Thoughts (Posts)

You may recall that one of the reasons I elected to enroll in Media 275, Social Media Marketing, was to support a friend and former colleague to grow both her business and her online presence.  It’s not that she’s incapable – she’s one of the smartest and most creative people I know.  But after years of labouring under encouragement the likes of “that’ll never work, why would you even think of doing that,” for her craft, for her art – an extension of herself – and thus for her, entering the fray with a silent partner, and not alone, will help with her transition to “it did, and I did it!”

For the most part, she makes what I think is unique and colourful jewellery from stainless steel and Swarovski crystals.  It is versatile, and can be worn paired with casual or formal wear for seemingly any occasion.  She would tell you that, for now, her target market consists of women of a broad age range.  (I wear a couple bracelets that she made for me so I think her target market could one day be extended to include men – you can see them, if you look closely, on our Media 275 Zoom Classroom, a noteworthy social media site that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.)

I consulted one of my “market insiders,” who is familiar with her designs, and who seems to corroborate that assertion: 

“Marketing wise: I think your target demographic is large. It’s simple, classic jewelry that can be worn professionally or casually, so the junior-young adult-adult range is not out of question. It is relatively light weight which will be a benefit for some and will be a deficit for others. Some will see the weightlessness as being cheap (think of you oldies who grew up with real wooden furniture and think if it isn’t heavy it isn’t worth it – you know what I mean?). Others will see the weightlessness as being a feature not a bug.”  (Fuzz, Daughter No. 3,  MS1, PNWU, 2021)

So where does that point us?  First, to Pinterest.  Pew Research reports that 42% of women in the United States use Pinterest. (1)  Hootsuite reports that in 2019, “Pinterest gained 70 million monthly active Pinners. There are now 335 million people who use Pinterest every month.” (2) 

“Pinterest closed out 2019 by overtaking Snapchat as the third-biggest social network in the United States. Facebook and Instagram hold the top spots. Throw YouTube into the mix and Pinterest falls to fourth position.” (2)

“Last year’s Prophet Brand Relevance Index put Pinterest in 10th position, behind companies like Apple, Spotify, Android, and Disney. It’s the only social platform to crack the top ten. It also ranks as #1 in the survey’s “Makes me feel inspired” and “Engages with me in new and creative ways” categories.” (2)

So, yeah, we’ll probably start with Pinterest, but also use her website to showcase her art and her talent.  Facebook, I think, will come in time, as will Twitter and Instagram, which I’ll cover in a minute.

My personal goal is to capture for the prospective buyer her enthusiasm for what she does.  I’ve watched her in action, and I think what sells, mostly, is her.  As she has described how she makes this stuff, and how the buyer can use it, and where, and how it can be mixed and matched – it’s potentially a jewellery system, and not simply a piece – I’ve seen prospective buyers respond to her enthusiasm by purchasing or ordering one or more of her pieces.

How do we do that?  For starters, visual content, tips, how-to’s, and the like are a few of the means of engagement.  I’m encouraging my partner to capture through blogging all of those suggestions she has provided her in-person customers, all the “see how you can do this” tips, and tell the tale of how she came to do this, what inspired her, and how she does it, which is wonderfully interesting on its own.  We’re in agreement on all save the how – her concern is copycatters.

What would David Meerman Scott say of this?  Without pointing to anything specific in the first section of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, I suspect he’d say, “good start,”  and “don’t be afraid to tell the world how you do this.”

One of the products she offers is a lanyard, made of the same materials and in the same fashion as her jewellery, and in the same host of colours.  She selected the hardware – the ID badge clip, the breakaway supermagnet clasp – to be stylish and, made of stainless steel, to be durable.  It is attractive, and it is sturdy – my wife now teaches 1^st, and before this 4^th and 5^th Grades, and has worn one in the classroom for three years.  My partner has done well with her lanyard at the headquarters of her (and my former) employer, with mostly women, but men as well.  Anywhere that people are required to wear or openly display their ID badges is a potential market for this item.

What happens when the pandemic is over, but many employers allow their employees to continue to work from home?  Well, I’d say, they’ll have to go into the head shed every once in a while, where they’ll still be required to display their ID, so that market won’t disappear completely.

If it does, we’ll enter a new one . . . we may, regardless – Comic Con.  Early last year, before the pandemic changed the world, my partner suggested that we should look into attending the Rose City Comic Com as a vendor.  The boomer in me was initially skeptical, but heard her out.  In the spirit of trust, but verify, I then consulted another of my market insiders, Daughter No. 2.  She works in the Rose City as a software engineer, and is of the demographic that attends Comic Cons.  Her research indicated that “it’s full of tech boys,” and “everybody has a lanyard on – even Spiderman has a lanyard on.”  With the memory of The Gods Themselves’ video for Tech Boys fresh in my mind, I thought, “She’s right, probably something to this.”

The makeup of the Comic Con lanyard market is bit of a different beast than that which frequents Pinterest.  For starters, beyond simply the demographic, Twitter and Instagram appear to be the platform of choice for those who attend Comic Con. (3)  With attendance at Rose City approached 70,000 in 2018, 100,000 at the Emerald City show, the opportunity is reason enough to spend a few days in Portland and Seattle (as if you’d need more reasons . . .).  But first, we’ll need to better understand how to best reach out on Twitter and Instagram to those who may attend. 

Sources

1. “Demographics of Social Media Users and Adoption in the United States,” Pew Research,  https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/#which-social-media-platforms-are-most-popular , accessed 20 January 2021.
2. Sehl, Katie, “28 Pinterest Statistics Marketers Should Know in 2020,” Hootsuite, https://blog.hootsuite.com/pinterest-statistics-for-business/ , Accessed 22 January 2021.
3. “Social Media analysis of the San Diego Comic-Con,” Cool Tabs, https://blog.cool-tabs.com/en/san-diego-comic-con-social-media/, accessed 25 January 2021.

Helluva title, ain’t it . . .

Let’s begin with the notion of Digital Citizenship.  Is this any different from the pedestrian, plain vanilla, good old citizenship, and, if so, how? 

Citizenship grants certain rights to its holders, but with accompanying responsibilities.  The cost of admission to citizenship, and the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” includes, but is not limited to:  respecting others (and oneself), upholding the laws of the land (and changing them through lawful means), helping others, being responsible for one’s own actions and how they affect others, acting with honesty, honour, and integrity, and giving credit where credit is due.

So how does Digital Citizenship differ?  On the surface, not much – though they may be applied differently, the same old cost elements still apply.  The digital world is simply an additional platform upon which to exercise citizenship. 

But it’s become a slippery slope.  Although the truth exists, with all the information that abounds digitally, it’s become in some cases much, much harder to find.  Respect for experience and credential has diminished, and with it citation and attribution.  Scientific method has fallen out of grace, usurped by confirmation bias.

So what’s a citizen to do?  In a word, question.  If no sources are presented in support of an argument or assertion, ask for them.  If none are forthcoming, politely, but firmly discount the assertion.  “They said . . . ” is not a source.  “Everybody knows . . .” is not a source.  “I read in . . .” is a start, but only a start. 

What if you’re the one doing the asserting?  State your sources.  I may not agree with what you tell if you do, but I simply won’t consider it if you don’t.  At best I will consider you misinformed. 

Next word:  Respect.  Respect the fact that I may not agree with you, regardless of your sources.  Respect the fact that as a general rule, credential and experience deliver competence.  Be willing to accept the fact that in many cases you have neither, and at minimum consider what those with both have to say.  I have four children, and am reasonably conversant in the mechanics of from whence they came and how, but I certainly wouldn’t claim to possess the knowledge and wisdom of an experienced obstetrician.

Could be that as you show your respect for someone, whether, you agree with them or not, and acknowledge their work, they may in turn not only respect you back, but they may pay it forward by respecting the next guy, and he the next.  You never know, you might trigger a translational pay it forward avalanche. 

So why not try?  It certainly wouldn’t hurt your personal brand.  Yeah, I know that you’ve put in a lot of effort on social media to solidify your image, with your resume on LinkedIn, pictures on Facebook, and posts on your personal blog site, but none of that says much about your reputation as someone who respects others, welcomes their input, and considers their opinions.  (Okay, testimonials might help, but . . . ever read a review on Amazon or Yelp that sounded too good to be true?)  Remember that your reputation is part of your personal brand, too.  Be the part that you look.

Perhaps heresy in present company, but I don’t adhere to the notion that Douglas Adams was particularly prescient with his invention of the device known fondly as “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (H2G2). Rather, I think it was a happy mashup of his interest in computers (like the Commodore PET) and an ancestor of “The Lonely Planet” series that he carried along with him on his wanderings through Europe.

I have been an avid reader of “hard” science fiction since grade school, and consumed just about anything written by Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Greg Bear, to name but a few. (I still do, having recently re-read a number of their works that I had packed away in a moving box some twenty years ago, and not opened until I moved home to the Pacific Northwest in 2018.) It is in the context of their collective imagination that I evaluate the “technology” put forth by all others, Douglas Adams included. And by that standard, H2G2 doesn’t measure up as an oracle of future technology.

That said, all is not lost with H2G2. It is a bit of a Pythonesque romp (for good reason), and it is entertaining.

And it does set forth a few pearls that are relevant to both the Media 111 experience, and life, the universe and everything.

I’ve experienced sufficient years and s**tshows that I’ve learned to act on what I can control, and (try) not to worry about what I cannot. It’s not been easy, nor is it now, as I am a consummate worrier, but I’ve learned a lot from my wife of thirty-five years, who is anything but. So, Lesson 1: Don’t Panic!

Rather than be paralyzed by the possibilities, I’ve learned that focusing my energy on determining what is critical, and thinking through contingencies (“hope for the best, but plan for the worst”) helps ease the way through “interesting” times. So does keeping a ditch bag, or go bag handy, packed with the essentials, in the event that an immediate change in venue is warranted. Thus, Lesson 2: Know where your towel is!

I’m one of those odd ducks that (now) believes that it’s less about where you go than how you get there. In other words, the journey is everything, it is all-encompassing, and includes all of those you meet along the way. Last, Lesson 3: You might as well enjoy it!

These are the end products of an exercise in the use of Layers in Photoshop for Media 111 – “Pizza and Salad Bar.”

A new verb for the Oxford English Dictionary?  To “photoshop something is to change a picture or photograph using computer software.”  It carries with it often negative connotations.  The altering of images, particularly of young women, to create some terrible “gold standard” of body image for other young women to aspire to is particularly heinous.  So much so that in 2017 France began to require that “. . . any commercial image that has been digitally altered to make a model look thinner will have a cigarette-packet style warning on it.  ‘Photographie retouchée’, it will say, which translates to ‘edited photograph’.  It’s hoped the change will help tackle extreme thinness among models, and body image problems among those who aspire to shapes they cannot hope to live up to because they were faked on a computer programme.”  (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41443027 , 30 September 2017)

But before we rush to condemn the practice of “photoshopping,” let’s first consider its use as an artistic medium of expression, even whimsy.  John Wilhelm, Photoshop Jedi Master, combines his love of photography with his talents as a Photoshop Jedi to place his kids in all sorts of imaginative situations.  (https://www.johnwilhelm.ch/) 

Let’s have John explain: 

Pretty cool, huh?  Now, let’s have a look at video album housing some of John’s work:

This post has nothing to do with the sad state of current affairs.  It has everything to do with questions were posed as essay cues for a recent assignment in Media 111, Intro to Multimedia Web.

How does color make a difference? Does it matter for Universal Design (UD), User Experience (UX), and User Interface (UI)?

We’ll, I thought, lots of different ways – more than I can count.  Of course, it matters, for Universal Design, the User Experience, and the User Interface, collectively the UDXI, perhaps, as they’re all interrelated, I think.

(I managed environmental compliance at large coal-fired power plants for over a quarter of a century.  I interfaced with EPA, DEQ, DOE and COE on a host of matters relating to CAA, CWA, my areas of expertise, especially regarding NSPS and NPDES, and often dealt with things RCRA and EPCRA, NEPA and ESA.  Acronyms are the bane of the communication…)

Fundamentally, we are all in this class to learn how to make our websites both accessible and appealing, so that our visitors will tarry awhile, and come back again and again to see us. 

Regardless of our content, if our style is such that the colours we choose for our fonts and backgrounds are such that our clients cannot absorb the message that we wish to deliver because they cannot see it, or have difficulty doing so, they will neither tarry, nor return.  We will have been found in violation of Principle No. 4 of Universal Design, Perceptible Information, guilty of creating a poor user interface.

If our choice of colours is so foreboding or dissonant as to make the visit jarring or uncomfortable, the experience unpalatable, our visitors won’t stay long, and won’t come back.

So, what do we do?  Follow the Principles – make it readable, make it comfortable, make it welcoming.  A good host puts his or her guests at ease, and ensures that the conversation flows.  So, make damn sure that the content is there, too.

Do colors have meaning or messages on their own?

Yes, of course.  But be careful – what we might think are intrinsic responses to different colours are heavily influenced by preference, personal experience, and culture.  So, be a good hitchhiker, and take along your guide.

How would the GPP of a robot relate to the color it is? (H2G2 reference)

Colour should have absolutely no bearing on “Genuine People Personality,’ or GPP, of a robot – arguably, it is programming, and programming alone.  Marvin would be a depressed passive-aggressive, regardless of his skin colour.

First, let me state that I am not an attorney, although throughout my career I worked closely with them, fought with them, learned from them, and taught them.  With that, what follows is not an exhaustive legal brief, it is opinion based on recollection.  But with that, I suspect I’m not far off the mark.

Once an idea passes from the inner world of the mind of the creator to the outer world surrounding, in virtually any physical form. It becomes the intellectual property of the creator. 

From a legal perspective, intellectual property is protected from unauthorized use by others via the mechanics of copywrite, patent, trademark, and trade secrets.  Note that none of these prevent the unlawful use of intellectual property.  They, do however, provide the legal avenue to attempt to recover damages from unauthorized use.  They are important in that regard.

For my own purposes, copywrite protection is of little financial value – I don’t expect to realize financial gain from my “art.”  If I do, I do.  But the well-being of my family is not dependent on the income derived from the effort.  Copywriting does, however, provide some protection against misrepresentation and/or fraud resulting from the theft my work.

For the purposes of my fellow classmates, however, those who expect to earn a living from their art, it is arguably a crucial step in their creative processes.  The income derived from their artistic efforts will not just support their art, it will help to support themselves, and their families.  For them, I believe it to be essential.

What are my responsibilities to the creators of media?  To me, it lies in my upbringing:  Give credit where credit is due.  Don’t just take it, ask first if you may use it.  If you borrow it, return it in as good of condition, or better, than when you took it.  And fill it up with gas.

Why?  In my thinking, an artist’s work is first an expression of self, an extension of self.  To make use another’s work for one’s own benefit without first seeking, and receiving, her permission, is not only robbing her, potentially, of her livelihood, it is to rob her of a bit of her soul, herself, as well.  To do so unknowingly and unwittingly is perhaps forgivable.  To do so with intent is callous disregard, disrespect, of another.  And a true lack of honour and integrity.

How do I protect myself?  By copywriting my work.  That way I can exercise my rights to my property in court.  (Also, I think that the © symbol serves as a deterrent, much like “Protected by…” decals and Ring doorbell cameras.)

And now for something completely different . . . 

Chapter 8 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy opens with:

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy … has been compiled and recompiled many times over many years.  It contains contributions from countless numbers of travelers and research. 

After a while the style settles down a bit and it begins to tell you things you really need to know…”

Not unlike the genesis of Wikipedia, and the “management” of its content. 

Much as the BBC series did, Hyperland struck me initially as a Pythonesque romp through the frontiers at the time of interactive media.  No surprise, given that the author, Douglas Adams, wrote for Monty Python’s flying circus (which was my first surprise).  As I watched, what captured my interest the most was that degree to which the ideas on the frontiers of interactive communication, and the supporting platforms, had advanced in not that many years, but a portion of my lifetime.

It reminded me of a talk my Dad and I had, a year or so before he died; I was probably twenty.  We often visited – in retrospect not enough – and when we did, about many things.  This day we talked about what had come to pass in his lifetime, specifically about how technology had so remarkably advanced, and that much of what was taken for granted did not exist when he was born in 1898 – no cars, nor airplanes, no NASA, and in the realm of communications, no radio, no television.

(A little context would probably help here:  I was the product of a second marriage; Dad started his second family when he was well into his fifties.)

Dad enjoyed reading Dick Tracy, a comic strip about a detective that Chester Gould penned from the early thirties well into the seventies.  The Two-Way Wrist Radio arrived on the scene in January 1946, and was later upgraded to a Two-Way Wrist TV in the early sixties.  Dad was certain that someday the fantasy wrist radio would become a reality.  In fact it did, inspiring Martin Cooper’s invention of the cell phone, and arguably was the predecessor of later smartwatches; the Apple Watch comes to mind.

In my lifetime has come The Hitchhiker’s Guide, and from it, perhaps, technology.  Inspired by a stolen copy of Ken Welsh’s Hitch-hiker’s Guide to Europe, it became, as Suze Kundu describes in Forbes, “…the go-to reference material for any universal traveller…described in [H2G2] as being ‘a small, thin, flexible lap computer,’” from which, “with the tap of a few buttons, information on any topic appears on the screen.”

Not much different from what I’m using to write this.

Much as the BBC series did, Hyperland struck me initially as a Pythonesque romp through the frontiers at the time of interactive media.  No surprise, given that the author, Douglas Adams, wrote for Monty Python’s flying circus (which was my first surprise).

Other surprises . . .

First, for those of us who might seemed pressed by the due dates for this class, I found it humorous that Douglas Adams was deadline-challenged.  As Erik Van Rheenen notes in “16 Fun Facts About The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” published in Mental Floss:

“Adams was a notorious deadline-buster. He was famously quoted as saying, ‘I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.’ As he was polishing The Hitchhiker’s Guide, his publishers called Adams and demanded he finish the page he was writing. To ensure he didn’t hear the deadline’s whoosh, the publishing house immediately sent a bicycle courier to pick up the manuscript.

When writing the fourth book in the Hitchhiker “trilogy,” So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, Adams was locked in a hotel suite for three weeks with his editor (and girlfriend) to ensure the book got written in a timely fashion.”

I did give the H2G2 game a go.  I did manage to turn on the light and bash about the room, but succumbed to a bulldozer crashing through the wall.  The game appears to be merciless.   (Not surprisingly.)  It reminded me of Zork, one of the earliest text-based interactive computer games, and certainly the first that I played.  Amazing where technology has gone since then.