And these are just the ones I know about! I’m no longer surprised by a new sound effect from my iMac (that my dog will bark at thinking it’s the doorbell), or some upper-right-corner alert or bouncing icon, announcing an incoming message from some new something-or-other.

My adeptness in these media varies, as does my tendency to check them (as friends and clients can attest). We all have our favorites, but still, everyone’s favorites are different, which means we have to keep all those channels open, and practice their use. Which means I have to find the instructions to my “stupid phone” so I can be coherent on SMS. (I just found I have 14 unread SMSs!)

Which are best to get hold of me, and why?

• To get my attention: my cell. Voice. It’s always on me, even around the house. I get great reception where I now live, and I check my voicemail.
• Failing that: believe it or not, a tweet. A little red “1″ on the Twitter icon on my iPad would be such a rarity I won’t hesitate to check it.
• To get a document in front of me: email. rick[at]rickwolff.com. Old-school. I’m getting better at checking this often. Really.
• To meet with me long-form: Skype voice. It’s free. We’ll use any of the above media to arrange a session.

What’s your list look like?

• calligraphy.
• staying married for over 20 years.

In my study of calligraphy, especially during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, before movable type turned important documents into pre-printed forms with blanks, marriage contracts were quite decorative objects, as fitting for their function. The tradition held among Judaism, where it’s known as the ketubah. Except in the case of the Jews, this document is still the fulfillment of an expectation, the observation of a tradition. And so modern corners are cut: some aspects, such as the printing of the wording, are computerized. Some of the design that surrounds the wording are pre-printed (it’s harder for a couple to decide what they want than to pick which one they want).

So here’s what I arrived at: WeddedGlyphs.com.

My approach to this will make three changes:

• Detachment from religion, without disrespecting religious influence in wedding traditions.
• Emphasis not on fulfilling family and societal expectations, but instead on expression of individuality.
• Totally made to order, from scratch. As the Brits say, bespoke.

Who are you?

I want to produce a document a couple will treasure their whole lives, that will remind them of who they are at the moment they marry. What are their hopes for the future? Their interests and hobbies? Their inside jokes? What makes them unique? Even if the image captured changes over the years, or even quickly, they’ll have a snapshot of their souls, frozen in time like a fly in amber, captured in a way a photo album or a video can’t.

What’s next?

I imagine the wedding supply industry is a network of mutual recommendations; word of mouth travels fast. My site will showcase others, in and out of the industry, who capture and celebrate individuality. I’d hate to be yet another guy blogging about how a bride (groom too, but mostly the bride) should plan her wedding.

As I write this, I know my next step is to render a few ideas for these heirlooms to show the range I mean.

• For the bikers: a Harley Davidson gas tank with a custom paint job
• For the renfaire goers: a medieval manuscript, with calligraphy and gilding
• For NASCAR devotees: a program cover, with room for all the attendees’ signatures
• For Trekkies: a hand-held computer prop replica (“PADD“), with the couple in uniform

(Of course, no trademark will be used without permission, but there are clever graphic sidesteps that can be taken.)

In the meantime, do you know of any couple planning a wedding anytime soon? My first few will be free, to demonstrate my ability to deliver, and show a couple how easy it will be to interview with me over the Internet (I’m thinking Google+ Hangout).

This isn’t about them. It is, however, about a 5am visit to the Psychotherapist I Can Afford, who also hangs a shingle in my noggin. The session, of indeterminate length (it’s free, who’s counting?), started out grim, but led to an epiphany of sorts.

But First…

Recently, Chris Brogan, an absurdly successful man who himself has either conquered or controlled depression, advises us not to use social media while depressed.

I can vouch for this advice, even as it came late for me. I started with social media in the midst of a jolly old bout: I had trouble in a dead-end job in a newspaper, which I quit without replacing it. It was 2008, in the crescendo of the financial crisis, and I felt untethered, floating around in a car itself floating around in a cargo plane, all three of us careening to the tarmac.

I began with Twitter, of all things. I was kept on through the usual “this is dumb” gauntlet by Laura Fitton (a bit like Mario Andretti teaching you to drive stick). Once I got adept, there then was the question: how shall I be, to get the most out of social media, and to advance, whatever that means?

There are two schools of thought here. To most of you, they’re complimentary (and indeed, only one school); for me, they’re contradictory.

• be friendly, be optimistic, be helpful, care and share.
• be transparent, be vulnerable, open the kimono, give insight into your life.

If I’m at all typical, the reaction of a depressed person to this is, “Which do you want? I can give you the touchy-feely, the rainbows and unicorns, and go through the motions, but it will look fake, because it will be fake. Or I can tell you how little I think I have to contribute, and how I am a liability to the world and not an asset, and give you proof by singing the Depression Song online for all to hear (including future associates who may dig back far enough). You can’t have both.”

I once heard of Depressive Realism, a construct that caused depressed people to prolong their state because they have the sensation of seeing the world as it really is, unencumbered by the mass-delusion that is optimism. They feel the evidence counters any rosy outlook.

So what to do? I settled for a sort of middle-ground: I’d work up a kind of an optimism, in spite of the evidence, and bide my time till I believe it myself, while deep inside is the voice that keeps telling me the truth.

The Session

Which leads me to yesterday morning’s 5am session with the Psychotherapist I Can Afford. I explained to him the middling stance I just explained to you, and how it’d have to do until I figure out how to be optimistic.

PICA: “If that voice telling you that the evidence proves that your life sucks, then why are you still alive? Why don’t you just jump off a bridge? What keeps you going through the day?”

Me: “I’ve been wrong about things before. I’d hate to be wrong about something so huge, and ultimately so… ultimate.”

PICA: “So you think you’re waiting around till optimism happens.”

Me: “Yeah.”

PICA: “Don’t you see? holding out the hope, the possibility that you’re wrong about the bleakness of life, isn’t waiting till optimism happens, it is optimism. It’s the seed of optimism. You’re optimistic.

Me: “Hmm.”

PICA: “Tell me, when’s the last suicidal thought you’ve had?”

Me: “You know very well, it’s been, like, decades.”

PICA: “Dude. If anything, it’s you who should be explaining to me how you do it!”

I went back to sleep.

I’m too cheap to afford a career coach. And probably more in need of one than I realize.

I get the point, that a blog can tell you and potential clients/employers more about me, how I am now, what I’m thinking about, what it’s like to have me wandering your halls or doing business with you remotely. The phrase I most responded to was, “Your résumé is your epitaph.” It’s possible that people are driven away by a blog that reveals too little about me. I can read anything into silence, which is the predominant response from my work-search.

So I’ll start to blog more. I get the point. But what should I put in a blog? What do you want more of from me? I’m here to give posts that my friends know I’m capable of delivering. So let’s here what you have to say.

I’ll be listening in two ways:

• a Google+ Hangout tonight starting at 8pm, and most Wednesday nights from now on;
• the comments section of this post, which is made active and immediately updating by a service called Livefyre.

I’ll be following both throughout the evening. I’m really interested in what you have to say. You may inspire and encourage me, or berate me and tell me off, or whatever. I have nothing in exchange for you; my wife could bake cookies, but I can’t get them to you. (If you think it would be a good business decision to figure out a way of getting cookies to you, tell me that.)

See you tonight, or next Wednesday night!

It used to be a big deal that I have a computer with design software. But between your general need for a fast computer with Internet connection as a modern business, and the availability and ease of open-source and Web-based software, you do your own design now. And I don’t blame you.

There is so much pre-packaged stuff online, either for free or for pennies, that you’d be a fool not to take that, rather than anything I can custom-make you.

If you feel more ambitious, there are sites with “designers” throughout the world, who will bid for your business, driving the price down, or even present you with a final product on spec, that you can accept or reject with no compunction. I can queue up there, and compete with people with a tenth my cost-of-living, who play fast and loose with ethical standards such as plagiarism.

Or you can do without. What is a logo, but a relic of a medieval coat-of-arms? Will your business card make it any slower into the trash due to lack of it, after relevant information is digitally scraped off it?

Oh sure, I could argue that a professional with 30 years of experience has the perspective and knowledge to keep you from making mistakes I’ve seen all too many times. I could prove to you that a dollar invested now will help you make many times that in the perception your prospects will have of your company. But there’s a recession on. And you can’t afford everything you want. And something has to go. Lots of things have to go. I sympathize.

With my financial day of reckoning fast approaching, it’s time I find something you actually need and will still buy, rather than something I have to talk you into wanting, using pitches I don’t even believe any more.

The problem is, I have graphic design in my bones. It’s the one thing I’m any good at.

This may take a while.

I wish I had a while.

Click on this picture to link to the YouTube video. (Embed capability has been removed.)

Let’s get something straight: In the September 12 Republican debate, Ron Paul didn’t say, “Let the uninsured die.” He didn’t come close. In fact, he said the exact opposite.

Moderator Wolf Blitzer posed the hypothetical of an otherwise healthy 30-year-old man who, in spite of common wisdom, couldn’t be bothered to buy health insurance, and finds himself in a coma and needing extreme life-saving measures.

Paul’s response was to remind us of the component of risk inherent in freedom, and the consequences of choosing poorly. Every Aesop’s Fable I can think of has this underlying moral. Remember them?

Mr. Blitzer follows up, “Congressman, are you saying society should just let him die?”

Who says “Yeah!”? People in the crowd! The Neocons! What’s the word that clearly begins Ron Paul’s response?

“No.”

He recalls in his early practice how churches used to take up the slack, suggesting we could return to that or something like it.

I truly wish Dr. Paul had shouted down the Social Darwinist pinheads who cheered the idea of abandoning a fellow human just because he planned his life poorly. Since he didn’t, I will. Here goes.

Shame on you!

Let’s consider two entities: Society and State. Society existed first, by millennia. Society took care of itself, as people took care of each other. Through natural rewards such as hero-worship, role models and “Your money’s no good here, pal,” and punishments such as gossip, shame, ostracism and yes, even banishment, Society got people to be there for everyone’s benefit. And it worked.

Too soon, there were some heavy geopolitical duties that Society thought it couldn’t handle by itself, and so it created the State. (I oversimplify here; my history is more philosophical than empirical.) But as time passed, a more plentiful Society made the mistake of foisting more and more fellow-man duties onto the more powerful State — with famously disastrous results.

Now we find the State can’t tax Society’s markets enough, can’t borrow enough from Society’s theoretical future members, and can’t inflate the money supply fast enough, without attracting catastrophe. Progressives, those holdouts for the dream of a strong and nurturing State, need to be convinced (rightly!) that Society is willing and able to shoulder the burden once again, and that this time it’ll be better, before they’ll let a red pen anywhere near social programs.

So what’s the call from the Social Darwinists in the audience? “Screw them! Let them die!”

In other words: “The Lefties fear that if the State doesn’t take care of people in a jam, no one will. They’re right! There is no more Society! There’s just us! You want humanity? Humanity is for wusses!”

Nice.

And so helpful, too. Just when it’s time for Society (secular institutions as well as churches) to prove it’s willing and able to handle the burden of the citizen who makes bad choices — and would be more able if only it weren’t taxed so much — the Social Darwinist proves the point of the Progressive so well that more words need not be spoken, and Ron Paul’s point to the exact opposite goes unheard under our gasps.

Hey, Conservatives: every political viewpoint has a monkey wrench in the gears. Yours is Social Darwinism. Fix it. Soon.

In each series this summer, there is a pair who can’t get along. One is the designated overinflated ego, and the other is the nemesis with the heart of gold, whom the egohead picks on. (It wouldn’t surprise me if the producers either exacerbated a natural argument or invented it out of whole cloth and assigned these personalities to the “cast members.”) In either team or individual competition, you see their bickering hurting the smooth operation of the kitchen, and you’re sure one of those two aren’t long for this world. But week after week, even as their competitors are forced to the ignominy of nominating them, the pair manage to survive.

In Hell’s Kitchen, not unlike Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, the winner gets hired by Chef Ramsay and in this case installed as a chef in one of his properties. We’d never eat where we knew one of the two hotheads cooked, and Ramsay knows that. Which means the producers, not Ramsay, are picking the rejects. And they’re doing it for the eternal reason: ratings.

The two pairs of feuders. Top: from Hell's Kitchen. Bottom: from MasterChef. I'm sure Fox would like me to include their names.

Conceivably, a really good but uncontroversial cook can fly under the radar, impress Ramsay early on, and win, once the series has sufficiently exploited the Bickersons.

GOP Candidate Ron Paul (now getting to my political point) is that contestant.

Ron Who?

Aside from the literally blind hatred Fox News (official sponsor of the GOP) has for Dr. Paul, as driven home by this video with Jon Stewart, he just isn’t entertaining enough. There’s a “news handle” to the winner, or the guy who enters the race after the poll, or the guy who had the good sense to bail out. (You know who I mean. Don’t make me look them up.)

And let’s face it, Michele Bachmann is entertaining. She’s a YouTube star. And not in a good way. There are all kinds of recordings of her pulling facts out of her you-know-what. We can recite what they are. And when challenged on them by the likes of Bob Shieffer, she uses those classic evasion tactics politicians like her, and her groomers, think still works on us. She’s a hoot and a half. She’s good TV.

The Big Debate. l-r: Santorum, that business guy, Paul, Romney, Bachmann, Pawlenty, I don't know, Gingrich.

But Ron Paul is crummy TV. What do you ask the guy, that he hasn’t answered four years ago? What do you catch him on? (Compared to the things he’s caught us on, like the economic collapse he predicted, for the exact reason he predicted it?)

Unlike Michele Bachmann, it’s tough to be afraid of Ron Paul. Although he’s not perfect, he’s in favor of everything anyone would grant the Right as a good point, and against the things that make anyone afraid of voting Republican. And vice versa. He’s nearly everything everyone says they want.

As I say: bad TV. (But good Internet.)

twg1942 on Flickr — Creative Commons

The call came at 2 am. I instinctively produced just enough adrenaline to handle bad news. But it was Skype spam: “NOTIFICATION – REPAIR REQUIRED.” I made a mental note to change my status in the morning, and went back to bed.

But the adrenaline wouldn’t let me sleep.

I thought of the Old Me and the New Me. This New Me — or more accurately, New Us, that my wife Denise and I have been selling to ourselves and each other, who will take over on October 1. The day we officially occupy a house like the one we’re in now, but in the town of Media, Pennsylvania, closer to Philadelphia than we could ever afford to New York City. (I’ve lived every day of my life in either Westchester or Rockland counties.) Onto this earnest little burg we’re pinning hopes of a better life, in the form of more job choices, a lower cost of living, and more connection to people in general, including a number of friends both my wife and I have each made independently.

I know what you’re thinking. What a responsibility for suburban Philly to shoulder. What high expectations we have, of the magical powers of a state not too different from our own.

Fret not, Keystoners. The transformation won’t be your doing, but ours.

Attitude, Not Latitude

These past few years have been rough, and not just because of my inability to find enough of an income, forcing Denise to shoulder that responsibility even as her body begs her to ease up. There’s been this undercurrent of guilt and resentment — mostly imaginary — that has made us withdraw from living life. We’d get inventive in our excuses. Either she wouldn’t feel up to it, or I’d claim we couldn’t afford it. We wouldn’t dare tally the blown weekends, of opportunities lost or rebuffed; we both knew we’d hate the result.

Home, on a cooler evening

We call it the “New York Attitude”: taking the life that’s plopped onto our plate, without complaint. Hating the word passion. Taking the direct way home. Letting the world deal with itself, and complaining about the result. In my wife’s case, putting up with bored, wealthy Chappaqua housewives with an inflated sense of entitlement, too many headaches, and a taste for controlled prescriptions.

This is our life, up to October 1.

Then there’s the “Pennsylvania Attitude”: being on the lookout for new opportunities, probably as many as we had in New York, but couldn’t tell. Realizing, now that Denise has joined me in our sixth decade on this planet (oy!), that time’s a-wasting. That all the passion-mongers and bromide-slingers on Twitter were right all along. That the things we would do if we could won’t wait until we can. (Ooh, that’s good; I’m gonna tweet that.)

We agreed, “copping a New York attitude” will be our code word, for when one of us withdraws, sleeps in, says no when the other knows the answer is yes.

Look, Up in the Sky

This Friday/Saturday was the night of the Perseid meteor shower, which promised the best show in the Northern Hemisphere that night. In fact, right then. As we went to bed earlier, the New York Attitude said, “I’m not gonna set an alarm clock just to look at a few shooting stars. We know what they look like.” But right then — seven weeks ahead of schedule — the Pennsylvania Attitude whispered, “Go. It’s a beautiful night. You’ll be awake anyway. Mr. Notification did you a favor. Go and look.”

So I did.

I sat there, basking in the coolness, appreciating the lack of dank, though avoiding the dewy grass. My ears rang with a Halleluiah chorus of August crickets. The moon shot a searchlight over the trees and onto the neighborhood. Such peace, such clarity.

Mighty Leo, as a cub

This, of course, was part of the problem. Bucolic Putnam Valley was an early-20th-century vacation haven for New York City, and now a commuter town for the brave and/or crazy. I’m a block away from Lake Oscawana, the stand-in for the Adirondacks in The Sopranos episode. No highways, few neighbors — and what neighbors we have are, after all, fellow New Yorkers. No bundt cake visits, no tool borrowing, no back-fence recipe exchanges. We don’t do that here. We didn’t do that in the more crowded downstate we moved from, either. What’s it to ya?

Berries from our yard

It’s certainly no place to be when you’re underemployed and down to only one car. And the train station 10 miles away, in the opposite direction from the breadwinner’s workplace. And a $20 ride 80 minutes in.

The exurban rusticness makes this an ideal place to retire (with a huge 401k to pay the laughably high property tax). But we still have 20 years to go. And with a bank account that won’t let us retire. And with the tiny ember of a dream that I could still do something from which I’d never want to retire, that would be lucrative enough to let Denise retire, or at least cut back.

Garden Buddha

Still…

I think of the deer foraging on the berries in our front yard (and Denise’s garden), who’d look over at us as if to say, “What?” Like we interrupted them. Of the woods behind the house, that our cat Leo has all staked out as his kingdom (and the vole carcasses he’d leave us). Of all those stars, that Suburbia complains it can’t see any more.

I’ve just had my retirement. In October, I work. So I’ve done things a bit backwards. I’ve had dessert before the main course. I’m allowed.

I manage to keep my eyes open as I sit on the fieldstones that fringe the front garden. My posture mimics the cement Buddha over my right shoulder; I don’t need to look.

I’m glad I didn’t wait for 10/1 to have a taste of the Pennsylvania Attitude.

Even though — or especially because — I didn’t see one god-damn meteor. Not one.

Each of these kinds of glyph-to-sound systems has its cultural heritage, and are favored by different speakers. But one thing is for sure: any of these alphabets are made easier to learn if what you do to one letter to make another letter were consistent. Take English words, for instance. Latin and Greek gave us the prefix and suffix. Take an adjective, and add one of only a few prefixes (un-, de-, anti-), and you have the adjective with the opposite meaning. (Esperanto strove to limit such prefixes to one.) Why don’t we do that with letters/glyphs?

I’m talking about a streamlined version of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Our labial plosive (made by popping air out the lips) is P. When we voice during it, it comes out as B. So, you’d figure, the “rule” to symbolize voice is a little loop on the lower right quadrant of the letter. You’d figure wrong. The lingual plosive (popping air from between tongue-tip and roof of your mouth) is T, but voiced, it’s D: a big old loop. And what’s up with K and G? Or CH (one sound, two letters) and J?

click to see full alphabet

There are ancient reasons why those letters make those sounds. But what if, just for the exercise, we had rules that made similar sounds have similar symbols? You’d have what you see in the drawing at right. Voicing a plosive? Just draw another horizontal line halfway down. Notice the relation not only between P and B, but P and T; you can imagine already what other plosives, like K, will look like.

Vowels and diphthongs have a similar approach. They’re all bi-symmetrical. The farther forward the vowel is pronounced in the mouth (like the ee in beet), the higher up the glyph are the details, and vice-versa. The simplest in form are the classic Latin I E A O U, with other formations in between.

Yes, I know, there are some cheats. Strictly speaking, L isn’t nasal. But I needed to fit it in somewhere. Likewise H and R aren’t great fits. (Sue me. Get your own alphabet.)

Some examples of words are at the bottom of the image of the full alphabet. I’m a fan of ligatures, so long as they don’t obscure the identity of the conjoined glyphs.

This design lends itself to existing typefaces. The one I used in this chart is based on Myriad.

An example of the geeky stuff I think about sometimes. Feel free to play with it, and let me know what you come up with. Or improve on it.

The proof is the latest release from my new client, the Texas-yet-worldwide marketing consultancy Turning Minds. Titled Embracing Twitter…So It’ll Embrace You Back, editors Ben Henick (@bhenick) and Justin McCullough (@mccJustin) curate an anthology of wisdom about business use of Twitter, from foreworder Liz Strauss (@LizStrauss), Phil Gerbyshak (@PhilGerb), Becky McCray (@BeckyMcCray) and Chris Garrett (@chrisgarrett), just to name those whom I’d heard of before helping out on this book.

I took the task of the overall design and production, exploring non-Flash interactive capabilities of the PDF format for maximum compatibility. The PDF standard has a lot going for it, and there’s little reason why ebooks can’t pick a few entrees from this menu. I truly had fun doing it, and look forward to topping it.

The scariest challenge was the final one: how to get the size down beneath 8mb, so it could be easily attached to an email. My experiments brought it down from about 30mb to a svelte 1.9mb, with almost no loss of content. I learned tricks I’ll be able to apply in every similar job.

To see the results for yourself, and to pick the brains of these 36 experienced Twitter practitioners, download your free copy, and tell all your friends. You’d be doing everyone involved a favor — including me.