It’s spelling bee time again, and Bill, Jamie and I are gearing up to reprise our roles from last year on Hammock’s winning team. The 15th Annual Nashville Area Literacy Council’s Spelling Bee takes place Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the Nashville Public Library, so if you’re in the area stop by to cheer us on!
This year’s theme is NASCAR, so I’m guessing we’ll see some dueling No. 8 and No. 24 t-shirts—and hopefully some stick-on mustaches, too. But besides planning our costumes, Bill, Jamie and I (ok, mostly I) have some studying to do to ensure the checkered flag is lowered first for us. Because if we win, Jamie has promised to take a victory lap around the library garage.
But I bet we could convince her to do a burnout, too.
Adjectives can take three forms. I’m not talking about liquid, solid or gas; I mean positive, comparative and superlative.
Simply put, the positive form of an adjective describes a single noun or pronoun.
The comparative form of an adjective compares two nouns or pronouns.
The superlative form then compares three or more nouns or pronouns.
Not sure when to use more/most, double the last consonant or change y to i? Here are a few general rules. But remember, there are always exceptions.
Funny name, useful application
We spend a lot of time at Hammock trying out different web applications and related software. Some of us are geeks, so we think that’s fun. But we also want to stay on top of the latest trends for our clients.
We’re long-time wiki fans, but we know that this kind of content management system isn’t as popular as it ought to be. A number of prominent wiki sites (like, say, Wikipedia) don’t make it as easy to contribute as they could, so we suspect a lot of people dismiss wikis out of hand.
But, wikis don’t have to be hard. (And I’ll throw in on a personal note, they don’t have to be ugly, either.) If you’re in one of the situations below, you should be considering a wiki:
I can remember watching political conventions from gavel-to-gavel as a child. In hindsight, I’m sure that wasn’t a common behavior for someone in elementary school. But, I must admit, it has provide me with a tremendous backlog of political trivia I carry around in my brain.
At Hammock, we’ve got plenty of political junkies who watch debates and channel surf during the conventions. And while we have supporters of both parties on our staff, we tend to be equal-time observers when it comes to learning how the different campaigns reach out and embrace their supporters.
I recommend to anyone who is in a field involving relationship marketing to sign up for e-mail from both the Obama and McCain campaigns. It is fascinating to observe their use of e-mail, video and a wide array of online conversational tools. In 2004, the Presidential campaigns online were all about the introduction of blogging and the organization of meetup types of events. This year, it is fascinating to see how willing the campaigns are to try new tools and approaches.
This year, the way the Internet is being used is as historic as some of those conventions I saw when I was a youngster.
Jon Henshaw, the SEO guru (among many other things) at the web-development firm Sitening, says some very nice things about the online strategy displayed on Hammock.com. Thanks, Jon. We feel like Sally Field receiving an Oscar.
Fans of the old Kung Fu TV series (who get the joke of David Carradine advertising the Real Yellow Pages), will recall the tagline description of the Shaolin warrior-monks: LISTENED FOR – they cannot be heard. LOOKED FOR – they cannot be seen. FELT FOR – they cannot be touched. Which happens to be the description of an A-1 interviewer.
Fortunately, unlike Kwai-chang Caine, you don’t need to spend years of meditating and splitting boards with your hands to comprehend this. You don’t even need to get dragon and tiger brands. Lessons are all around you:
How many times has your spouse said “Are you listening to me?” and you’ve mumbled “Uh-huh.” You were being truthful – your ears were working, but your mind wasn’t. Listening is a physical function; hearing is a mental one.
Similarly, how many times have you looked for your wallet or keys, only to give up and then spot them … in a place you had looked. Again, looking is a physical action, while seeing is a deliberate mental action. You overlook things (like keys on the counter – and typos!) because your unfocused mind lies – it’s already said, “They can’t be here.”
How about touch? Back to those elusive keys – you patted your pockets, the newspaper, the sofa. You get the drift by now – your mind was lying again.
What does this have to do with interviewing? If you only listen, look and feel (a sense that is usually not that much used in interviews), you will come away with what you expected to … and possibly miss things that could have added detail and depth to your final product.
The more you can push back your preconceptions, the more room you make for what’s actually going on in the interview. This is especially important in personality profiles and human interest stories. But it’s something to practice in every interview situation – think of each opportunity as a Kung Fu Interview.
We have more interview tips elsewhere on Hammock.com. Put all these together, and over time, you will find that you have learned much, Grasshopper.
The ongoing discussion among marketers about how to measure engagement today is a bit anxious. Most marketers seem overwhelmed with the organizational challenges of measuring and analyzing ROI. The realities of having to interact with their IT departments may be more top of mind than how they can get their hands around new customer behaviors in a world of social media.
A June report from Forrester Research by Brain Haven and Suresh Vittal, “Measuring Engagement,” contributes to the ongoing conversation about how marketers should measure the behaviors of customers and relationships of customers to their brands.
Haven and Vittal lay out the four I’s of engagement: involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence. The easy-to-remember formula defines engagement as the level of the four I’s that a customer has with a brand over time.
But before we can better understand the customer’s engagement, which align with his or her buying process, Haven and Vittal note the realities that stand in the way of making and using a better measurement: lack of agreement on the meaningful metrics, trouble accessing data, inadequate analysis skills and trouble connecting the insights gained into meaningful creative content.
But before we throw up our hands and give up, Haven and Vittal offer a strategy:
• Define what an engaged customer looks like
• Audit engagement measurement capabilities
• Assess value of metrics
• Prioritize metrics
I can’t offer more specifics without violating my user agreement. Forrester offers this insight for a pretty nice fee.
I’ve got three opinions about this:
• An enlightened organization is one that will be able to work through the operational challenges and get to work on the 4 I’s.
• Technology will surely emerge to help this process.
• Staying engaged in this discussion is necessary for all of us in the custom media business.
We’ve found that organizations seek the help of a custom media partner like ours for lots of different reasons. Some have internal communications departments, but don’t have the editorial, design or production expertise to accomplish their goals. Others recognize the cost savings and predictability of working with a partner rather than keeping the resources necessary to produce media in-house; while others have expertise in one type of media, but look to us for help creating and integrating new media. Our relationships with our clients are all unique, but here are some of the more common reasons we have found for organizations to hire a custom media company:
You can’t be too careful with stock photos.
One wonders how much time the Birmingham City Council – of England – has spent actually out and about in their own city, after the council authorized and issued a brochure bearing a picture of Birmingham – Alabama.
The British city fathers tried the old “we were just looking for something generic” excuse, but that sounded pretty lame, given they were praising their citizens for recycling efforts. Surely they had a nice shot of their town someplace?
It’s a cautionary tale for those of us who use stock photos. Consumer Reports readers often point out instances where the same stock image has been used for similar, or even competing, products and services. I know I have seen the woman in the center probably 10 times over the past few years, advertising jewelry, cosmetics and face lifts.
Some years ago, at another company, we were asked to do a story on a client’s newest acquisition – a mortgage processing firm. The acquisition’s corporate brochure had a cover photo of those lovely Victorian homes in San Francisco known as “the Painted Ladies.” Upon close examination, it was clear there was a guy in his Fruit-of-the-Looms standing in a window. We never told the client, since the brochure was dumped right after the acquisition.
This time of year, it’s nearly impossible to stay indoors all day long when it is so beautiful outside. So when the weekend rolls around, it isn’t unusual to find many of us hiking, camping, bicycling, canoeing, white-water rafting or savoring other outdoor activities. That’s why we took particular pleasure in putting together the July/August issue of American Spirit, whose cover image of a serene wooded spot on the John Muir Trail beckons the nature lover in us all.
