Today in the US we celebrate Thanksgiving, in honor of the first feast after the first harvest in what would be the US back in the 1600’s. It is commonly a time when people look back on the year and reflect on what they’re thankful for.

For myself, the top of the list can only be occupied by my lovely wife and newborn daughter. Anyone who knows me and my better half don’t need this explained! She is an amazingly powerful and compassionate woman, and my best friend and confidant. Though she has only been with us for 4 months, my daughter has also proven to be not only the most beautiful person in the world, but an inspiration to all I do. Maybe I am biased as she is on my lap as I am writing this!

Happy Thanksgiving to all, whether you’re in the US or not, as we all need to recognize what we are thankful for. The accompanying photo is of a Thanksgiving card I received from Sales-Onsite, LLC – maybe I should send them next year too?

Did you enjoy reading this? You are welcome to subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS feed or by email.

Diversions • (2) Comments • Permalink

Did you enjoy reading this? You are welcome to subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS feed or by email.

Diversions • (1) Comments • Permalink

The next likemind will be Friday, December 5, 2008 in dozens of cities around the world.

In Chicago, it will be at Spa Cafe, 112 W. Monroe, between Clark and LaSalle Streets in the Loop at 8:00 am. Check out the Spa Cafe Web site for more information, and you can find your way with a Google Map to Spa Cafe here.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al.

No RSVP is required. You are also welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group.

Did you enjoy reading this? You are welcome to subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS feed or by email.

Announcements • Business • (0) Comments • Permalink

There are about 469,000 search results in Google for the phrase “is dead long live,” which only has meaning if you put the same word at the front and tail of it. We have all probably seen this in some form or another – “AM Radio is dead, long live AM Radio” and so forth. The phrase is commonly used by someone to state that a particular thing – service, product, industry – is no longer viable, or is on the way out. In a lot of cases, the person stating this is in a position to benefit or profit from the successor to whatever they are proclaiming as dead.

When I originally scrawled notes on my whiteboard on this blog post, I had listed a number of industries, products and companies that I felt were “dead.” After looking over those notes, I realized that these entities weren’t dead at all, they were simply dead to me.

Take for example the newspaper industry. Sure, sales of all major daily newspapers are going down. But in rural areas, newspapers thrive, as they are the main source of information. Before you start hearing dualing banjos in your head, this has nothing to do with the people themselves, just try to get DSL or broadband Internet more than a few miles outside of a small town in north central Wisconsin, let alone even a weak signal on your mobile device! As a result, the mediums of the newspaper and local AM and FM radio are successful in these areas. There may not be a Tribune Tower in the center of these towns, but the handful of people who work there are gainfully employed. Even if you are nearby the Tribune Tower, it's not that people don't read newspapers anymore, there may be simply less of them. With the exception of the day after the presidential election, of course.

As someone who remembers a time before email, I keep that in mind when working with my own clients at Dunkirk Systems, LLC in the strategy and decision-making process for their use of the Internet. I work with graphic designers who understand both print and online – why create a logo that looks good online that you can’t possibly put on a fax cover sheet in black and white? Understanding that people who are not technically savvy still have credit cards and if it’s easy enough they will buy from your Web site is important not to forget.

So the next time someone says something is dead, you need to seek your own meaning in it. If what is being called dead or dying is what you do for a living, you may want to explore it a little further – the alternative may not be too much out of reach. Or it may be still viable but just not for everybody.

Did you enjoy reading this? You are welcome to subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS feed or by email.

Business • (2) Comments • Permalink

To paraphrase what I hear often on Marketing Over Coffee, you are only as good as your house list. Maybe more people should be listening to that podcast.

As the year draws to the end, it is catalog season – that time of the year when our collective mailboxes are jammed with catalogs from companies you have and never have heard of and will most likely never buy from. But that doesn’t stop them from sending me catalogs, sometimes multiple copies, both to my home and work addresses. In what has become almost a mindless ritual, I rip off the back cover and inside order form, shred them, and put the catalog in the recycle bin. I had thought of creating a YouTube video of me doing this, but it doesn’t take much imagination to know what I do on a daily basis.

Some catalogs have a message on the back saying you can unsubscribe to the catalog by calling them or visiting their Web site. As this is not usually worth my time, I haven’t bothered. My mindset changed the other day when Lands’ End, who is already sending catalogs to myself and my wife at both my home and work address, sent one to my daughter. Did I mention my daughter is a baby? Sure she got some very nice presents by friends and family from Lands’ End, but was that an invitation to add her to their catalog mailing list?

I have since sent emails to Lands’ End asking to remove her from their database, and pointing out her age and general inability to shop from them, let alone read the catalog. I got back a generic message, indicating that since catalogs are pre-printed, they may continue arriving. This means I will be getting them pretty much every other day through February of next year.

Lands’ End is being singled out as an evil-doer as they sent my infant daughter a catalog. I happen to like their merchandise and have several items from them. I am fully aware the nature of the catalog business, but in these times of a tight economy, identity theft and overall environmental consciousness, maybe do an address de-dupe on your database and just send us one. Not that we’ll buy anymore from them, but for sure you won’t have me calling them evil on my blog!

Did you enjoy reading this? You are welcome to subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS feed or by email.

Business • (2) Comments • Permalink