How often we hear people say “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover”, but the fact is that we do exactly that all the time. The more fitting maxim would the the Roman saw, ex ungue leonem, from the claw, the lion (also translated as “the lion shall be known by his claw”, but I think Merriam-Webster is correct). The hard truth is that we make snap judgements about people and businesses all the time, and we generally are making…
I’ve been using Windows Vista on the family machine for several months, and I’ve been surprised at my inability to get the RSS feeds working as a gadget in the sidebar. It’s been a nagging problem and I’ve had a bear of a time finding the cause. I finally caught the answer on CNet this morning: We downloaded and installed Firefox 2, made Firefox our default browser, and quickly set up a few RSS feed subscriptions. Guess what? The Windows…
Mary Schmidt put forward the question the other day “Do You Need a Brochure?” It certainly got me thinking. At Vario, we personally use business cards which are glossy on both sides and on the back carry a list of our basic services. Jill Cole designed them, and I’ll admit that I originally thought they were problematic, as I couldn’t write notes on them. Recently I’ve had a lot of customers comment that they wanted to do cards just like ours though. …
Little Feat – date and origin unknown, but assume late 1970’s, as the incomparable Lowell George is with them.
This past week we began sending Google Traffic reports to Vario customers, and I’m now being asked “how can I get more traffic to my site.” I came across this article from the Aviva Directory this morning and thought it did a marvelous job of explaining many different ways to get traffic to your site. Some of the tips are blog-centric, and others are appropriate to web sites in general. A sample: 8. Concentrate on one domain, not 10. A lot of people think that developing a…
I caught an interesting post on the IowaBiz Blog by Drew McLellan this morning entitled “Your Customers Prized Possession? Their Time.” Basically, brevity appears to have become a lost art in marketing information. Drew relates a recent interaction with a company: I had asked the rep to send me some information. I received a very nice folder/brochure, a DVD and a cover letter. The cover letter says: “Blah, blah, blah…. In addition, there is a DVD enclosed that will tell you…
One of the trade offs I made when I was laid off two weeks ago was that instead of buying a new lawn tractor, or continuing to pay for a landscaper, I decided to eke out another season with my 30 year old Yard Man. It’s a venerable old tractor, and can still make it’s way around the yard reasonably well. So Saturday I set off to Aubuchon to replace the hinge pins for the mower deck, which someone inadvertently…
I live in Sutton, a town in Massachusetts with virtually no industrial base for taxes. A couple of years ago, a plan to put a Home-Depot on the land of an abandoned drive-in movie theater was rejected. On March 15, I had one of the largest Wal-Mart’s in the state open about 2 miles down the road from me. Just across the town line in Northbridge. Meaning I get all the traffic, but Sutton gets none of the tax benefit. …
Performing Wait for Me on Austin City Limits – excellent quality…
Check out this Whole Foods Video – it’s incredible to think of the ground they manage to cover, plus it’s probably being used on the in store tv network as well. This via Brand Autopsy (there’s a lot more on the Whole Foods Brand in that post as well…) On a different bent … Whole Foods Market began podcasting last year and now they are video blogging. SECRET INGREDIENT is the name of their vlog and it’s a well-produced show worthy…