ArchivesReceived wisdom tells us that, left to their own devices, commercial mailing lists deteriorate at about 2% per month. So after a year, about a quarter of your precious list is likely to be out of date. Keeping mailing lists fresh and accurate is something I hassle clients about; hence my somewhat anal approach to my own list husbandry.
So here I am, editing and correcting to record the annual impact of birth, death, marriage, divorce, relocation and co-habitation on my own small circle.
Adding in the births is no problem - though Microsoft often stuggles to keep pace with the imaginative choices made by parents. It's the deletions I find difficult. In a paper address book (remember those?), you could draw a thoughtful line through the details of the departed. But a deletion? That feels more final than a final thing, as Blackadder would say.
There you are. Two references to popular culture in one blog. It must be that new zeitgeist I got for Christmas.
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( 3 / 247 )Picture it. A recently revamped gastro-pub in North Yorkshire on a dull November day. The spacious modern interior suggests good things to come: the wood is blond, the textures natural, the paintwork ever so Farrow & Ball. On the walls hang simply framed but exquisitely composed photographs reflecting the provenance of ingredients from local suppliers. Logs burn in a chic little stove.
All the signals are good. The menu looks interesting, as do dishes being ferried to adjacent tables. The young staff are skilled and friendly.
"Have one of our new magazines," one offers. "They've just arrived. We've got 84 boxes of them." She passes each of us a 64pp + cover magazine. I am all but crushed by the weight. A huge Rolex studded with diamonds glitters on the back page. Sumptuous photography and celebrity food porn slither across the double-page spreads.
It's an impressive contract publishing job. I can't fault the production standards (or the proofreading).Clearly, pretty much every supplier has been persuaded of the value of an advertisement. It's all very flash - and seriously out of step with the quiet confidence of the place where I'm actually about to eat lunch.
OK, so I know the pub is part of a prospering hospitality group, but does it have to make its promotion so horribly slick? And please, spare me the loyalty card.
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( 3 / 256 )press release:
Award-winning photographer Rob Cook at Yorkshire Scientific Pictures has teamed up with Val Seddon at York-based Output Communicators to offer clients a unique, one-stop communications package – the Hotcom.
A Hotcom is an elegant fusion of communications strategy and technology. Top-calibre scientific photography is combined with carefully crafted text, ready to be delivered direct to recipients’ computer screens.There is no costly printing or time-consuming mailing. Live links can take readers directly to specific web pages for in-depth information, or generate reader responses.
Rob Cook says:
“This is a great way to maximise the value of distinctive science photography – particularly in specialist fields with identifiable audiences. On-screen images can create high visual impact, or be equally effective when underpinning more subtle messages.”
Val Seddon says:
“The Hotcom format is flexible yet robust. Anyone who can receive a PDF can receive a Hotcom. It’s ideally suited to conference newsletters and a whole range of marketing and internal communications tools. The art lies in producing short, readable text which retains both marketing messages and scientific integrity.”
Check out the related link below to Rob's site, then contact either:
Rob Cook, Yorkshire Scientific Pictures on 01904 499 533
info@yorkshirescientificpictures.co.uk or
Val Seddon, Output Communicators on 07852 149 669
input@outputcomms.co.uk.
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( 2.9 / 242 )There's been a lovely little framed cartoon on my kitchen wall for more than twenty years. It shows three cats settled down on a sofa and the programme they are watching so intently is "Floyd on Fish".
I loved the programme, and I loved the cartoon so much that I bought the original from cartoonist Jonathan Pugh ( www.pughcartoons.co.uk ), then at the start of his brilliant career.
Party on, Floyd, wherever you are.
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( 3 / 254 )"This editorial's a bit flat," says the client. "Can you do anything with it?"
Yes, yes, definitely yes. Writers are a bit like hairdressers. We just love to run our fingers through other people's text, snipping off surplus adverbs, slicing into clunky phrases and trimming up sloppy proofreading.
The piece of editorial text in question was over-long and terminally dull but I suspect the original writer was not at fault. Some editorial copy gets trailed around committees and legal teams. Each adds their own changes. The result can become little more than word soup. The copy is no longer fit for purpose.
Useful as Microsoft Word's multi-person review/tracking facility is, it doesn't think. It doesn't take a holistic approach. And it absolutely doesn't care about creative communications. So please, if you're going to mess with the text, think about giving a writer the last word - or as close to it as the legal team will allow.
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