogging off and on for about 5 years I did suggest I was the wrong person to ask about whether it was a fad. However, I could see some real benefits to having a corporate blog, it would give us an opportunity to create new content for the site regularly – without it necessarily having to conform with a “news item’ style. It’s one of the ways to really emphasise that in a traditionally very staid market we take a modern approach.

So we had a chat about it and the decision was that we’d try a bit of skunk-works project where we’d start the blog, and then see how we went with regular updates and the like before we made a big song and dance about it.

I guess the next thing will be getting them on twitter.

hmmm

According to ofaust I write like Lewis Carroll,

Since he’s one of my favourite authors I’m not unpleased with that result…