Tall Tales & Falsehoods

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

Thanks to Cory McNair for the heads up on this.

A while back (Sept. 2, 2009) Dan Conover wrote a post on “The Key To Darbas” soft launch . Within that post he mentioned some ideas that I found to be very interesting concerning Community Licensing. At the time that I initially read the post, I was also teaching at Horry Georgetown Technical College. I was only about two weeks into my first course when he made the post, but I saw a direct correlation to the way he was thing about an open community and to a problem that I found my students were having.

As you may know the cost of textbooks for higher education are expensive. Not only are they expensive, but they are also time consuming to produce and in some cases inaccurate by the time they come to print and find there ways into classrooms. One of my goals as an educator was to use the same tools that I work with as a marketing professional. I found the idea of “Teaching Paperless” to be a great goal and I set-out to do just that. I used my personal blog as a tool to communicate with my students about daily assignments and used online media resources as means to show “real life” and “real time” examples of the subjects in which we were talking about. I would pull the main key points from the book and post them as topics of discussions as well.

I found myself leaning more and more away from the book and more into “real life, real time” examples. Upon talking with other higher education professionals I found this to be the case for them as well. It wasn’t so much as pulling away from the textbook as it was providing supplemental materials for their students that contained “real life, real time” information. Is there a way to use new technology, not only as a new media teaching tool, but also as a concise delivery method of up-to-date digital customizable textbooks?

I think digital media, real time data, accuracy of information, disbursement of information and payment/profit models all exist in loose connections. These individual parts could be pulled together to form a new business model for Higher Education Textbooks. Having real time data and examples that are customizable by individual professors or department chairs to coincide directly with there programs content is a great resource. With a pay-per-click model for article and video downloads, I believe you would have an affordable textbook solution that stays current from semester to semester.

A rough breakdown of the model:
• A higher education portal in which articles, papers, documentation, examples, videos, tutorials and references exist in a database.
• This information is produced by scholars, teachers, writers and professionals all within there field of study.
• Each of these professionals are a part of the program and sign up for an account to be vetted by the staff.
• All information is broken down by categories and tags and cross referenced for similar articles and media.
• All articles are considered “live.” In other words they can link to extra information, outside resources etc.
• There is a 2 pronged rating system for each article. The first being rated on by the professor that has choose the text in the past and the other rated on by the students who had to use the article.
• The professor/department chair chooses which articles, videos, pictures examples to include within there digital textbook. (This could be done on daily bases, weekly bases, semester bases.)
• The digital textbook is available for download with multiple options.
**Not sure if this is where the payment module fits in or at the end user. More market research is needed.
• The professor then uses the information contained within as a teaching tool.
***The second option for payment is if the end user actually clicks to read the article, watch the video etc. then payment would be posted.

How this business model is different
• Customizable textbooks
• Up-to-date information
• Interactivity
• Pay module
• Multiple format options (PDF, post-to-blog, direct complier editions – Kindle, iPad ) {Need more research – time, money, effort to compile multiple formats}

Keys To Success
• Making it easy to have higher education professional submit articles and get paid for articles used. This would open up textbooks to a whole new world of writers. Short stories, articles and essays could now be revenue source for professors who haven’t gone down the road to traditional textbook publishing. If you can get a few big name professors, schools and department chairs behind this with submitting articles I think it will open the door to all kinds of relevant submissions. Professors are continually doing work within their field. They have up-to-date numbers, theories and proposals that may or may not get picked up in journals. This gives them other opportunities to get there findings out there.
• Showcasing that textbooks are not just text, but rich video, photography and sound lectures can accompany them.
• Real life, real time” articles and data
• Multiple formats of textbook delivery.
• A good rating system and recommendation system for professors trying to compose a textbook.

Competition
All seem to have a rental service
http://www.chegg.com/
http://www.alibris.com
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/textbooks/index.asp

A few Links

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/textbooks-in-the-ipad-age-will-cool-tech-beat-renting/19362200/
Good background and research. Talk about a slightly different model.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/06/09/not-everyone-ready-for-the-digital-textbook-revolution/
I think the commentator of the story has it correctly. I see the business model changing from traditional publishing to hyper-activity media publishing.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188427/interactive_textbooks_headed_to_ipad_report_says.html
This article points out some very valid points. I like to think that the proposed business module would make textbooks more affordable and would send more profits direct to the writes and contributors.

http://seankheraj.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/textbooks-in-a-digital-age-the-history-of-canada-online/
He gets the point but still never address the cost option of the books.

http://www.good.is/post/the-demise-of-the-200-textbook

Conclusion
While this idea does not tread on any new ground, the payment module and higher education community involvement gives the project potential.  More research is needed to see if it is idea that will be accepted within higher education. Professors and universities tend to run in closed circles, so it will be key to find out if they would be on board with a business model such as this.  If initial reports are positive the first step would be to compile a formal proposal outlining all key elements. In doing so this would help in looking for venture capital funding and educational grants.

Initial Contacts
• Dan Conover, this is the brain child of his initial idea. Has great resources and insight into the newspaper industries “pay wall” model.
• Nakia Pope, professor at Winthrop University. He is highly involved in the education side of teaching and would provided valuable insight.
• Richard Miller, an IT Specialist at University of Virginia. He used to work as assistant editor at HarperCollins Publishers.
• Paul Reynolds, local entrepreneur, computer programmer and has published applications on proposed delivery devices.
• Dave Slusher, highly involved in all things digital and wife is a former Coastal Carolina University Professor
• J. Wynia, possess great insight into theoretical technology and business idea generation.
• Joel Watson, computer programmer. He used to work for the Charleston library system.

In the design world we get to explore with unique ways of expressing message and meaning. What one comes up with is not the same as someone else. By being able to look at a situation and come up with multiple solutions we are able to clearly identify new ways of expressing thought. In doing so we open design up to a wider audience with differently cultural takes on the same subject. However one has to be carful not to over simplify the thought process and send out the wrong message.

Assignment:

Five unique, creative, designed ways of illustrating one of the following:

• Final
• Empty
• Unity
• Listening
• Hate

Think of photography, typography, illustration, video, sound an entire design piece.

Due: Jan. 25th, 2010 to go over in class.

The other day I got a simple email from a client stating, “How much do you charge for SEO?”It has taken me almost a week to respond.

With the SEO stuff it is tricky. That is why I am hesitant to answer. People think SEO is this miracle pill that will send your sells over the top. You have these companies out there who charge $$ for big promises. They are everywhere. They have set this president that SEO is instant. They all state that they have the secret formula to Google’s search algorithm. SEO has taken an akin to “Take this pill, eat what you want and you don’t even have to exercise. In four weeks you will have lost 25lbs.”

We feel a bit differently about it at 803. We can’t claim to know what Google does or why they do it. What we do know is that certain aspects of web development haven’t changed over the years and it is those aspects that payoff within search results. We look at the big picture and the long hall. We formulate marketing strategies – not SEO miracle pills. We have a good understanding of  pay-per-click programs, link relevancy and strategic market placement. We also understand the need to take pride in what you do. While we can help clients achieve their web goals success doesn’t come over night.

I would love to say we can work with you to formulate a marketing strategy to help you achieve your web goals, but  in a world of fast food diets this is not what some clients want to hear. Just like with life you have to work at achieving your business goals.

If you could answer the question “What is your goal of your website?” or “Why do you think you need SEO?” I can help you formulate a marketing strategy. From there we can start to implement it in stages, resulting in goal achievement.

Sorry for the long winded answer. I just thought it best that you understood where “SEO” fits within an overall marketing campaign.

All of these supposed SEO companies out there really has turned my world into a frenzy. Clients telling me they need this or they need that – when what they really need is a plan. It is amazing that when some new hot new term pops up hat everybody what to jump on the bandwagon. What they really should be doing is looking at their overall marketing ideas and making sure that they are staying true to there goals. If your goal is to be the top ranked web page for a particular search term then that is fine – lets work towards that goal. If your goal is to make sure that your business is relevant, sound and user friendly to a wider online audience – lets work towards that goal. Sometimes achieving one goal will result in achieving multiple goals at the same time. Clients really just need to identify what their goals are.

Bad News Robot is up and running. An idea that has been fostering away for over five years has now come to fruition. Paul Reynolds of the Bakers Dog fame has once again lent his talents to make the Bad News Robot a reality. So for all of you out there who has bad news to send, but are to afraid to do it yourself, I encourage you to use The Bad News Robot!

Bad News Robot

PS. If you are planning on leaving negative comments on how bad the program sucks can you send it though Bad News Robot!

Don’t forget to follow all of the bad news on Twitter as well!

A few weeks back my brother introduced me to a new album by Ziggy Marley, “Family Time.” He was looking for an album that was family friendly to listen in the car and somebody recommended it to him. Nakia in turned recommenced it to me. Ever since, it has been added to the nightly rotation to Memphis’ bed time jam. The other album added was Bob Marley‘s “B Is For Bob.” The two albums are penetrating my daughters mind as she sleeps on a regular basis. I am so pleased to be able to introduce my little girl to such great music at such a young age.

Wow, It has been a year since the birth of my child – Memphis Addison Pope. Over that time I have learned a lot about her and hopefully she has learned some about me. I know at this stage in her life I hold major influence over her; her likes and dislikes, her taste in music and art and even her eating habits. I am trying to make the best of it by showing here some of the the things that have influenced me over the years and that may (or may not) influence her.

My wife asked  me to design an invitation for her first birthday party and while I normally turned down these opportunities I deiced to go for it. I have a hard time designing for myself. There are too many options, too many possibilities that I can do which makes it hard for me to settle on just one idea. All I knew for this is that I didn’t want to go the traditional princess route. I know her mind will be warped soon enough so I wanted to go in a different direction.

Memphis Pope First Birthday Invitation

As you can see I pulled the reference from the great Sun Records logo and built the invitation around that. It is a gate fold in the center of the 45 and opens up to a traditional “faux” letterpress poster. I would have loved to actually had it letter pressed by Hatch Show prints our of Nashville or Yee Haw Industries out of Knoxville. Maybe another time.

Memphis Addison Pope I love you and hope you are not to mad at me for trying to raise you to like some of the things that I think are cool. I know soon enough that you will want to have a princess theme birtday party but for now how about some Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis?

This was the first large comic book convention that I have been to. I have been to a few smaller ones, but none on this scale.

On Saturday my Wife, Memphis and myself attended Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC. Prior to that day I was excited about the convention. I had rough plans of meeting up with a few people, checking out the vendors and looking forward to the indie tables. While I followed online conversations between Dave Slusher and Derek Coward about their planning and list gathering and nervousness I joked about “Plan, what plan? I am going to have fun.”  I didn’t realize what type of production went into attending a comic book convention.

The day of the convention Heidi, Memphis and myself got to the convention hall around 11:30. We paid our fee and quickly went down to get a lay of the land. Soon after we entered it became apparent that there was huge crowds. I hate crowds. It was also very had to push a stroller trough the aisles and amongst the lines of fans waiting to get autographs. We got a good scope of everything and I stated to wondering around picking through this and that, while the whole time looking for friends along the way. Memphis started to get cranky and I could tell it was lunch time.

My wonderful wife said that she could feed Memphis and that I could stay and look around. This was super cool because to be honest I was a little frustrated with trying to look at things while at the same time making sure Memphis wasn’t eating a $400 comic. So a little time had passed and I knew that I had to get back up to the wife and kid for a bite to eat. Still haven’t seen any of my friends, I picked up the phone and gave Dave a call. He was down for some food, so off we went.

Over lunch I confessed to Dave and Heidi that I thought that I was not the convention type. I am not a star struck fan, I don’t care that much about autographs, I hate large crowds and at best I am a passive reader of books. I was glad to be there, but I wasn’t having that much fun. However there was still some stuff that I wanted to do and check out so after lunch we headed back to the convention for another quick round.

Still huge crowds, long lines and a bunch of people that I don’t know about – plus Memphis was ready for a nap. Once again my great wife to the rescue said that she would take Memphis up for a nap and let me look around. I finally got to make my way around to the indie tables, where I met a few cool people and picked up a ton of books. I figured that I can find most everything else at my local comic book store (who also had a booth there) so why not spend my limited cash funds on some indie comics. It was cool to talk with people, find out where they were from and there creative process. I think I invited everyone that I talked to, to next year’s CREATE South .

By this time it was getting late and I still haven’t met up with Derek or Kreg Steppe . Heidi came back down with Memphis and we went through the vendors long boxes far a few comics that I had on my wish list. However do to the fact that Comicbookdb.com was down for two days prior to the convention and the WiFi in the hall was spotty at best I was limited in my memory of what I wanted to try and find. I didn’t know which vendor was which, who had the better deals and what to really focus on while looking through all of the long boxes. I picked up a few titles and told Heidi I was ready to call it a day.

On the drive home I realized a few things that I leaned from the convention:

1. I had fun. (I know you can’t tell it from my ranting above but I did.)
2. My wife is the greatest.
3. Get phone numbers of the friends you want to met up with.
4. Look over the convention booklet. I would have liked to attended the panels, but I didn’t know when or where – plus Memphis would not have been a huge fan of them either.
5. HAVE A PLAN! – It is a big place so have a plan of what you must see and do. Then if you get that done in enough time do other things.
6. Narrow your wish list and bring a hard copy. I spent a lot of time jumping around from box to box without knowing exactly what I wanted and how much I was willing to spend.
7. Just cause they are indie doesn’t mean that they are good (or bad). I would say that about 90% of the indie comics that I picked up where just plan bad. Supporting people trying to do there thing is cool but  take a closer look before you buy.
8. Try and go for a few days, there was a lot to see and do.
9. Plan on hanging out as much as you can afterwords.
10. Baby’s are super hard at conventions. But I love her dearly.

I had a great time at the convention, but I was also new to the game. I may have been a little too hasty saying that “I wasn’t the convention type.” I think with my new knowledge that next year I can have an even better time.

Design has become a numbers game lately. As the internet develops and matures so does how we handle advertising. Accurate statistical data can now be gathered to track the progress of an ad campaign, to whom the target audience as and even be assign a dollar value according to how much direct revenue it has brought in. While to most this is great news, to me this is a little sad.

Lately I have been in a design hole lately. Clients want results, they want them fast and they want them cheep. They expect all of this out of 125×125 pixel ads. No longer do I paint beautiful thought provoking ad campaigns across a wide canvas of direct mail, billboards, newspaper, radio and tv. Now I get to test my creative abilities in a 125×125 box. (That is roughly 1.75 inches by 1.75 inches.) I am all for design challenges, but it now has turned into a day-in-day-out thing. If its not 125×125, it’s 800×125, 120×75, 600×100. Email blast, cubes, headers – it is all becoming the same to me now.

Not only that, but clients (as well as myself) want and expect to see results – or at least the numbers of people who clicked on the ad, where the ad was located, where they went to, how long they stayed there, where they went to next – and what I am planning on doing about it. It’s all about the numbers.

Now the internet lets you do some pretty cool little things such as build personal url’s, geo-target clients, have real time conversations and monitor your business in real time. This is all great and I welcome all of it. However most clients are uneducated in the ways of the internet and are feed a lot of half truths from sales reps. (I constantly have to tear down misnomers and flat out lies told to clients form newspaper sales reps in our area. 1) Because they really don’t have a clue what they are selling and 2) they really don’t care what they are selling – “just show the clients big numbers.”) This makes my job even harder. I have to convince clients they they shouldn’t care to much for impressions or any of the other BS feed to them but actual look at the hard numbers (which are really easily found). I expect to see this data because I have taught my clients to see this data.

For me the really challenge is that I wear many hats. I am designer, so I want to do big bold stuff. I am a novice web guy, who knows enough to know that he doesn’t know what he should. And I’m in marketing, meaning I know that the numbers matter. I see the whole picture.

The world of 125×125 is forcing many companies to become multifaceted in number reporting and design. That is where I am at right now. Show me results 125×125, if not start all over again until you find one that does. Don’t become outdated and keep me posted of progress. Oh yeah, since you are so small 125×125, you do not cost much money to produce right?

That is one of the main elements clients do not understand. 125×125 is hard to design for. It takes just as long to knock out an 125×125 online ad as it does a postcard. The client gets pixels in return and doesn’t value it the same way as a printed product. They think that since it is only pixels and so small that it should cost them next to noting to produce. It is even hard to convince them that statistical data is valuable.

125×125 is become the norm. So I better get used to it. I have to reeducate my clients of its value, try and get others to do the same, and be happy about it. I know there is a ton of cool stuff you can do with 125×125 and/or its linking url, I just have to reinvent myself with the knowledge of how to achieve it. The designer inside me may have to step aside for the numbers guy and the programmer hopefully hidden in me.

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I remember when I hated doing 4×6 postcard direct mail pieces, trying to cram all of the clients text into that little space. I whole heatedly outright love them now. Bring them on BABY!

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I read this article in the NY Times that got me thinking about all of this stuff.