"It's all about the content."

[Serial comma warning.] Words, pictures, video, illustrations, data, podcasts, white papers, slideshows, etc. Defining, structuring, managing, and relating it all to the users needs and the organizations goals. Oh, and of course, the organizations capacity for management.

"Content strategy is an emerging field of practice encompassing every aspect of content, including its design, development, analysis, presentation, measurement, evaluation, production, management, and governance."

Everything you'll want to know about Content Strategy unless you are a Content Strategist.

I attended a Meetup of Content Strategy Seattle this last Wednesday and encourage you to check it out for yourself. Since I'm lazy, I'll just drop in the Livestream cast below. (see other Livestreams here)

Watch live streaming video from contentseattle at livestream.com

When Steamroller meets art

Wayz-Goose Card

Chandler O'Leary created this great announcement for the School of Visual concepts WAYZ-GOOSE this year.

August 28 2010, 1pm - 6pm
500 Aurora North

More details on the SVC website (plus you can sign up for cool classes in letterpress arts, graphic design, and advertising skills)

"Do or do not; there is no try" - yoda

Yoda was a tough taskmaster, but there is an important concept inside those words. And I'd like to think it is apparent in the work I've produced for this site. It is "done." That is, good, bad, or mediocre– I put it on display. (Whether you or others comment or not is less important than that I review it myself.)

By completing it I learn. By doing bad work I learn. By doing it over I learn. (Notice the theme here?)

Wouldn't you know it, I found some creators that think along similar lines.

This manifesto is a collaboration of Bre Pettis and Kio Stark found around the net but I bring it to you from the Bre Pettis Blog. (An interesting side story is that they completed this manifesto in 20 minutes, because that was how much time they had.)

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
   
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
   
3. There is no editing stage.
   
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
   
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
   
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
   
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
   
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
   
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
   
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
    
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
    
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
    
13. Done is the engine of more.

A Cool Director: Dougal Wilson

Plus: the making of...

Good eye eh?

This last winter I took a class taught by Pat Horn of Creature. And one of the little "get to know us" assignments was to bring in what we considered to be three "ads we liked". I decided to go with some TV.

I didn't know it was in contention at the time, but tonight I fond out that one of my favorites was also the One Show judge favorites. And on Thursday it won top honors.


Tell the story behind how Johnny Walker became the worlds largest selling brand of whiskey, while walking down an Scottish road. Give the brand relevance to to a generation that doesn’t know anything about it.

The two other "favorite" ads of mine were:

Link the company to creativity, to those that “think different.” Apple is not so much a computer company as a company that makes tools to empower creativity and imagination.



Use dramatic demonstrations to highlight both the effects of tobacco use and the predatory practices of tobacco companies and their executives. Instead of laying the blame for smoking on the smoker, lay it on the tobacco companies.


----------------------------------------
And the rest of the 2010 One Show winners can be found here: The One Show

How Copywriters write... John Salmon

How another legendary copywriter approaches writing ads. (From 1995's "The Copy Book" by the D&AD ISBN 0-8230-6506-5 Rarely but occasionally available through Amazon)

John Salmon

1. "Writing the first sentence is as difficult as writing the headline. It has to expand the headline idea and lure the reader on to the next sentence."
   
2. Write from the standpoint of the readers self interest. Based on: Benefits offered (tangible or emotional)
   
3. Meet and hear the prospects. How do they relate to the product? What is the value they place on it? What's their language? Their needs?
   
4. An idea isn't an idea until it can be expressed in words.
   
   
   

Excellent

BIG BANG BIG BOOM from blu on Vimeo.

At first the animation got me, then the illustrations, then the story telling, but in the end I think I'm most blown away by the planning. Visit BluBlu.org for more

Sate your curiosity once and for all

What does this have to do with writing? Well, I learned about this little gem while checking out the writing at the ad agency Nail of Providence Rhode Island. (Nail's Alec Beckett is one of the 2010 NW Addy Judges) And while "what's up your kilt" isn't big on writing creativity, it is fun.

An opinionated writer... imagine that

I'm constantly running across great blogs. Fantastic thinking, great writing. Time sucking brilliance. I hate it. (and I love it)

Here's a new one (By Ben Kay of Daryl Corps and Ben Kay): Click on the pic