ArchivesThis could go on for weeks,or months - life changing stuff. Aside from the many thousands of stranded and/or disappointed people,we now have the imminent shortage of airfreighted exotic foods and the collapse of all sorts of just-in-time supply chains.
What will we discover about the way we live and work?
Let's hear it for teleconferencing, local foodstuffs, supply lines which are short and secure, and companies who don't shirk responsibilities to customers when the chips are down.
How is a civilisation with the collective attention span of a swarm of gnats going to cope with a news story which just goes on and on and on? What will the politicians do - because you can't negotiate with (or spin) a volcano. Primal forces just don't do deadlines.
This story isn't yet a week old. Watch and learn.
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( 3 / 101 )Is there something wrong with my life? I'm sitting in something which calls itself a Skylounge, thirteen floors up, gazing across the cloudscape as the light over Leeds city centre deepens into dusk. There are three women at the table - one white wine, one mojito, one gin and tonic.
Because we're all grown-ups and we're all writers, the talk is not of sex, drugs or even rock'n'roll. Instead the conversation hovers around writing, clients, editorial angst, the unfortunate rise of the reflexive pronoun in customer service dialogues,that sort of thing. Even blogs enter the conversation.
Then the question is raised. Do you use Pingomatic? What?
It sounds as if we've been gatecrashed by a 1960s soap powder ad. For whiter whites and bright brights - use Pingomatic!
Except it's not a soap powder. It's a cute little online tool for promoting a blog - like this one. And two of us didn't know about it... and we felt so excited by the prospect...and how sad is that?
If girlies sit around in smart city bars talking about promoting their web sites, I guess Don Draper isn't ever going to come over to buy us drinks.
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( 3 / 226 )It's one of those Forrest Gump moments. The Christmas cards come down and - after carefully sorting out those which can be recycled (no glitter or metallic printing,if you live in York) - it's time to update the mailing list.
Received 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 So after a year, about a quarter of your precious list is likely to be out of date.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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