Don't let Stanley Kubrick design your web content!

"So, I went to that company's site," the business reporter told me. "What do they do?"
 Ouch! 
I was embarrassed by that question about my PR client and frustrated that I had little or no input on their site's content. All key pages on the niche BPO provider's site were dominated by slogans, vision statements, mission statements, graphics of world maps, etc., but no clear description of what specialized services they provided.

To put it in terms of science fiction movies, the reporter needed to see a web site that read like Star Wars, but her  experience was more akin to watching 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I'm a fan of Stanley Kubrick's movies and Arthur C. Clarke's novels, but I thought the famous 1968 collaboration between the two suffered from serious gaps in story-telling. Kubrick meant to take a non-verbal approach to the movie, reaching the viewer at a visual or visceral level rather than through conventional narrative.

Bridgman Pottery is in Southern Living

To honor my wife's birthday, I'm reposting this bit about her spotlight in the January 2011 print edition of Southern Living. Melissa is a potter dba Bridgman Pottery.

Southern Living runs a recurring feature called "Best of the South: Made by Southern Hands," focusing on regional artisans (craft, food, furnishings etc).
This issue's feature is subtitled "Breakfast Time," highlighting food and serving ware made in the South.
An editor at SL was searching on Etsy for breakfast-related crafts last summer and found Melissa's old-school egg cups on her online store there.
I am still very, very grateful that Melissa ignored my advice to make a ceramic rack for microwaving bacon.

Applebee's and a Catch-22 of social media marketing

What happened to Applebee's on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit last week has been described with many metaphors: "implosion," "meltdown," "disaster" and others.

I liken it to the Battle of Little Bighorn that cost General Custer his life in 1876. However, Applebee's isn't going to "die," and the company is not a victim of its own hubris like Custer. But the "action" on the Facebook page may resemble the final hour of Custer's life: Thousands of current and former waiters "circling" the normally bland/cheerful corporate page, furiously pumping arrows and spears into every new post the company made in an attempt to explain its actions during the last week of January.

Slate coverage:
When Applebee’s tried to impose an automatic 18 percent tip last week on the bill of Atlanta pastor Alois Bell, she crossed it out, reduced the tip to zero, and added the note, “I give God 10%, why do you get 18?” A waitress posted the receipt online, earning Bell nationwide derision and the server a pink slip for violating Bell’s “right to privacy,” according to Applebee’s. Over the weekend, the restaurant chain suffered an avalanche of criticism. [Note: I neglected to include "avalanche" in my list of metaphors!]