Writer Way

Big wow!

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 19:45:00 +0000

I just got an email from the son of the elderly woman that Smokey the cat "adopted." The cat has been living in her greenhouse for three or four years now.

We brought Smokey to our place to have him indoors during the cold snap, and returned him to them when the weather warmed on up Thanksgiving. After unboxing Smokey in the living room, they decided to let him stay inside the house for the day. That night, they put him in the laundry room so she wouldn't trip over him in the dark. As is so often the case with this sort of thing, once the cat was inside, it was impossible to put him back out in the greenhouse.

"He has already found a couple of favorite places to sleep, and has shown absolutely no interest in setting foot outdoors," the son wrote. "Wish we had brought him inside years ago."

I have been tracking and worrying over this unusual cat as he moved from elderly person to elderly person for the past 10 years. Now that this woman's son is involved, and the cat is indoors, I think Smokey has finally found a permanent home. I don't think I will be needing any more Christmas presents this year.

Writer Way is moving!

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:45:00 +0000

The Writer Way blog has relocated as of Feb. 21, 2009. You'll find the blog (including the complete archive of all past posts and comments) at WriterWay.com.

Please bookmark that new address!

Remembering Photonica

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:49:00 +0000

Doug Plummer blogged recently about trends in stock photography, mentioning the distinctive images ("dreamy photographs of flowers and water") available for license some years back from a company in New York called Photonica. (Some images from that collection still available through Getty).

Many of the images I purchased for Apple's iCards program were from Photonica, and those were often the most popular cards. The dreamy quality of the images captured the imagination and inspire people to customize them with their own captions and messages.

One of the most popular images was of a glass heart wrapped in barbed wire. I was so entranced by it myself that I created a little sculpture along those lines which now hangs in my office.

Happy (well, at least thought-provoking) Valentine's Day!

When should you write "for exposure?"

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:15:00 +0000

The economy is putting many experienced writers out of jobs and leaving once-busy freelancers fretting over shrinking contracts and vanishing clients. I've had one client go out of business and two others are capping my hours on particular pieces of work.

At the same time, there's still a lot of writing work available. Many companies are advertising for freelancers to come in and do the writing work previously handled by staff writers or agencies. But the bad news is that some of this work has plenty of strings attached and suspiciously little money.

What I'm talking about is a freelancing issue that's always out there, but which comes into greater prominence in tough times: Working for exposure.

It's tempting to work free ("for exposure") to develop a portfolio in an area where you may have some experience, but no published or bylined pieces to show to a prospective employer or client. It's even more tempting to work for exposure when times are bad, and you have available hours to fill.

As a rule, I don't think writers should work for little or no pay. It's demeaning to the writer, and it's unfair to others in the writing field who charge professional-level hourly rates so they can pay the rent and eat.

But...rules are meant to be broken. And some "pay for exposure" gigs can be just the stepping stone you need to go on and land a great contract or position. Here are some ways to tell if a "pay for exposure" gig is going to be worth your time and effort:

• The people who hire you should be taking the same chances you are. A talented friend doing a start-up who needs you to write the website might be worth your time. A well-paid manager hired by an out-of-state company to recruit a herd of starry-eyed freelancers via Craig's List is not.

• The publication or website you are writing for should look professional. It should be attractive, sound intelligent, and be kept up to date. Otherwise your "exposure" is likely to be of the embarrassing type. If you find yourself being hired to post fake comments on a rival company's website, flee!

• The "pay for exposure" work agreement should be clearly seen by all parties as a short-term stepping stone for you — not the start of a system in which you work your way up in their organization. Sadly, it's not unusual for the types of companies that offer "work for exposure" to try to make the writer feel there is some obligation to stick with the company at low wages because it "gave you exposure." Keep in mind that when you work for free, you're giving a company hundreds or thousands of dollars of writing. You have absolutely no further obligation to them.

• You should be having fun, and truly developing your writing skills. This is your chance to prove yourself in a new area of writing, and, if you are lucky, to collaborate with a great editor or a great designer to make your work shine.

Where the editorial grass is greener

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:45:00 +0000

Can a writer transition from technical communications to MarCom work mid-career? In the past few weeks several friends with extensive experience in technical writing and editing have voiced just such an ambition. One wrote:

"I want to shift away from computer-related content, but I'm finding it difficult to make the case that my experience in technical editing carries over to editing other types of material."

As someone who's played the role of a writer or editor in a wide range of areas over the past several years before settling in MarCom territory, I think I can shed some light on why technical writers and editors are rarely a good fit in marketing or corporate communications teams. The following remarks are in no way intended to disparage MarCom folks, or technical communications folks. But it's become clear to me that these are two quite different cultures, and a transition between them is far more drastic than most people realize.

These days I am blessed to work closely with an experienced technical editor (and procedures writer) who copy edits my work on websites and catalogs. However, on the occasions that I ask him to edit my writing for brochures, blogs, and sales letters, we both take a deep breath and know there are going to be some frustrations. Here's why:

• As a technical editor, he wants to correct everything; as a MarCom writer, I only want corrections done to a certain level. The document shouldn't embarrass anyone, but if two words are hyphenated in a footnote on page two, and don't have a hyphen in the index 70 pages later? Big deal.

• As a technical editor, he cringes at jargon, sentence fragments, hyperbole, and little gaps in logic. These are pretty much the hallmarks of MarCom writing.

• As a technical communicator, he'd like to see the style guide I'm using. Oh dear. Many of my clients don't have style guides, and, if they did, they probably wouldn't refer to them.

If things get a bit edgy when a technical editor and a MarCom writer collaborate, things can get even more stressful when a technical writer embarks on a MarCom writing assignment. Here are the areas where significant cultural disconnects tend to occur:

• Balance. If a product has eight features, the technical writer wants to see each feature given equal space, or at least equal weight in the formatting. When I'm wearing my MarCom hat, I'm likely to go on at length about the hottest two features, mention a couple of others in the next paragraph, and completely ignore the rest; after all, they're covered in the attached specs. When I try to sell this approach to someone from a technical communications background, the reaction is either incredulity or contempt.

• Time/money. I hesitate to describe actual incidents here, but my experience has been that technical writers are used to long timelines (measured in weeks) and a period at the beginning of the project in which many, detailed questions are discussed with the client. The technical writer often expects to be able to ask the client questions as they work.

By contrast, MacCom writers are used to getting a short, initial briefing and a 48-hour deadline for creating a strong document, or at least a sample section. When it comes to formatting and style, the writer is often expected to make independent decisions and recommendations to the client. Relying on the formatting or style of previous documents rarely works, because the client company is inevitably in the process of changing designs (or designers).

The MarCom team is also likely to change the scope of the project in mid-stream — dramatically, at times — and the writer dives in afresh. Technical writers tend to regard it as poor planning when what started as an eight-page brochure ends up as a two-page brochure with a sales letter attached. The MarCom writer accepts it as business as usual.

One technical writer was shocked to see a Marcom client of mine review something I'd spent several hours on, announce "We want something completely different," and send me off in a whole new direction — with a deadline in 24 hours. The technical writer viewed that at a scandalous waste of the client's money; I had to keep pointing out that the client was spending the money, not me, and my initial piece of writing may well have been an experiment the client needed to see as part of their process.

So, here's the bottom line, and my advice to technical communications folks who want to move into MarCom: If you can thrive in a fast-moving, free-form, sometimes dramatic environment, go for it. But if you love a good style guide, a detailed production schedule, and documents that emerge looking pretty much the way they were described in the initial assignment? Don't give up your technical communications job.

Way beyond blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:05:00 +0000

A year ago, Peggy Sturdivant, a Seattle neighborhood news blogger, invited me to do a joint presentation for a PR class (the PR Certificate program) at the University of Washington.

We've been invited back to present again this year, and, as I'm putting together my notes, I'm discovering two things:

1. That the role of blogging in PR (and in several other areas of business and professional communication) has changed fairly dramatically in the past 12 months; what were emerging trends in January 2008 are so established as to be taken for granted today. (More on this to come.)

2. That the way information is presented in a classroom is pretty much light years away from how I communicate online. It's slow, it's boring, it's cumbersome. Classrooms need presenter computers connected to a large-screen TV or projector screen. In reality, they have nothing but whiteboards or a non-functioning setup that theoretically allows a presenter's computer to be connected to a screen, but which, in reality, never works because some cord is missing or some software isn't compatible. Sigh.

Anyway, on to the actual presentation.

Most of what I'll be presenting tonight are short tips that students can explore later by clicking through to these following links on this blog. Tips are likely to include:

1. Online PR has gone way beyond websites and blogging.

Suggested reading:
Barry's Hurd's "Social Media Demographics and Analytics 2008-2009" in which Barry comments that "such things as reputation and brand impact will be occurring real-time 24/7."

2. Fortunately for those of us who do PR, a much more realistic attitude now exists about blogging. It's been demystified; is no longer viewed as a magic bullet.

Suggested reading:
Darren Rouse's post on getting fast traffic to a blog.

3. Unfortunately, the new "magic bullet" that CEOs read about in airplane magazines and decide their marcom folks must create immediately is "community." That's simple but difficult to create and maintain. Instead, you need to participate in robust existing communities, a behavior with is antithetical to old-school corporate behavior. ("But is has to have our name on it!")

Suggested reading:
Barry Hurd's "PR is killing itself and it hurts to laugh"

Chris Pirillo's YouTube video on creating community.

4. SEO is now the "hot new thing," a PR essential for blogging and websites.
• Basic SEO is easy.
• More sophisticated SEO is not for amateurs and should always start with analytics before you throw money into implementing SEO.
• Gray-hat (shady) SEO is not as smart as the people telling your company to do it thinks it is. It can, and will, turn around and embarrass you.
• Make sure you understand "social bookmarking" and "tags" of all kinds. You may not need to use them, but you need to know if you need to use them.

Suggested reading:
Boing Boing's post "Motorola, could you please tell your viral marketer to get out of our comments?"

5. Twitter PR is free and powerful, but not easy. (Hint: It's not advertising, it's information.) And, watch how closely it's linked to blogs. Think of it as a headline for your blog posts or for your comments on other blog posts, plus a way to create the credibility that will bring others to your blog.

Suggested reading:
Sign up for a Twitter account and follow:
• moniguzman (Monica Guzman, writer of the P-I's big blog)
• hrheingold (Howard Rheingold, social media theorist and professor — you'll get links to his class materials)
• joehageonline (Joe Hage is putting social media principles into action, right in front of you, in his work as a MarCom director at a major corporation, and then explaining it on his blog)
• UDistFoodBank (excellent use of Twitter by a non-profit)
• chrispirillo (Chris epitomizes the concepts of branding and communication; watch how he uses Twitter to drive traffic)

Book review bugaboos

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:03:00 +0000

Some years back, I did quite a bit of book reviewing for January Magazine; I miss that, and am looking forward to doing a small book reviewing project for Publisher's Weekly this spring.

This piece by Bob Harris in The New York Times was a painful reminder about some of the hackneyed adjectives book reviewers too often find themselves using. I've been able to avoid "poignant" and "eschew." But I have to admit, when it comes to "intriguing" — guilty!

Think before you shrink

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 03:33:00 +0000

Web 1 Marketing has a great post on how shrinking a URL (using services such as TinyURL or BudURL) works and how it affects SEO. Turns out there are two different types of redirects at work, and one is preferable to the other. If you are shrinking URLs for SEO work, you'll want to check this out.

Getting down and dirty with domain names

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:33:00 +0000

Domain names cost $10 a year, but can be worth thousands of dollars.

As a client of mine has painfully discovered.

She purchased a domain name for her small business and built a website. (Let's call her Jane Doe, and let's call the site "www.janedoesbreads.com.") Then she started advertising her business on the web and also in print newspapers, newsletters, and magazines.

Then the trouble started. It's common for people to mis-type a URL, so many of her customers and prospective customers were typing in:

"www.janedoesbread.com"

or

"www.janedoebreads.com"

Both of which are just slightly wrong.

What surprised them, and Jane, was that these wrong URLs took them not to some error page, or to some Jane Doe's website in Nebraska, but to the site of her arch-rival (let's call them Evil Empire Sourdough).

Turns out Evil Empire had bought up, for $10 each, a half-dozen domain names that sounded similar to Jane's. (And, being not just evil but very savvy, the sourdough purveyors had also purchased a batch of sound-alike names for their own site to protect themselves from retaliatory traffic pilferage.)

How do we know this? We looked up all the site ownership info at Network Solutions.

So, how much traffic is being diverted from Jane's site, and how many people, once diverted, are instead ordering their loaves from Evil Empire? It's hard to tell. But if you see Jane wielding a bread knife any time soon, I'd advise you to run the other way.

There's not much my client can do about this situation, but I'm telling you her story for obvious reasons: If you're investing in a domain name for your business, buy up a dozen or more of the sound-alikes and look-alikes to protect yourself.

Two more things

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:03:00 +0000

A few final words (from me, at least) on Macworld 2009:

I missed Chris Pirillo's talk on community (ironically, while having a wonderful lunch with a key member of my own community, a person who mentored me at Apple). But I watched the video of Chris' talk on YouTube, and it was impressive.

"Putting something in front of people and expecting something to happen is asinine," he warned. "So what is it that makes community happen? It's all about what happens in your heart."

This is a must-see for anyone who is attempting to create a community, online or off -- or for anyone who works, as I do, with clients who aspire to create communities. Now I'm budgeting so I can attend the next Gnomedex, Chris' annual tech conference.

Huge accolades go IDG, the company that organizes Macworld. This year's conference seemed to delight presenters, vendors, and attendees. Everyone was crediting IDG's vice-president Paul Kent for the success of the event. I am still trying to figure out how this guy orchestrated the conference and managed to play in rock bands at two late-night conference parties during the week!

Rickshaw: Most beautiful booth at Macworld

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:31:00 +0000

Rickshaw Bagworks

Rabbits' ears, dragons' eyes, and more from Macworld

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:51:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO -- The mood at Macworld this week is upbeat and professional. While it's clear that Macworld-without-Apple will be a different event in 2010, it's now seeming likely that "different" may be quite good.

The conference organizers, IDG, have definitely set the tone by putting on a 2009 Macworld that is possibly the best run Expo in years. For the first time, AT&T phone reception for iPhones, and WiFi for a variety of devices, is available throughout the facility. (Phone reception and WiFi not just a frill -- I wasted far too much time at last year's Macworld traipsing upstairs and outside of Moscone several times a day to leave/get voicemail messages for/from people I was trying to connect with inside the hall.)

This year's registration (online and onsite) was quick and smooth, and the food offerings, while pricey as usual, offered quality and variety (including Peets coffee). Paul Kent, one of the IDG honchos, made great use of Twitter to provide Macworld news (and, likely, to monitor conferees' reactions). (How this guy also had energy to perform with his rock band at Macworld parties at night is beyond me.)

This year's silliness quotient was filled by Peachpit Press, which gave out full-size pink and white bunny ears to advertise their Moxie series. It's truly amazing how idiotic people look in business casual and bunny ears, and how many people were willing to wear the headgear. It became clear that either the geek crowd has no fashion sense, or the Moscone Convention Center has too few mirrors.

It seems as though the creation of the iPhone apps store has revitalized the third-party developer scene, opening the door to the low-budget creative developers who once made the Mac platform so exciting. The iPhone and iPod accessories vendors are out in force, and so are the major manufacturers of cameras and high-quality printers.

My "must have" discovery at Macworld this year is something called the Dragon Eye webcam, from the folks at S&D, who offered the futuristic and whimsical Dragon i video and music stations for the iPod. The Dragon Eye is a flexible, rotating USB webcam for a laptop that is, as far as I can tell, the only webcam of its type with adjustable LED lighting. I'd do quite a bit more video casting if my office webcam didn't have me looking like a shadowy burgler caught on bank security camera. Unfortunately, the Dragon Eye is not yet distributed in the U.S.

Which brings me to the story of the videocast that put me on the other side of the camera. About 40 minutes after arriving at Macworld Tuesday morning, I ran into Steve Sande, author of Take Control of iWeb. He was doing coverage of the Expo Hall for AOL weblogs, which is apparently part of The Unofficial Apple Weblog, better know as TUAW. A friend and I yakked with Steve at some length, and were rather surprised to find a few hours later that the whole interview, which had some decidely zany moments, was up on the TUAW site.

In the next 48 hours, I heard from half a dozen folks I hadn't talked with in years, some of whom I'd had no idea were even interested in Apple coverage.

Hot news out of Macworld

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:20:00 +0000

I have it from an unimpeachable source that something way cool is going to be announced. He could not, however, reveal what. But he's highly credible, and if he says it's cool, it will be. Stay tuned.

From Ad Hominem to Weasel Wording

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:07:00 +0000

At a delightful New Year's Day party in North Oakland, I met Don Lindsay, a technology professional and skeptic whose website includes A List of Fallacious Arguments. The list starts with Ad Hominem (attacking the speaker instead of the argument: "Well, but everyone knows he's a liberal apologist.") and ends with Weasel Wording (similar to euphemism: "It's not a war, it's a police activity.").

Don also has written the succinct essay "Why Do Favors?" Reading it will cheer you up after you've come to grips with the fallacious arguments.

Meet my most colorful client

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:48:00 +0000

I'm in San Francisco this week, visiting friends and attending Macworld, which opens tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle (where they've got another foot of snow to contend with) the Post-Intelligencer has profiled one of my favorite (and certainly, most colorful) clients, The Purple Store.

What's Twitter, and why I love it

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:34:00 +0000

If you work in an environment filled with friendly, fascinating people, where you continually hear about exciting news (local, online, and around the world), and you are encouraged to be witty and playful, then you don't need Twitter.

However, I work in a cubicle in my house (really -- I had a surplus Herman Miller cubicle installed here) and the cats have their limitations as colleagues.

Thus, five or six times a day, I Twitter. I take a look at what people are saying, throw in some of my own teasers, check "@" replies, answer publicly posted questions, and look at private "direct mail" I receive. My Twitter breaks correspond to the pattern I followed when I worked in a traditional office: Greet people on arrival, mid-morning coffee break, lunch, mid-afternoon break, and departure in the evening. The one addition is that I'm likely to check Twitter once or twice in the evening -- by which time most of us are talking about what we're cooking for dinner or what activities we're up to (shopping, yoga, classes, crafts, dealing with the kids, etc.)

Who, you might ask, are these people I'm Twittering with? Well, unlike the real office where you are usually stuck with a few folks you don't want to deal with, on Twitter you hear only from the people you want to hear from -- you select the individuals you follow.

I've selected colleagues from my past jobs in tech, clients and colleagues from my current SEO work, leaders in the Seattle social media and blogging field, some bellydance, yoga, and fitness folks, and -- here's the twist -- their friends. This "second tier" of Twitter is where it gets really interesting. I see my friends commenting on other people's remarks, and I get curious about the other people, who often get curious about me, and the next thing I know we're exchanging tips on everything from cooking to software. Or meeting in Ballard for lunch.

Twitter is also a great way of keeping up on what's going on with friends from out of town. This way you don't end up finding out, months after the fact, that they've changed jobs, moved, or split up with their significant others. You pick it up on Twitter, and can jump in with an appropriate private direct message.

I most often use Twitter from a web browser, but there are a variety of third party apps that let you read and post Tweets from a smart phone. (This list includes desktop widgets and smart phone apps.) I use PocketTweets but also use Twinkle, an app that lets me see other Twitter/Twinkle users within 1 mile, 2 miles, 5 miles (you get it) from wherever I am. It's fun during an event (such as Folklife) or when you're traveling. Or during a snowstorm, when you want to know what's open in the neighborhood.

Yes, some people do take Twitter a bit too seriously. Some try to game it as a social networking tool, posting a bunch of marketing messages thinly disguised as clever repartee. (It's like having a colleague at work suddenly launch into an attempt to recruit you into their religion, or sell you Amway products.) Fortunately, Twitter makes it very easy to "unfollow" these folks. And I do. (I'm not selective about who follows me, but Twitter offers a blocking tool for people who are.)

The competitive types get all excited about Twitter Grader, which ranks your influence within the Twitter community. I don't know what the grading algorithm is, but I suspect it looks primarily at the quality of your followers (how long they've been on Twitter, how often they post, and how many followers they have).

There's a trend towards merging all your online communications into one dashboard, so you'll see people having their Tweets appear on their blogs, or on Facebook. That's too large, and too uncontrolled an audience for me. What happens on Twitter, stays on Twitter, as far as I'm concerned.

Warm wishes for the holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:13:00 +0000

The winter holidays are pretty much contiguous this year, which means we can light our menorahs, Christmas trees, and Yule logs all at the same time.

I like it — this feeling of everything all together.

In the 60s people talked about "integration." In the 80s, it was "celebrating the differences." Now you hear words like "transparency," "remix," and "mashup." Whether it's done carefully and intentionally, or it just happens, it's all about the blurring of what once were differences — differences between our work lives and home lives, our public activities and our private activities, and even elements of our identities, such as race, ethnicity, and age.

Of course there's are frightening aspects associated with this feeling of everything coming together. People of my generation were educated to think that things were better off clearly defined, categorized, and controlled. This wasn't the best preparation for a world that now prizes the abilities to perceive connections, to keep moving forward despite ambiguity, and to monitor fast-moving, continuous feedback loops. Problem-solving has become more important than problem-prevention.

Interestingly, the new ways of thinking, and the new technologies inextricably mixed with them, are leading people to revisit older ways of doing things. Many of these old ways pre-date my generation and pertain more to my grandparents' lives: eating locally grown food, and appreciating the aesthetics of handmade crafts. Many of the younger people I work with in the tech field are enthusiastic gardeners, knitters, cooks, musicians, and do-it-yourselfers.

The more I explore the new, and revisit the old, the more I enjoy myself! I can't always control the long-term outcomes, but I can, each day, control the steps I take toward my goals. I think often of Steve Jobs' assertion that "the journey is, and will continue to be, the reward."

My best wishes to you for a happy and healthy year; one in which the rewards of the journey are many.

Web content: We're (probably) doin' it wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:29:00 +0000

This piece by Kristina Halvorson on A List Apart raises some excellent issues about web content strategy. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it unflinchingly describes some of the problems with the content a lot of us are involved in producing. And it reminds us of the tools we could employ to do it better.

That said, the sites that I find produce outstanding content (Twitter.com, LinkedIn, FaceBook) don't seem to be doing it by systematically leveraging the content-related disciplines this article describes. They're doing it by first breaking a lot of rules to create a unique web service, and then evolving based on the way that users and third parties make use of their innovative structures.

Of course, very few of us are developing content for a Twitter.com or a LinkedIn. We're working on more traditional sites we'd like to see do a better job for both organizations and users. For us, Halvorson has an important message:

"But until we commit to treating content as a critical asset worthy of strategic planning and meaningful investment, we’ll continue to churn out worthless content in reaction to unmeasured requests. We’ll keep trying to fit words, audio, graphics, and video into page templates that weren’t truly designed with our business’s real-world content requirements in mind. Our customers still won’t find what they’re looking for. And we’ll keep failing to publish useful, usable content that people actually care about."

Bad Apple on the family tree?

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:28:00 +0000

Oh, Steve, you're in trouble now: "Mom" reprimands Apple for its decision pull out of future Macworld Expos.

Losing sight of the fax? Not yet.

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:53:00 +0000

When was the last time you faxed something?

I quit struggling with the blankety-blank cheap fax machine in the den a couple of years ago, and finally unplugged it last summer when it began making strange grumbling sounds. The convenience of sending something out (after the machine had grabbed and mangled multiple pages a few times) was offset by a constant, noisy, influx of junk faxes. I doubt had received a legitimate fax on the machine in more than five years.

But now I have a corporate client whose client base doesn't use email. I needed to send drafts of text to some of those folks for their approvals, and the 20-something-degree weather did not encourage me to go tripping off to the local fax place.

So...hello RingCentral.

I checked various Mac forums for info on Mac-friendly online fax services (I do not want another piece of anything requiring a cable anywhere near my desk, thank you) and RingCentral got the nod from MyOnlineFaxMachine.com as being the most friendly for sending faxes. (It also receives them, but I hope I won't have to deal with that; the approvals get faxed back to my corporate client.)

MyOnlineFaxMachine provides a 30-day free trial of RingCentral (and some of the other services), after which the plan is $10 a month. I am very happy to report that setting up the service and sending the faxes was painless.

There are days when things happen

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:07:00 +0000

And today is one of them.

I was so caught off-balance by the news that Macworld 2009 will be the last Macworld with Apple involved that I checked the apple.com website to make sure this wasn't a hoax. It wasn't. (Though a subsequent press release someone Twittered that had Apple canceling its involvement in Christmas was.)

Dori Smith quickly predicted that Macworld 2009 will be "a wake." If so, it's likely to be a wake of the Irish variety, as it may well be the last time that those of us from the far corners of the country see each other in person. (I have a standing lunch date at Mel's Diner with a friend from Tennessee, a breakfast gathering of Seattle and ex-Seattle folks, and coffee dates with several folks from my days with .Mac and iTunes at Apple.)

In spite of my history of sublime-to-ridiculous experiences with hotels during Macworld, I love attending this event. This will be my 8th or 9th Macworld, and I can't believe it's going to be my last. Sure, there may still be a Macworld...but without Apple? Hmmm.

On to the next bit of news...this one a good one...my friend Dave Howell has been chosen to design the base for the coveted Hugo science fiction awards, to be presented at the 2009 Worldcon in Montréal. Alors! Dave is a designer, artist, and vocalist who designed, among other things, the scarily official Wolfram & Hart parking sticker that currently adorns my Honda Fit.

Amusing advice to people who aren't listening

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:29:00 +0000

I've been known to dish out advice (no, really!) and I'm aware that the people it's aimed likely aren't listening. And those who are listening are probably the folks who don't need it. But, at least, they share my mixture of amusement and righteous indignation.

I'm sure Mighty Girl doesn't harbor any delusions that the coffee shop troll hogging the four-person table and nursing a latte for three hours while he downloads gargantuan files over the cafe's WiFi is paying attention. (Of course he's not; he's too busy loudly yammering on his cell phone.) But she's written some advice for him you might find amusing. Particularly if he's been hogging the wall outlet you'd like to get at with your laptop charger.

I can dream, can't I?

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:42:00 +0000

Not only would I like this bookcase, I think the cats would enjoy it as well. They have promised to buy it for me when they win the LOLcat lottery.

That was then, and this is now

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:43:00 +0000

I am putting my indispensable Harvest timesheet clock on "unbillable" for a few minutes to talk about what's been flooding our email inboxes for the past few days: Requests for money, from both business enterprises and charities.

Like the current economic situation (dare I use the R-word?), it's only going to get worse.

So, I'm sitting here thinking about what I hope things will look like two years down the road, when the bad times begin to recede.

And the answer is: Different. A lot of these businesses and non-profits will be gone. Which ones will remain will be determined, in large part, by their ability to adapt to reality. Starting right now.

To all those organizations asking me to fund your efforts to keep presenting the same type and level of services you did during the boom years, the answer is: Absolutely no. Sure, I liked the plays you presented last year. But perhaps next year you need to consider ones with lower production costs?

Come back to me with a plan for how you are going to be leaner and meaner during the next two years, and I'll give long, hard thought to what I can contribute to help you survive.

To all those businesses asking me to pay $110 for a sweater with a trendy label (that will be discounted to $29.99 in January): Fat chance. If I really need a sweater, I'll be buying it from the local consignment shop.

I regret that people spent so much effort during my childhood teaching me to say "Please" and "Thank You" without bothering to teach me how to say "No." I'm told that now that I've learned to say it, I'm a bit too emphatic and harsh. But something tells me I'll be getting plenty of practice in the coming months refining my delivery.

Perhaps I'll try softening "No" with a phrase my friend Charlotte Goldstein, a child of the Depression, uses to great effect: "That was then — and this is now."

How to write a holiday letter (2008 Remix)

noreply@blogger.com (Karen G. Anderson) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:49:00 +0000

It's that time of year again. If the sales and the Christmas tree lots weren't already giving me hints, I'd know because StatCounter indicates a surge of hits to my 2006 post, Tips for Writing a Holiday Letter.

Here's a quick tip from it:

#4. Talk briefly about why you're writing the letter. "It's wonderful to take a few minutes to reflect about the year and share some highlights with friends," is the type of opening you're looking for. Don't apologize. If you feel compelled to open with something like "We hate to bore you all with another long, stilted holiday missive," you shouldn't be writing one.

Want more inspiration? Go for it!