Observed

What could ensure a more accurate portrayal of What Happened than having someone there?  Someone who was there and felt what it was like to be there.

That’s what I read when I learned this morning that the United States Marine Corps has an artist in its ranks, a painter deployed to capture combat scenes.  “We have somebody who was there who can tell the story,” according to Col. Robert Oltman, USMC, referring to Sgt. Kristopher J. Battles, the lone remaining Marine combat artist.

Why not photography?  I’ll let the New York Times answer that one. Read the rest of this entry →

Here’s an excerpt from a blog I recently started following.  It’s a post about Apple’s head industrial designer, Jonathan Ive, and the process he used for the iPhone 4:

“It’s very hard to learn about materials academically, by reading about them or watching videos about them; the only way you truly understand a material is by making things with it,” Ive explains, going on to add that years upon years of making his own models with his own hands is what gave him a deep understanding of the materials he’s worked. “And it’s important to develop that appetite to want to make something, to be inquisitive about the material world, to want to truly understand a material on that level.”

I couldn’t help but think of the Roycrofters.  These American arts-and-crafters espoused the same kind of creative process over a century ago.  The furniture, books and other everyday objects they designed, built and fabricated expressed the exact nature of the materials used.

Ive, Apple and the Roycrofters understood.  They found the true nature of the materials in their products.  They knew that for the user to be the most pleased required total honesty and that this required gemba.

A debate is under way about the pluses and minuses of books versus the Internet.  There’s mounting evidence, for example, that books do a better job helping us develop critical thinking, reading and math skills.  All of these seem to suffer once a home gets hooked up to a high-speed ISP.

This news comes at a time when I’ve been thinking (again) about the virtues of the tangible…particularly in marketing and business development communications.  It made me wonder about the many, varied ways we value the ability to touch, hear, smell and hear a person, place or thing — ways such as… Read the rest of this entry →

Here’s a clip offering six best practices for proposal writing. Let me know (doug@doug-stern.com) if you’d like a sample proposal I wrote.

For more info, go to http://xrl.us/WritingGreatProposals to read the article on which this clip was based.

Want to be better remembered?  Interested in getting the most out of your advertising dollars or the other ways you invest in communicating with your markets?

Then think about two words:

Consistency

and

Repetition

The former is one of the keys to effective branding.  The Marlboro Man, UPS, Apple…ad infinitum.

The latter has been around since the ancient Greeks.  In fact, the title of this post represents one of at least nine ways Greek rhetoriticians codified the repetition of words for emphasis.  (I used epizeuxis — also known as palilogia — literally the fastening together of words.)

So what?  Read the rest of this entry →

How many of us are making a career out of messaging on our BlackBerry devices?  You?

Are we accomplishing more?  Or, just doing less faster.

Thomas Jefferson organized the first nation-wide political party in the late 18th Century with nothing more than pen, paper and stamp.  Think about that.

True, the nation was smaller back then.  Yet, I could have cited the drafting and passage of the Declaration of Independence or a dozen of other pre-digital accomplishments.  For Jefferson alone.

OK, I get it.  I’m not suggesting anyone try to put the genie back in the bottle.  But remember, it’s a choice.  Maybe we would be more creative, relaxed, balanced, productive, happier and whatever if we un-plugged more often.

So, quit typing so much.  Pick up a pen.  Or crayon.  Look at a cloud or bird or another person’s face.  Try being still.

You might be surprised by what you notice.  Or, by who notices you.

What is it about Frank Rich?  What could he possibly have to say about media and politics and public affairs?

Here’s a guy who has spent most of his career as a film and theatre critic.  A guy who studied American history and literature on his way to his bachelor’s degree.

Not a lawyer, scientist, engineer or big-thinking PhD.  Or any other vaunted professional with *hard* credentials.

Yet, I invite you to read his column in this morning’s New York Times.  Regardless of what you might think about his bias, I bet you’ll finish feeling more respect for Rich’s facility with hard issues.

Rich can navigate the vagaries of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and our war in Afghanistan as easily as the plays of Moss Hart and life in post-WWII New York City.  Rich is an embodiment of what we used to regard as a well-educated person.

Is that because he pursued a liberal arts education?  Probably not…or probably not just because he pursued a liberal arts education.

But it didn’t hurt.

The recent story of Gen. Stanley McChrystal reminds me of a PR truism. As a rule, it’s better to publicize any bad news yourself.

Why?  First, remember that bad news will very probably get out with or without you…eventually.  There are just too many disgruntled employees, competitors and other forces beyond your control.

Next, don’t wait for a leak or let an enterprising reporter beat you to the punch.  When — not if — a bad-news story gets out without you, it will tend to make you look arrogant (or more arrogant) and as though you have something to hide.  These will only worsen matters.

So, be the one to deliver your own bad news.  Let your customers, constituents, employees and others know before they learn about it from someone else.  Someone other than you who’s in charge of the facts and the truth — your message.

I don’t know what might have saved his job.  Who knows?  Maybe General McChrystal told the president and his other superiors that the cat was on the roof before the news got out.

As for the general’s chances of saving anything else, your guess is as good as mine.

Here’s a clear, practical, before-and-after tip that addresses a common content issue on a lot of law firm Web sites. It offers a way to present lists of representative engagements without sounding self-centered and monotonous.

There’s a companion post.

We tend to make major, lasting impressions based on the smallest, seemingly insignificant details.

This morning’s New York Times has an excellent article by Matt Bai offering a political angle to this truism.  While the hook was President Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill, the piece mentioned how other presidents have suffered from (or dodged) negative public perceptions…or, how well they’ve projected a sense of control over the chaos of events around them.

Bai’s piece reminded me of Jimmy Carter and how a potentially obscure wildlife encounter helped further tip things in favor of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.  While the Attack Rabbit Incident might have appeared otherwise innocent or silly, it fanned doubts about Carter’s  strength as much or more than the Iranian hostage crisis, economic woes and the like. Read the rest of this entry →