EvoBloggito

Redesigning the Stop Sign: Unfortunately, Not Unusual

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 27, 2009; Category: Communication, Design/Development, Marketing, Video; Tags: Design/Development, Humor, Usability; No Comments

This short video is a wonderful parody about how the design process too often works; or doesn’t work. It demonstrates what happens when design is not valued or recognized as a means of clearly communicating the central or primary message.

If you’ve been a designer for any length of time, you’ve found yourself in a similar situation. If you work with or manage designers, you may have been part of this scenario, too.

Key in this video: note the role played by the ineffectual "designer," who does not participate in the discussion, but only takes notes about the design "requirements." Designers have a responsibility to "cut through the crap" and make communication of the primary message the focus of the process. Designers who don’t do that are production artists (they might even be very good production artists), but they’re not designers.

12 Reasons Businesses Should NOT Blog

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 6, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Marketing; Tags: Blogging, Change, Humor; 4 Comments

Last week we posted 7 reasons for businesses to blog. We’re big supporters of blogging as a low-cost, high-effect means for companies to engage their market.

But we recognize not for everyone is cut out to be a blogger. If any of the statements below apply to you, you probably should not blog, at least not for business purposes.

1. You’re so busy writing orders and making trips to the bank to deposit money, you don’t have time to blog.
2. You have no expertise in anything that anyone would be interested in. (Twitter might be a more suitable platform.)
3. You’re illiterate. (Actually, we’re not sure this is a good reason.)
4. You try to avoid walking within 10 feet of a computer without your tinfoil hat on.
5. There’s a ghost in your computer who gets angry and zaps you when you touch the keyboard.
6. Every time you try to write, it reminds you of when your third-grade teacher intercepted your love note to the little girl behind you and read it to the whole class, correcting your grammar and punctuation.
7. You have a rare form of Tourette’s Syndrome that manifests itself in your writing.
8. You’re not interested in any form of marketing that doesn’t give you a shot at an Addy award.
9. You’re in the witness protection program and you need to keep a low profile.
10. Your website is in the witness protection program and you’d prefer it didn’t attract attention.
11. You told your mother you’re a piano player in a whorehouse and you don’t want her to be disappointed when she finds out you’re a blogger.
12. You refuse to participate in any activity that doesn’t have a proper name. “Blogging” indeed!