by Nettie Hartsock

Note from Oddpodz: we’re thrilled to add Nettie Hartsock to the idea engine blog. She’ll be authoring a new weekly feature, a Q&A with a creative expert. It will post every Tuesday. So, without further ado…

In this inaugural “Five Questions for Creatives” we turn to Meryl Evans, longtime Content maven, copywriter and web gal extraordinaire. Meryl’s web site can be found at www.meryl.net.

Meryl shares her insight on all things creative.

Q.What do you think is one of the biggest challenges to being a successful creative person?

Meryl: Getting inspiration on a regular basis.

Q. What are three tips you would give to anyone who wants to empower their creative career, whether it be as a copywriter, web designer, artist?

Meryl:

1. A creative career takes hard work like everything else.

2. A freelance creative career involves non-creative tasks like marketing, bookkeeping, and staying organized.

3. A freelance creative career requires you keep yourself motivated to get the work done.

Q. What is most rewarding about being on your own and working to grow
your creative business?

Meryl: Gaining a well-rounded life that lets me be a writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, volunteer, and adventurer (not necessary in that order).

Q. What inspires you to be creative?

Meryl: Hearing from clients who love the work.

Q. What is the greatest benefit to working as a creative professional?

Meryl: Happy clients.

Bonus Question: What is your favorite book about business or creativity?

POP! Stand Out in Any Crowd by Sam Horn provides great tips for brainstorming ideas, names, and more.

About the author: Nettie Hartsock is a digital strategist helping authors, creatives, musicians and companies create actionable how-to 2.0 programs to establish a powerful base for attracting both blogger and journalists attention. Her website can be found at NettieHartsock.com.

An Introduction to Trademarks for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

What is a trademark?
A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services produced or provided by one enterprise from those of other enterprises. Any distinctive words, letters, numerals, drawings, pictures, shapes, colors logotypes, labels or combinations used to distinguish goods or services may be considered a trademark. In some countries, advertising slogans are also considered trademarks and may be registered as such at national trademark offices. An increasing number of countries also allow for the registration of less traditional forms of trademarks such as single colors, three-dimensional designs [shapes of products or packaging], audible signs [sounds] or of factory signs [smells]. However, may countries have set limits on what can be registered as a trademark, generally only allowing for signs that are visually perceptible or can be represented graphically.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are a numerous approaches to brainstorming, but whichever approach you use, there are several key factors which make the difference between a successful brainstorming session and a mediocre brainstorming session.

State your challenge correctly.
In order to get the right ideas, you need to ensure that you are giving the brainstorm session participants the right challenge. Otherwise, you could end up with a lot of ideas which do not actually solve your problem.

No squelching!
Squelching is when you criticise an idea or a person contributing the idea. Squelching can be obvious, such as “That’s the dumbest idea I have ever heard!” or subtle, such as “you’d never get the budget to do that.” No matter what the form, squelching does two terrible things to a brainstorming session. Firstly, it makes the person who contributed the idea feel bad. As a result, she is unlikely to contribute any more ideas to the session. Even if her idea was not a good one, it is likely she would have had other, better ideas to contribute. Secondly, squelching tells other participants that unusual ideas are not welcome at this brainstorming session. Since most creative ideas are also unusual ideas, a single squelching effectively prevents participants from offering creative ideas. So, if you remember nothing else about brainstorming, remember: no squelching!

Mixed participants.
When brainstorming works well, it is because the session taps into the combined creativity of all the participants. Clearly, then, the more varied the participants, the wider the range of creative thinking and the more creative the ideas generated. It is a common mistake for managers to think: we need marketing ideas, so let’s get the marketing department together to brainstorm ideas. These people work together all the time, have similar backgrounds and know too much about marketing. As a result, their ideas will be limited in scope. Bringing together a dozen people from a dozen departments is a far better approach to generating a wide range of creative ideas.
Read the rest of this entry »

Customers are our best loyalty teachers. And the lessons gleaned from “problem” customers are often rich and long lasting. Consider these less-than-ideal customer types and some of the loyalty-making insights they provide.

Rules Breakers: Keep an eye on them
Consider the case of a home shopping channel, which religiously applied the industry’s RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary Value) model for scoring customer-buying behavior. A long-time customer had graduated into buying roughly a $1000 a month in merchandise and was now dubbed a “top customer” per the RFM model. Her stair-stepped purchasing trend was exactly what the company strived for. But, six months later the bloom was off the rose. When the customer’s revenue data and returns data (which were stored in different databases) were matched, a surprising finding was revealed: Her returns were sky high. Digging deeper, the company was shocked to discover the customer owned a small gift shop and was using the shopping channel’s merchandise on a consignment-type basis while carefully complying with the company’s 60 day return policy. Sadly, the company’s data silos masked this thought-to-be top customer’s true value for too many months.

Kelly Cook, (recently departed) director of CRM for Continental Airlines recalled a similar awakening. The first year the airline’s new data warehouse was in operation, (the data warehouse consolidated 45+ separate customer databases down to 2) the company saved $5 million in security and fraud detection. Exclaimed Kelly, “We found one customer who got 20 bereavement fares in 12 months off of the same dead grandfather!” Before the data warehouse, for example, it was possible for a devious-minded ticket holder with a cancelled flight to get a replacement flight voucher from the airport customer service agent and then immediately go to the phone and call the Continental call center and get a second reimbursement voucher for the same cancelled flight. Not anymore, reported Kelly. Continental’s data warehouse quickly consolidates customer files across channels dramatically reducing compensation fraud.

Lesson: A timely merging of customer data across silos and channels is a must for detecting unusual buying patterns, diagnosing flawed buyer transactions and the systems that allow them, and ‘encouraging’ customers to play by the rules.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Jill Griffin

Trust. It�s in short supply these days and for good reason. Pick up any newspaper, read an online chat board, or tune in to any news show and you�re likely to hear about an organization or person who has violated the trust placed in them. The result? Many prospects and customers are skeptical and scared. And companies need to show them in both word and deed that �we always act in the customer�s interest.� No doubt, there is no customer relationship management technology that can deliver that message. Only a customer-centric, trust-building culture can.

Online archives are filled with advice on the requirements for making companies more customer centric: changing organizational structure, rethinking staff accountabilities, revising metrics, etc. Experience has shown, however, that thinking tactically about customer trust building, early on, can also help firms become more trust-focused, especially during these tough economic times.

In my customer loyalty work, I have coined a customer relationship model that centers around key customer development stages: suspect, prospect, first time customer, repeat customer, client, advocate, and lost customer. The same model can be used in identifying specific ways to build, sustain and, when necessary, regain customer trust. Consider these examples.

Turning qualified prospects into first-time customers
In writing the second edition of my book, Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It, I interviewed Ann Machado, CEO, Miami (FL)-based Creative Staffing, a $13 million temporary services firm. Sixteen years of business development has taught Ann that team selling is an effective way to build prospect trust. For example, when a big sale is on the line, a six member sales team - Ann, the Chief Financial Officer, the sales director, the sales rep, the operations manager and the staff person who will service the account - mobilize to make the call. Ann finds this “show and tell” about each person’s role helps to quickly build credibility and trust. Prospects appreciate having access to all the players and knowing who will carry out the service.

But Ann has found team selling also reduces overall selling time and cost. Before adopting team selling, it took Creative Staffing on average three months to close a major deal. Now, such deals can be closed in four weeks or less because the team gathers more and better information - faster, using a divide and conquer approach. While the CFO is exploring workers comp and payment planning issues, the operations manager is tackling worker training requirements. Such due diligence has allowed Ann and her team to make winning proposals to prospective clients earning sizeable contracts worth $2 to $5 million. And when high value accounts come under heavy attack by competitors, the firm uses this same team approach � successfully.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Frick discusses web development issues and his new book, Managing Interactive Media Projects.

Five biggest web developer mistakes:

1. Not Giving the Big Picture - Clients usually have no idea what a web update or overhaul entails. Make sure to take them through the ENTIRE process so they have a clear understanding of activities and timelines.

2. Ambiguous Budgets - “We can do it for about …” Initially it may seem fine to give a budget number without parameters, but it usually comes back to haunt you. Developers need to be clear about defining EXACTLY what the budget and timelines entail. And be sure to ask clients for their budget expectations prior to putting together the proposal - it helps everyone in the long run.

3. Improperly Defined Projects - Exactly what is considered a “revision”? How are maintenance or glitches handled? This helps avoid “feature creep” (clients adding on time-consuming and expensive features) and sets expectations.

4. Viewing Deadlines as “Suggestions” - Clients usually have their own internal or external clients they’re reporting to who are also looking at deadlines. Respect the deadlines you and your client set as finite.

5. Dismissing Brand Guidelines - “The logo would pop better in green…” Clients have spent time and money putting together their brand and identity guidelines. Make sure you’re familiar with what can and cannot be altered.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Luis Rivera

Marketers plan to increase their pay-per-click (PPC) budgets by at least 11 percent in 2008, according to MarketingSherpa’s Search Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2008, as reported by eMarketer.

It’s not hard to see why, when you consider the immediacy and the measurability of PPC advertising. A marketer can follow someone who clicks through to the company’s Web site from Google, Yahoo and other search engines, knowing the visitor found the site using the keyword phrase “hotels in Miami.” He’ll know what pages the consumer visited and exactly how much time she spent in each area of the site. The marketer also will know whether or not the consumer booked a room and, if not, at what point she left.

It’s this measurability that makes it such a valuable channel. In 2006, North American companies poured $8 billion into paid search. There’s no question that PPC lures a significant portion of new customers to Web sites. But less than 5 percent of PPC visitors typically take the desired action once they arrive at a site.

So what happens to the other 95 percent - or roughly $7.6 billion that marketing departments spend on PPC programs?
Read the rest of this entry »

5 Greatest Sculptors of All Time
Playing in two dimensions is easy enough, but what truly separates the men from the boys? Maybe it’s when you give up your easel for a tool belt and get to work with a hammer and chisel. These amazing sculptors took their talents 3-D.

Donatello (1386?-1466)
Unquestionably the greatest sculptor of the early Renaissance, Donatello was born in Florence, though he traveled widely and was famous throughout Italy. Donatello had complete mastery of bronze, stone, wood and terracotta, and nothing escaped his extraordinary capabilities: relief sculpture, nudes, equestrian statues, groups of figures, and single figures seated or standing. In fact, he reinvented the art of sculpture just as other contemporaries were reinventing the art of painting, and his innovations and discoveries were profoundly influential. Above all, Donatello seemed to be able to bring sculpture to life by his ability to tell a story, combine realism and powerful emotion, and create the impression that his figures were more than mere objects of beauty for passive contemplation, but creations filled with energy and thought, ready to spring into action.

Read the rest of this entry »

Creativity and Trust
For the last ten years or so I have had two major fears. Spiders and looking down over the edge of things. So… the other day I was driving along and the road suddenly became a bridge transition. That sinking feeling in my stomach started and I felt the tension building up. All of the sudden my brain kicked in and I thought, “why does this bother me”. Immediately I was flooded with thoughts “there might be an earthquake”, “I might go over the edge”. Suddenly I realized what the problem was! I didn’t trust myself NOT to go over the edge. When I realized that I realized how dumb that was. I’m a great driver. There is no reason I would drive off the side of the road for no reason!

When I got home I walked to my front door and about an inch from the keyhole was a spider roughly the size of God. Normally I would have shrieked back in fear, then gone to the car and opened the garage door and gone into the house that way - as far as possible from gigantor the spider! Instead, I put my hand out and put the key into the lock. The spider didn’t move, I opened the door and came in.

About an hour later my husband Ken and I came out to go to dinner. I pointed out my new friend but didn’t issue any death warrants. Ken said, “aren’t you going to demand that I kill it so that it doesn’t get into the house and eat the cats?” Nope. I was free.

Now, I’m not going to claim that my heart doesn’t still make that little jump when I see a spider - but now that I understand that the problem was that I didn’t trust myself to be able to handle the situation if there was a problem - I was no longer afraid. Of course I can kill a spider if it is necessary. I’ve done it many times!

You may be wondering what this has to do with creativity . . .

For the first time in my painting life I was blocked. I had been asked by a publication to paint a series of pieces and since the moment that I got the request I had been avoiding painting. I couldn’t even get myself to sit down and paint from a pattern. I avoided. I cleaned. I rearranged. I kvetched. I did not paint.

Matters escalated when the pieces I’d been asked to design for arrived. I didn’t open the box for two days. After I opened the box, I put everything carefully back in. Ken came in and took everything out to look at it and then left it out - right where I could see it! I rearranged. I alphabetized. I looked into new lighting for my studio. I did not paint.

Ken, being the helpful type, pointed out that I had not yet drawn the designs for the new pieces. Did I have a plan, he asked? Was it going to be a theme? Did I need to bring our assistant in for a few extra hours so I could have time to paint? I hemmed. I hawed. I reluctantly mentioned an idea. I pointed out that I had never done anything like it. I pointed out that I wasn’t sure they would like it. I looked at the ceiling. I did not meet his eyes. I did not draw any illustrations. I did not paint.

About two in the morning I woke up from a dream. I rarely remember my dreams, but when I do it turns out that I am a quite literal dreamer. I was driving over that bridge but when I looked over the side down below were hundreds and hundreds of the blank pieces I had not yet painted. When I got over the bridge, I was back on it again. I looked over the side. Yep, still there. The bridge started again and again until I woke from the frustration of being unable to get away from it. Then it hit me. I didn’t start painting the pieces because I did not trust myself.

If you think about it, creativity is the ultimate act of self-trust. When you start to design or write, you have to do it from a place inside yourself that says, “I can do this!” This was the first time in my life that I had been “commissioned” to paint something. In the past, I had painted or written what I liked and then submitted it - take it or leave it. I was terrified.

When we start to do something new, we do it because we have an internal belief that we have something to say or something new to present. Something all our own. Steinbeck referred to the artistic process as a blend of faith and arrogance. In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott talks about giving yourself permission to create “shitty first drafts”. Creativity has nothing to do with selling or approval or commercial success. Creativity is taking a risk, trusting yourself to stay on the road. Knowing that if it isn’t perfect the first time, you have the skills to correct it - even if it takes a lifetime. Creativity is about the process, the journey.

Article courtesy of Jennifer Iannolo & The Gilded Fork

If a guest can come away from the table with that kind of inspiration, it should stress to you the kind of importance ambience can have on the experience of a dining guest. The entire premise for this section of The Gilded Fork is to perpetuate and encourage the ideal of elevating your entertaining to that of fine dining at home. Granted, it certainly does not have to equal that of a Michelin 3-Star restaurant, but there should be a signature of you present for all the guests to experience: a style. It will be present in your table d·cor, your music, your lighting, and the styled plates of the dishes you serve. Make a statement.

We have included the key elements here for creating a sumptuous atmosphere (and will address food styling itself in our Mise en Place menus). If, like most people, you are short on time, these tips should help you to craft that signature style, and do so in the timeframe of your life. Think about evoking the senses of your guests, and how you want them to feel when they are welcomed at your table.

Read the rest of this entry »