Mauer to the Mound

Introducing the Conk Creative written and produced TV spot for Anytime Fitness, starring Mr. Joe Mauer:

Souvenirs

What did I do this summer and fall? I was locked in my basement writing the script for this film as a Marine stood over my shoulder. Shooting begins in March. Would you see this movie?

The Wonderful World of Keynote

Here's the situation: We live in a world where there's more and more to explain, and people have less and less time to have things explained to them. (As a writer, I occasionally have to admit that people often don't even have time to read anymore. How depressing.)

But fear not, the tools for communicating quickly and visually are getting more and more accessible. All you need is a tight script, a USB microphone, some audio editing software and a wonderful little program called Keynote, and you can accomplish in days what used to take weeks (and cost a small fortune).

Did I say "you"? I meant "me." Anytime Fitness agreed to let me share this animated presentation with the world (while promoting their incredible new website for members, Anytime Health). I'm telling you that these presentations really work, and I'm hoping that you'll find a need for your business to have one just like it.

Thank You, Part II.

Two years ago, I decided to write myself in as a character in a book called "Where the Self-Employed Things Are." Last year, I wrote my first corporate thank-you note, humbled by the incredible startup support I received from friends and former colleagues. I can't really top the drama of describing waking up one morning with a mortgage, a family and no source of income, and I won't even try. But I will say that, while Chapter One in this strange book might be titled, "What the Hell Are You Doing?", Chapter Two's header reads more like "What Took You So Long?"

A friend of mine once told me that in agrarian times, it used to be considered normal, more stable and even less risky to be your own boss. (The alternative was "having to go work for someone else.") I found that hard to believe at the time, and I still do. But I'm beginning to think that the Digital Age might have something in common with the Agrarian Age.

I'm not crazy enough to say that self-employment is for everyone. Yes, health insurance is insanely expensive. And even when you feel somewhat established, you still live every day not knowing what projects lie 30 days ahead. But I've come to listen closely when people describe an experience as "difficult" and "stressful," but something they "couldn't imagine living without." These are usually the most meaningful experiences. And for me, they include working abroad, having a child and starting my own business.

I won't bore you with tales of walking door-to-door on Dublin's Grafton Street looking for a job in the summer of 1990. And my tales of fatherhood are well-documented on my non-professional blog. But I will say how amazed I am at what I experienced during the past year. There were the sexy projects, like writing a feature film related to World War II and shooting a commercial with Joe Mauer. There were the "didn't see that coming" projects, like creating an animated presentation for the 50th anniversary of a couple I'd never met, or hastily creating a T-shirt designed to encourage the firing of Notre Dame's football coach. And there continue to be the simple, day-to-day pleasures of working with appreciative clients and fellow creative entrepreneurs--the people I absolutely could not live without.

We live in an age when the barriers to self-employment are lower than they've ever been. If you have a cell phone, a laptop and a WiFi connection, you can be an entrepreneur. If not knowing what the next chapter of your life is going to be doesn't scare you to death, I say enter the story. And start writing.

Handshake Watch: CRI

Cutting Edge Recruiters International, you're on notice.

The <$10K Website

If you're a small company or nonprofit, here's the good news about websites: Many elements of a solid site are becoming increasingly commoditized and are getting cheaper. Cases in point:

- Most every site should be built on a content management platform (in other words, allow you to update it easily without paying an agency $200/hr. to add a comma). CMS platforms abound, ranging from "free and limited" to "expensive and robust." But the pressure is downward. Costs are going to come down as more and more elements of content management are packaged and commoditized.

- E-commerce functionality has also fallen to earth. Especially if you're a nonprofit, merchant accounts have also gotten more and more commoditized. In other words: Need to take credit cards? Not a big deal.

- Design should never be considered a commodity. I say this as the originator of Handshake Watch and as fervent opponent of using stock photography. But again, if the budget is extremely tight, the thousands of free WordPress themes out there can provide a decent design groundwork (although the integration from blogging themes to a "normal" website is not as easy as it looks).

This is all a long way of promoting one of my projects ... a website that took full advantage of this growing world of web commoditicization to give a nonprofit organization a good-quality site, with no handshakes or stock photography, linking to full e-commerce functionality and including some audio/visual bells and whistles--all for well under $10,000.

I mention this client because this client also represents a great cause: raising money to provide free legal services to people with disabilities and low-income families. So check out The Fund for the Legal Aid Society (and while you're at it, view their e-commerce section and send a few dollars their way). Thanks.

The Sorry State of Conference Room Communication

This has been a growing observation/pet peeve of mine for about three years now, and it has now reached epidemic proportions.

People don't communicate.

I'm serious. Everybody talks. Nobody listens. And the more people who are involved in any given communication, the less effective it is.

The first problem is the organizational setting. Some organizations are healthy and based on respect; others are clearly fearful and dysfunctional. You can tell immediately. My rule of thumb is that the people who claim to have "thick skin" and be "brutally honest" are actually the most over-sensitive and passive-aggressive. In the faux honest setting, people appear to confront each other without really doing it. By the end of the meeting, they're all nodding and happy, as if they've come to some agreement. In truth, they have come to no consensus whatsoever.

The second problem is this: Our verbal communication culture is mirroring our virtual culture. Right now I'm writing in one tab in Google Chrome. I have five other tabs open. I'm checking my email. I just got a call on my cell. I have IM open. According to my toolbar, I have 12 programs open at the same time, and I'm toggling between almost all of them.

In other words, if I get 30 seconds to devote to any one task, I'm lucky. Interruption has become the norm, so much so that we've internalized exterior interruptions and have started interrupting ourselves when no one else is around.

In conference room communication, the level of interruption is astounding. It used to be considered rude to start talking before the guy next to you has finished his sentence. Today, it's expected. Which means that when you talk, you have to talk quickly before you get interrupted. Talking, in fact, becomes a competition. Which is why in the end, everybody is talking and no one is listening.

Now tell me, if you actually got to the end of this post, did you do it without getting interrupted?