Archive for July 2006

I still haven’t gotten comfortable with quoting prices after exactly one year today of going full-time as a freelancer. Since we all learn how to write in school, many people think they can write articles, web content, newsletters and whathaveya. I think that’s part of why writers struggle with pricing — because businesses believe they shouldn’t have to pay much otherwise they could have their own people write it.

But like those businesses, we have to deal with the cost of living where we live, families, bar/bat mitzvahs, college, weddings, and paying bills just like everyone else. Katharine breaks down what it’s “working full-time” for a freelance editor.

Kristen answers a question about why freelance writer’s cost so much (it may not be that the person got quoted high rates, but rather higher than expected rates). Anne has a series of articles on how to determine what to charge.

For me, it’s about finding the middle between what the client can afford and what I can afford. I really need to sit down and figure out my target market and make up a persona for the ideal client. Been reading an excellent book, Book Yourself Solid. One advice I appreciated that echoed Andy’s comment in a previous entry — book only clients you enjoy working with and “dump the duds.”

The ones that drain your energy and boost your stress levels take away the energy you could have in getting more clients. Having clients that are a better fit lowers procrastination, speeds up output, and leaves you with more energy to get and work with more clients. Amen.

What does a Web 2.0-style logo look like? Here’s Part I and Part II of a collection from Flickr.

Yay Hooray has over 200 posts of people having a good time Web 2.0-ifying existing logos. [Links from Web 2.0 blog ]

I was wrong. Gradients and the wet floor effect appear in most of the logos. The list contains almost everything that appears in the 8 Web Design Cliches.

The Diva Marketing Blog commented that the newest issue of Advertising Age sounded too familiar and it wasn’t just one article. It turns out the whole magazine appeared in its email newsletter and discussed in blogs.

This is a challenge for businesses that diversify their marketing efforts as readers prefer to receive information in various ways: print, email, feeds, web site / blog, some of these, or all of these. The funny thing is that we at InternetVIZ have been talking about blogs and our newsletters. We discussed that if an article is ready to go before the email newsletter goes out — that it might be a good idea to post it in the blog.

Our audience consists mainly of newsletter readers and that’s who will most likely find the blog. Currently, I’m working on a blogging strategy, so I’ll need to keep this in mind as no company wants to sound like a broken record — yet, they want to ensure their readers have the opportunity to see the information no matter how they prefer to get the information.

I read a comment somewhere that a business had no plans to start a blog because its target audience knows little or nothing about blogs. Indeed there are probably industries or groups that don’t put a high priority on technology and may limit to receiving information by print or email. But I believe it’s rare when an industry or group shares this belief.

When I publish a new issue of a newsletter, I usually link to it from my blog along with a summary, rather than publish the whole thing. Perhaps, the best approach would be that wherever the article appears first, the second resource should provide a summary and a link to the full resource along with a note that says “From the July issue of PSJ” or “Originally posted in meryl’s notes.”

I agree with Toby of the Diva Marketing Blog to be careful when incorporating blogs and email newsletters into a marketing plan. The marketing plan should look at all of the venues, rather than treat each venue as individual items. Of course, you can create a strategy for the blog, but also make sure you have a separate marketing strategy that looks at the big picture.

Speaking of Diva Marketing Blog — Toby collects Blogger Stories and kindly published mine. Do you have a story? Take a break and read a couple of stories — they’re a fun read.

If you spend your book reading time on non-fiction like me, here’s an opportunity to read a short fiction that provides a nice summer read and an history lesson. I probably spent about two to three hours reading the book.

See’s story explores the culture and lives of the people living in 19th-century rural China. The book provides a history lesson in the form of a fictional story that centers around two girls from childhood through womanhood.

The richly told tale begins with the tradition of footbinding to keep girl’s feet small therefore ensuring they’re “marriageable.” I knew about the small feet, but not about the horrifying and vividly described process.

After reading the book, I researched the topics covered in the story and discovered the author accurately captured 19th-century China. Readers learn about arranged marriages, different classes (poor, rich, farmer, butcher), friendships, married life, education, the secret writing of Nu Shu and the infighting in the country.

At times, the characters come across as unemotional or mean and it’s true. Sometimes you like and sometimes you don’t like the central characters, but it’s a reflection of those times. Besides, if the main characters were always happy go-lucky and 100% likeable, wouldn’t that be predictable and dull?

The book starts a little slow, but picks up speed after the footbinding. Once it grabbed me, I was eager to finish it. I don’t have many opportunities to read fiction and with this short book, I had the opportunity to quickly enjoy a fictional story while learning more about the Chinese culture.

Title: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Author: Lisa See
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812968069
Date: June 2005 (Reprint: February 2006)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Cover Price: USD: $13.97 Amazon: $5.58

How to Ruin Web Design — The Design Curve is a simple and accurate view of what happens to a design when more people get involved in providing feedback and the time spent in changing the design. [Link from Web 2.0 Blog]

If you don’t read the rest of this entry — this picture tells all [Link from comment].

This concept also applies to meetings and projects. When I worked on a process team for a company, we started holding weekly meetings (or was it every other week?) to discuss process changes. The attendees included a handful of managers. The process worked great for over a year.

Then things changed. We took in another company and its software development team merged with ours. Now we had team members in three states. The process meeting slash teleconference attendees doubled and we accomplished less. Too many different ideas and opinions. It was tough to arrive to an agreement and we tabled many discussions for off-line discussions.

Not only did we have too many people involved, but also people who shouldn’t be attending the meetings. What’s more is that each process undergoing review had a sub-team. This worked well until we grew and the wrong people got assigned to those sub-teams. In the earlier days, it was easier to get the right people involved.

Part of the challenge to fix these problems is getting heard by the right people. Or they hear, but don’t consider the advice. Have you been able to convince decision-makers to change something? How did you make it happen? That was an area I struggled in when working in corporate USA.

Uh… what do I blog about today. Um… I’m thinking. Thank goodness there’s no sound in this blog so you don’t have to hear “uh” and “um.” People do notice when a speaker uses those crutch sounds to cover up the silence or collecting your thoughts. Even my daughter who was about 9 or 10 at the time complimented by ability to avoid those filler sounds.

I was fortunate to learn to cut out fillers when I was a kid. I liked 7th grade public speaking class so much that I took it again in high school and college. One of my college internships involved teaching public speaking to middle school students.

How to Lose the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ from Your Speech uses one technique and apparently it worked within a year. I advise my kids to keep their mouths closed until they come up with the next thought — it’s OK to have silence. No one dies from silence.

I avoid telling my kids, “Don’t say ‘um’” because then it gets in their heads and they start saying it. Just like the story I vaguely recall when a comedian told another person not to mention something to the queen, and of course, the person did. Tried to find the story, but no luck. Thought it was George Burns or Jack Benny. [ Link: Esoterica ]

I just finished Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for my reading group, which is about the only time I get to read fiction. The book is wonderful and educational read in under 300 pages. Author Lisa See shows the reader what life was like in China during the days of footbinding, arranged marriages, and social classes. The book was a history lesson in the form of a story.

I learned long ago that Chinese women worked to keep their feet small, but I had no idea about the process behind it. The story details the footbinding process, but I was still amazed when I saw the photos of an adult woman’s bound feet and an x-ray showing what happens to the bones in bound feet in Wikipedia.

The story also tells of secret writing known as Nu Shu. Women weren’t allowed to learn reading and writing like the men, so they developed a secret language to help them communicate with family and sworn sisters. It was tradition to burn a woman’s Nu Shu letters when she died, which means there were few that survived.

I came across Shorthand Press, which I added to the original gift ideas list. I took an interest in shorthand when my 10th grade computer literacy teacher used it in her notes, but alas I never had the opportunity to learn it. I’m sure many of us have developed our own shorthand writing. I use @ to represent at, around, and about. Looks like EasyScript Express is a highly recommended book for learning shorthand.

I think I finally came upon a company name. It may not matter much to you, but isn’t meryl.net kinda dull? The only reason I registered that as a company name is because it was all I had at the time. There’s one good thing about meryl.net in spite of its vanity name — it’s a short URL.

Someone submitted a site for CSS Collection and there it came to me. I immediately registered the domain, but I’m nervous about making a switch after using meryl.net for so long. I would value your feedback. Ready?

[drum roll]

WordFuel

What do ya think? I need to decide quickly because a magazine has generously agreed to feature my logo in its magazine for a design makeover.

I started collecting pennies when I was in grade school. The Scholastic Book Fair arrived at my school where I found a three-fold penny folder. I have it in the house somewhere in a safe place. The folder resembles the one in the picture, except it’s brown and goes further back — maybe 1900? The folder had three panels containing a place for the penny along with a label of the year and mint mark, if any.

I came across many news reports stating a bill has been introduced to kill the penny. Apparently, the U.S. Mint reports that it costs more to produce a penny because the cost of zinc has gone up. Now it costs about 1.4 cents to produce a one cent penny.

No more something-99 products and everything will be rounded to the nearest five (up no doubt). The CNN Poll currently shows that 61% believe the penny should go bye-bye. Aw.

I still delight when I find a penny on the street. Are penny loafers going to be renamed nickel or dime loafers?

Once I got out of automated mode, I woke up and realized that I often use Paste Special with unformatted text when working in MS Word. It became a habit like CTRL+V, CTRL+X, and CTRL+C. To do Paste Special without formatting, I clicked CTRL+V to paste, selected the Paste Special icon (smart tag) and selected Keep Text Only. Another way to do a Paste Special is to click Edit, Paste Special and select your preference.

Why do all that when I can create a macro and put a button on the toolbar? That’s exactly what I did. It took a few days to get the hang of using the button instead of going the old-fashioned route. I can’t remember where I found the tip and searching for it didn’t jog my memory.

A Microsoft article shows part of the way. The difference is that it changes CTRL+V to paste unformatted text. There are occasions when I do want it to paste formatted text, so I don’t want to change CTRL+V. The button works great. I had thought about making another keyboard shortcut, but I didn’t want to risk erasing another shortcut in the process.

If you prefer to create a keyboard shortcut, here are the Windows keyboard shortcuts. However, these don’t consider the shortcuts that come with specific programs like SnagIt. I use CTRL+SHIRT+P to snag an image.

Here are the steps from the Microsoft article with some minor changes:

1. Start Word.
2. Click ALT+F8.
3. In the Macro name box, type PasteUnformattedText.
4. Make sure that All active templates and documents is displayed in the Macros in list, and then click Create. The Microsoft Visual Basic Editor appears.
5. Directly above the End Sub statement in the Sub PasteUnformattedText() section, type (or copy and paste) the following line of code:

Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText

6. Click ALT+Q to return to Word.

The next steps add a button to the toolbar.

1. Right-click the toolbar and select Customize.
2. Ensure the Commands tab is selected.
3. Select Macros and locate Normal.NewMacros.PasteUnformated.Text (part of it might be cut off).
4. Click and hold Normal.NewMacros.PasteUnformatedText and drag it to where you want it in the toolbar.
5. Right-click Normal.NewMacros.PasteUnformatedText (if nothing happens, click the Customize window and right-click again — keep the Customize window open).
6. Change Name to whatever you want, so you can shorten it.

You can use an image instead, if you prefer. In this case, while the Customize window is still open:

1. Right-click the new button you created, select Change Button Image, and pick an icon.
2. Right-click the button again and select Default Style. Only an image appears. You can leave it as image and text, if you prefer.

You might want to do a Save All after finishing this. See this post for an explanation and how to do it.