I’m sitting in an outdoor terrace of a quaint little Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn, NY. While anxiously waiting for the of start tomorrow’s WidgetWeb Expo I’m relegated to connecting with the ‘outside world’ via my iPhone. What strikes me most, in the moment, is how NYC is really an amazing slice of the ‘real’ world … so rich in cultural diversity. What a shame it would have been to take a seat inside the restaurant and miss out on the people watching. This, in a way is like social media. If we sit alone, immersed in our own little lives, never looking outward, we’ll miss out on connecting with an entire world, even if it’s just connecting by observation.

Forgive me if I seem melancholic … I’m missing my boys on this Father’s Day.

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A client who subscribes to this blog pointed out that it’s been more than a month since I last posted.  Other than a crazy mad launch of a new Social Networking site, a big-time scare where I thought I had a heart attack (and the subsequent revisiting of my life priorities), and the continued successful growth of Acorn Creative, the month has been pretty light weight.

I decided this morning to dive back into the blogosphere … OK, it’s less like “diving” and more like wading out into the shallow end of the kiddy pool.  But I am back in the game.  Hope you missed me.

Now for the post …
Also in the past month, I’ve given NUMEROUS training programs to clients on the use of Dreamweaver and WordPress.  The question always comes up, “can I add pictures?”  “Of course”, is the reply … and I proceed to tell them that there are any number of free or low cost applications that will allow them to resize, crop and save (pretty much all you need to do for blogging or simple page creation).

For all of you looking for an online app that will do the job, here’s a post from Mashable that reviews seven image editing tools.  Take your pick.

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..This one has nothing to do with business … unless you’re a squirrel. Check out this video showing how tenacious a squirrel can be when there’s food at the other end. All I can say is “GO NUTS!”

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“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

…€” David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man

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On behalf of Graphic Designers EVERYWHERE! Your message should be heard far and wide … shouted from the mountains … whispered in back alleys … passed as notes from person to person on little scraps of paper … etched in granite … OK, you get what I’m saying.

Trust your graphic designer. DOWN WITH COMIC SANS!!!

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Emily Bloss with Excelsior Computer Services, shares this web site with us; www.Oddee.com…. Areas I found interesting were;

• Most Unfortunate Logos Ever (Caution … some of these are pretty risque!)
• 20 Chinese Fake Brands and Copycats

Enjoy…. Thanks Emmy!

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Creative branding, for sure, includes the first (and hardest) step …€” coming up with a fabulous name … a corporate name, a product name, or a service name. A LOT of your branding potential rides on the back of how creative and “on brand” the name is. My question to you is, “WHO should do the heavy lifting of name research and brainstorming?” Probably the best group would be the brand/marketing people. That is their job, is it not?

The trick is to give this task to the people with the right mindset and the right creative skills… somone who understands the process of how to creatively build brand. It certainly shouldn’t be the engineering team. Definitely not the line workers. Not the sales folks. These are all pretty obvious but what about the thousands of companies who have a C-level person (usually due to control issues) dip their hand into the name-game a little too deeply at the expense of brand effectiveness? Or, now my favorite, how about when you let your corporate attorney do the naming?

Read this hilarious Dilbert strip by Scott Adams!

When the wrong people are involved in this critical process, the brand suffers. When a process allows personal opinions and “design by committee” to overide and squash a well thought out creative plan, the brand suffers. BE PICKY PEOPLE! The committee should be 3-4 hand picked individuals who understand:

• the creative branding process
• the importance of indirect, lateral thinking
• the direction and the mission of the company
• great brainstorming session rules

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