Penguin Donkey Coffee Table Goodness.

This table is originally from 1939 and made to hold about 80 Penguin books. I would love, love, love something like this in my living room.

Is It Geeky That I Want This? Monster Laptop Stand

Made me laugh. MonsterMonster

Cannondale Knows Their Audience - Video To Prove It.

Wytze's graduation project for Cannondale from Eelke D. on Vimeo.

When a brand wants to make a video for their audience - this should be their inspiration. This incredibly cool bike is for urban women but what's really interesting is how well they know exactly who they want to purchase this bike. Kudos!

Have Patience With Everything... But Mostly Social Media.

photo from Asiria / Flickr
No one has ever called me patient. Ever. Not to my face or behind my back or any other time that I can remember. I find people who walk slow unbearable. Which I why when I dole out that advice so often I do genuinely feel a bit hypocritical. And I understand when people don't want to be patient or why they think that me telling them to be patient is just me lying to them about if social media works or not.
With all of this in mind, I'm writing a post about patience with social media.


Why We're In Such A Hurry
Basically everyone has heard some story about Ford or Best Buy and how they attribute social media to huge sales. If you knew there were a way to turn an online conversation on Twitter into profits wouldn't you be in a pretty big hurry to try it? Of course you would, so brands call social media agencies to help them figure out how to take their slumping sales and turn them into millions by the first of the year. When I'm a part of these meetings I ask about goals in social media and what they're doing on their site and on Twitter and then I ask them their timeline and brace myself. Sometimes I catch myself wincing.
"We want to do a 2 month test." This is hands down the most common answer I've heard in the last 2 years and it is, for the record, a fine answer.

Why We Get So Annoyed
2 months is kind of a tipping point for a lot of people in social media for 2 reasons.
1) The novelty has worn off and Twitter is just something you have to update, your fans on Facebook are slowing to a trickle, and maybe someone commented negatively on your corporate (or personal) blog. You no longer are thinking about how awesome it is that your brand has friends online and you're wondering what good this is bringing the company. Maybe it has increased sales a bit and maybe it hasn't. You start to wonder if you're wasting your time.
2) Some of your messaging isn't working with your audience and you know you have to change it but you don't know what to change it to. A lot of companies have only a Plan A when it comes to social and month 2 is where you can really start optimizing. If you know how.

So What Can You Expect After 2 Months?
I am always telling bloggers not to give up their blog because no one is reading it. In fact, the only things you can definitely expect after 2 months of blogging are sharpened writing skills and a better idea of what doesn't work. Most people will have under 30 readers after 2 months of blogging.
If you extend this to social media in general, you can expect much the same. A better understanding of the channels that you are using, what works, what doesn't, and some good tricks you've picked up along the way. Can you think up a great stunt and see leverage in 2 months? Yes. But that's a spike, not necessarily the makings for a good long term social presence.

To avoid the loss of novelty issue it's important to have good goals for social media on the outset. Pretty much anything can become a chore at some point so if you are only doing a company Twitter feed because Twitter is fun then you will likely get bored with it and stop updating it. If your Twitter goal is to find and respond to 20 industry related questions per week then it becomes part of your job or your routine. Specific goals let you know that you are moving forward even if you are bored with your blog this week.

To solve the issue of "Plan A didn't work, now what?' you've got to keep detailed data of why certain content isn't working and be listening online. If you aren't getting any comments or responses at all then you probably need to focus on building your audience which means you'll need to listen more. For example, if you are a flooring business and you want to talk about your new product line and no one is responding I'd wager that if you start listening to conversations you'll find your audience is taking about something else. Like which flooring matches which kind of countertops or the best ways to clean flooring. Now if you don't listen at all, you won't figure this out and you'll continue to talk about your new flooring items and people will continue to not comment. In other words, your Plan B should be reactive to what's going on online already.

A Word Of Encouragement
Have patience with your social media endeavor, whether it's a personal blog or a new campaign. If at 2 months you haven't come very far don't give it up. Lots of really successful campaigns getting attention right now are only pretending that they just woke up, tried it, and yay... profits! I know for a fact that Ford has a rather long trail of trial and error behind the Fiesta program.

Dripping Lights - Thanks Denmark!

How are the Dutch coming up with such clever lighting lately? Aren't these great? Studio Mango has some really great product designs on their site and their crew looks like a really fun group to work with. Check them out.

Travel Much? Samsonite Trolley Luggage

With the Holidays, people getting married, and the New Jerseyite's family being in, well.... New Jersey we've been traveling a lot. I've tried carry on, check your bag, ways to carry bath products, and I'm getting pretty good at getting through without much hassle (no small feat). My Dad, who has a total knee replacement gets the complete search down every single time we go through security ( whole other story). He comes out of the security area saying "those guys never smile...."
Anyway, this little travel suitcase looks really handy. Plus, it's on a scooter. Which is obviously more fun.
My 2 Cents: Dear Samsonite - if you want to sell a whole load of these quickly you should target the SXSW crowd. I could just see every other person there with one of these!

It's Winter now - Hot Chocolate Time.

In winter I become an even worse addict of warm drinks than I normally am since you can add hot chocolate and spiced Cider to the mix along with the coffee and tea I normally drink to excess. Today I found these hot chocolate spoons from the Chocolate Company with flavors like Strawberry and Pink Pepper, Brownie, and Amaretto and Macaroons (pictured above, that little vial is real amaretto to pour in).
If you live in the Madison area you MUST MUST MUST go to David Bacco's chocolate shop in Hilldale Mall and have the hot chocolate there. It is hands down the most amazing thing you will ever have.

Personal Branding Vs. Online Writing

photo by Hazar Sultan
I have a lot of trouble with personal branding. I think most people do which is why there are so many personal branding coaches out there. Good ones. I usually end up talking to them about the city they live in or their families or social circle because I don't think I can ever reconcile the two brands I currently have: a quirky social media addict and a nonfiction writer that now and again feels the need to tell people about how I ran away from college in Iowa or the thrill of spray painting my favorite lines of poetry under bridges.
Personal branding coaches will tell you to write for other people - for the perception of you online. There should be consistency of message across the Internet and other really sound advice. Writing coaches will tell you to write about things not necessarily thinking of your audience. Big problem. Here's a great writing quote from Mary Karr's new book (one of my heroes):

"Tell your stories and your story will be revealed... don't be afraid of appearing angry, small minded, obtuse, mean, immoral, amoral, calculating, or anything else. Take no care for your dignity."

Since I don't want my personal brand to be "that small minded, amoral social media consultant" I have had to have 2 brands online. I don't know what the personal branding coaches would think about this I haven't asked Dan yet. When I write under my personal brand or for clients I am constantly thinking about how my audience will perceive my message and when I write a piece of nonfiction I have to sit near the quote above which is taped inside my writing book and look at it every time I want to delete a sentence that makes me seem mean, small minded, obtuse, or any of those lovely qualities (there are many).

So my word of advice to online writers, bloggers, and those seeking to perfect their personal brands is it's okay to have 2 if they clash with one another and when you are creating something to first think about which brand you are writing for and create accordingly.

Maluca - El Tigeraso Or "Let's Watch Something Different"

El Tigeraso

MALUCA | MySpace Music Videos

This is awesome on so many levels. I'd use Red Bull cans instead of beer cans. Happy Thursday.

Uber Modern Dentist Office - Japan

I love this design but I am one of those people that fears the dentist. Actually, just looking at this picture makes me start feeling nervous.
Very cool, modern building but it's maybe a bit clinical for those of us that would rather visit a spa-dentist (does that exist?). In fact, I can almost imagine Nurse Ratchett coming through those doors.

Driftwood Lights -

Bleu Nature makes the coolest natural home lighting. The site is completely worth going to - I can't read a word but their products are a cross between vacation, spa, and of course, the beach.

Chick-Fil-A Teams Up With The Police Dept. Is This Ok?

How strange is this? Southern California Police will be handing out free Chick-Fil-A sandwich coupons to drivers who are wearing their seatbelts when they get stopped. I have no clue how Chick-Fil-A pulled this one off and it seems just a touch sketchy being that the Police maybe shouldn't be doing advertising....
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Read the full story.

Essentials For Social Media And Writers: Something To Say.

I haven't written seriously in a few years and have started to really get rolling again because I went to Mexico and had some strange kind of writing reality check. My excuse for not writing both publicly and to myself had been "I haven't done anything interesting in a while.... I don't have anything good to say".
In my defense, I spent a great deal of time in my early 20's wandering around the country by green truck doing "interesting" things every day. It was not, I should mention, very lucrative. I'd say in comparison I haven't been doing quite as may "interesting" things as of late at least not in the crazy adventure "you'll-never-guess-who-I-saw-in-the-gas-station-bathroom" kind of way.

Interesting things are also the big currency in social media. With social media everyone is a creator. Everyone is a writer, photographer, and short quip-sayer in order to get people to listen to you and do something like buy your product, follow your Twitter feed, or read your blog.
This adds up to a lot of scrambling in a lot of marketing departments for clever, witty, and relevant content.

Lots of companies I meet with say they are boring and sometimes they are. Plus, lots of people who quit their blogs say that they ran out of things to say. This is basically writer's block. So how do companies and writers start coming up with interesting content?

It's okay to write about struggle even if you're a huge company. I have a quote that I like by Samuel Beckett that says "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail Again. Fail better." Have I slept in my car in Arizona lately? No. But I have struggled like hell this year with clients, starting my own company, balancing work and relationship, and trying to write again. Struggle is interesting. Companies that can let their audience in on even a little of their struggles will seem more real than the ones constantly tweeting about their latest sale or promotion.

You don't have to get caught up in the posting twice a day, Tweeting once every minute, Facebook update mania that a lot of companies and people think they need to stay relevant. A well placed Tweet or post will serve you better than pure quantity.

Think about what makes you different or why you see things differently. For me, I like to pick on companies with terrible ad campaigns since I am dorky enough to follow ad campaigns (I also say nice things about good ones). I also have a family that lives on a farm even though I didn't grow up on a farm and sometimes I have to go out there and help them in winter. This involves camouflage snowsuits, chasing donkey's around, and feeling like a hillbilly. For an insurance company maybe you see everything in terms of liability. If you look at things on your walk to work just in terms of liability there could be a lot of pretty interesting tweets or posts in there.

Just because nothing "happened" doesn't mean something interesting isn't going on.

Look, Mexico Has Chocolate Lucky Charms!

Kellog is holding out on us.... these look delicious!

Diving Into The Wreck.

I don't have my diver's certification but it doesn't stop me from diving while I'm in Mexico. The hour pool lesson you get is enough, I suppose, to put your life in the hands of a 2 foot tube with the lines of my favorite poem "Diving Into The Wreck" by Adrienne Rich running through my head the whole time.
"I put on the body armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask"

"I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun flooded schooner but here alone."

You can't talk to anyone else while you are diving. The world goes on blue mute and thoughts from the very back of your mind can come floating in. Thousands of miles from Madison, Wi. and 35 feet below the ocean with sea turtles and eels I run into myself at age 21.

At the ripe old age of 21 I had decided that Mexico would be a great place to write, drove down to Juarez and paid a woman at the Mexican border $80 to watch my car for a month. I hopped a bus not knowing its destination and hoped my truck would still be there when I got back. I don't know if I would have the balls to do it now. I read the news too much or have grown out of my recklessness.
"My flippers cripple me"

I had come up with this idea of writing in Mexico not because I am a brave and adventurous soul. I was there because I was fresh off of my unceremonious departure from the Iowa Writer's Workshop where I had written for hours a day to get them to let an undergrad like me in. When they finally relented to my constant badgering and agreed to let me attend the classes, I showed up expecting adoration from my writer peers like I had received in my undergrad classes. Most of them didn't like my writing and one guy who already had a book deal (he tells us this within the first 5 minutes of the class) showed up and said that he refused to read my entry. It was quote really a piece of crap end quote.
That made me go all the way to Mexico.
"I came to explore the wreck."

I ended up in a tiny town late at night hoping that the small hotel in my Mexico book would be open and when it wasn't (It had been closed for years) I asked the last shop owner who was just closing up what I should do in my terrible spanish. He tells me his friend can rent me an apartment if I go knock on her door. This leads to my beachfront apartment writing about sharks for a week which never sees the light of day in my writing workshops. It is years before I show any writing to a living soul again.

How funny that my sister's gorgeous wedding brings me face to face with this. She is moving forward into a new part of her life and I am moving backward to Iowa City and poems I haven't read in years. The trip surprised me and now that I'm back, I'm not too sure what to do with it.
You know how when you come home from a long trip you want to just give up everything and open a taco stand somewhere?

She Sells Seashells By The Seashore....Learning To Relax

Pic from Kitsune Noir
I head to Mexico on Saturday for my sister's wedding and 8 laptop-free days. Except I really don't know if I can even do 8 laptop-free days. I don't think I've ever tried before and that's kind of sick I know.
Here are some great sites to teach us to relax or go on a virtual vacation.... and be happy. Much like my margarita's will do.
The Happiness Project
Color Me Katie
Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life
Zen Habits
Matador Travel

Threadless And Griffin Collaborate And Become An Artist Platform.

Threadless + Griffin = one awesome case! from Threadless.com on Vimeo.

So Threadless is venturing outside of the T-shirt world and into the world of the Jam Jacket. If you don't know what those are, they're iPhone cases (also I plan to use that word a lot more liberally like as in "you're such a Jam Jacket")
What I like is that Threadless is saying they want to be a platform for artists to get their work onto products and they certainly are well on their way to that goal.

Wait... Is The Internet The New Art?

Miltos Manetas has a ton of websites. This is one of them. Just this page. How will we categorize this type of art?

If You Are Being Paid To Be An Expert, Don't Be Afraid To Give Your Opinion.

I went to get my haircut a few weeks ago and when I made the appointment, I was asked what level of hair designer I wanted.
"What levels do you have?" I asked
"6. Level 1 is for recently graduated students all the way up to our top designers at level 6." The receptionist told me.
I didn't understand that. Basically, she wants to know if I want someone who knows what they are doing to do my haircut or not right? So, I go for the highest level because I want a good haircut even though it was really expensive.
When I show up for the appointment, the "hair designer" comes out and asks me 800 questions about my hair, if I color it, when I cut it last,etc. Fine. Great. Then she starts asking me what kind of haircut I want. She asks me how long my layers should be and what to do around my face. She asks me within an inch how long the layers should be and if I wanted the back to be longer or an inch shorter and this went on and on for about 30 minutes.
Finally I just said "look, I'm paying you $180 to do my haircut! I came to you because you are supposed to be good at this. Shouldn't you be telling me what will look good?"
Perhaps that was a little abrasive but I was paying for an expert. I expected one that had some opinion of what I should do. I didn't learn how to do hair, how should I know how long my layers should be?
I also see this in client meetings all the time. Teams of people who are being paid as experts that don't give any kind of expertise. Guiding I can certainly understand but by giving a client (of any kind from hair to advertising to landscaping) a thousand questions so that there is no real thought work being done by the expert is not good work.
Clients want to feel like they are in good hands when they choose any kind of expert and the people that have confidence in their work enough to tell a client that going platinum blonde is an awful idea or that their marketing campaign is actually turning people off is part of that expertise.

Blu Dot Puts Free Chairs All Over NYC.

Blu Dot has placed designer chairs free for the taking all over NYC, some with GPS installed so you can follow the chairs via Twitter. Really cool idea, wonder if it will work or if people will take out the GPS? Follow the chairs.