Some sticker on sticker action

Ok people, this is important. What kind of music do you listen to at work? Personally, I tend to keep things mixed up. Like really really mixed up. From Tenacious D to Nikki Yanofsky, pretty much anything goes (except the Bieber,… the Bieber doesn’t get any airtime at my desk).

I’ve recently discovered a new appreciation for Jazz music. Coltrane, Davis, Hancock, whatever it is, it makes me feel good to listen to it. I don’t know why, but it just does, and that’s cool. In fact, that more than cool, it actually changes the nature of my focus. It gives me a different perspective, subliminally. It just works! It may even make the work I do better (gasp!)

The point is, if you’re in a rut, in a funk, whatever the case may be, even if you’re listening to your favorite MP3’s, or favorite radio station, the actual music you’re listening to may not be doing you any favors. Keep in mind there is little (actually zero) science to any of this.

Try changing things up! What have you got to lose? If you’re an iTunes user, check out a different radio station / genre each day until something tweaks you. Grab a few different podcasts and just giv’er! If money is no object, buy a new album from iTunes every day!

Music can move you. It can make you feel something on the inside. It can inspire, depress, enlighten you or just plain hurt your ears. It’s a gift, enjoy it all!

Imagine the best cake you’ve ever had, or could ever hope to have. I am talking about a really nice, moist, chocolate cake. How could you describe this cake? I don’t mean words that express opinion, like “delicious”, I mean, words that express fact. Could we say “brown”, for instance. That would…

Apparently us bergerons are 50% smurf

I’d you look closely, the sign looks like it is giant macaroni art.

What an awesome article on the true definitions of logos… the products / organizations they represent. I often tell clients, great logos don’t build great companies… Great companies define great logos. 

Ok, so I’ve been tweeting for a month or 2 now, and aside form an initial brain pain trying to figure out the true purpose of Twitter, I’m now starting to see the value. 

My first thought about Twitter was, why would anybody want to follow me? Should I tweet everything I’m doing throughout the day? Do people really care? The answer is probably an overwhelming NO, and this has led me to a couple of observations about my Twitter habits, and the true value…

There are 2 types of people I follow. People I know personally, and people/brands who I don’t know but share common interests. There is a 3rd category I’ll mention later.

For people I know, it doesn’t matter what they tweet. Because I can easily associate a personal image with tweeter, it’s relevant and not an intrusion. Even if the tweet is something like ‘sitting down to eat my cornflakes’. Whooped Dee Doo. No Harm, no Foul because they’re a buddy.

For those I don’t know, I’m following them for a reason. For example, I follow TUAW (The Unnofficial Apple Weblog), primarily because I’m an Apple fanatic, and I find all Apple news to be pretty interesting.

I tried following some other users for awhile (yup, Even Ashton Kutcher), and this is where I fell off the rails at first. I kept asking myself, why do I care what Ashton Kutcher is thinking about right now? I really don’t. 2 problems here, … I don’t know him personally, and we don’t share any common interests. The same goes for a few others that I’ve since deleted. 

There is a certain tweet trust that is built between the common interest tweeter and tweetie. As long as they post ‘as advertised’, and stick to what they are all about, then it’s all good. TUAW won’t start telling us what they had for breakfast (I hope), they’ll stick to the mac facts. I tweet trust them. 

Recently started following a well know radio host. I like his commentary, and have listened to him off an on for years. I noticed something highly irritating about his twitter feed though,… He’ll post a headline about ANYTHING! We’re talking news, weather, stock market updates, you name it. This isn’t what he’s know for, so why bother tweeting everything? He broke the tweet trust, because he creates so much ‘static’, I skim over his tweets. Bad for him I guess. 

The point here is this. If you are a business, celeb, special interest etc,… tweet the things that are relevant to YOUR brand / persona. That’s what people are into. Don’t just rebroadcast the world, that’s what CNN is for (incidentally, the 3rd category). 

The true value is building a solid network of tweetaholics who feed you with relevant timely information about the things you like. It’s also nice to keep up with what your friend are up to if they’re so inclined to post they hourly status updates. Ultimately, it takes awhile to find your Tweetspot. (TM, all rights reserved)  ;) 

In the world of corporate branding, we alway coach our clients to do their best to apply a systematic brand focused email signature style for all of their users. This helps avoid the “Shirley from accounting and her penguin background” scenario, or everyones favorite, the “Comic Sans” font style (ugh). I’ve recently had a client with about 125 users adopt a new software package that helps manage signatures more effectively for corporate users on exchanges servers, including outlook signature styles, and even Blackberry styles. The software is Exclaim and seems to do the trick nicely. It’s also handy for rotating marketing messages (even images) or legal disclaimers below signature lines.

They are still in testing mode, but I’ll post more when we here about their results. Until then, keep rockin out the fuzzy bunny backgrounds!

I finally twitterstand.