Category Archives: Uncategorized

It may not be obvious, but when you walk into an office work environment, you’re walking into an alternate dimension where heady, lofty words replace ordinary English. Things that have no meaning on the street suddenly signify extreme importance and urgency in an office. People who otherwise speak normally become fluent in the language of the meticulously informed, as if they were reading directly from the pages of technical manuals. This creates the natural implication that you always know exactly what you are doing. Here are a few examples of officisms, and how someone on the street might be able to interpret them.
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If you’re trying to use your Twitter RSS feed for something like RSS Graffiti, you might end up hitting a wall, because your Twitter feed is not anywhere that can easily be found. But I got it, through a friend.

It’s here:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=xxxxx

Just replace xxxxx with your username.

BAM!

The following is my written response to Max Borders’ video on regulation, submitted as part of the New Threats to Freedom essay contest.

Max Borders’ example of the bureaucratic tendency to use regulation as a go-to solution opens up a huge window onto many of the problems the U.S. faces today. Borders’ example has to do with the prohibitively thick layer of red tape that lies between an enterprising individual and a simple business goal such as selling jars of barbecue sauce. However, the problem Borders highlights extends much deeper into the American mentality, touching on problems evident in business regulations, politics, and even healthcare.
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“Free” (outside of “free with purchase”) sets off alarms. Free doesn’t just mean free — it means “free, if you give us your email address,” “free as a trial run, then you get a bill,” or “free, then you’ll get a lot of junk mail and spam.”

With the level of marketing awareness most people have, free almost sounds like a ploy of some kind. Why would something be free? What is this, 1950? Did someone accidentally receive a crate of someone else’s merchandise? Is someone going Buddhist?

A magazine I worked for in college found one year that they couldn’t hand out free issues of the magazine to students on campus. Everyone thought there was a hitch of some kind. They didn’t want to deal with the hassle that comes with “free.”

Maybe if they had been “welcome” issues.

Kid to Father: I hate high school. It’s so hard, and they expect you to learn so many difficult things. I can’t wait til I’m out of high school.

Father to Kid: Oh yeah? Just wait until college. There they don’t even expect you to come to class, but they still expect you to learn things that are very difficult. Or graduate school. There they barely have the time to teach you anything at all, but they still expect you to learn things that are exceptionally hard. Or there’s the real world. There they expect you to already know how to do things that are extraordinarily difficult, and expect you to be good at them, and on top of that give you other things to do that keep you from doing them.

Kid to Basketball Coach: Teach me how to dribble this thing.

It’s about 12:45 pm on Thursday, and the influential and highly useful marketing/writing blog CopyBlogger is at 9,999 tweets on Twitter. They’re also at 62,560 followers, which is nigh-on 440 away from 63,000. It’s a crazy idea, but let’s shoot for a nice, round 63k before their next tweet.

To summarize about two years of learning and marketing growth on my part, CopyBlogger has provided me with a basic approach to the entire world of writing, marketing, and all the little details in between. In short, they’re like a free writing coach with a sense of humor. Can we get enough people interested in them to get to 63k followers before they send out their next tweet? We have about two hours, by my estimate.

They probably aren’t aware that I’m pushing this, and they’d probably be mildly amused by this insane feat. But can you imagine how awesome it would be to make it? In social media terms it would be like getting to see a swimming pool full of Kool-Aid. Almost.

Click here to go to their Twitter page right now, and follow them. (It’s a good idea anyway.)

When the latest company blog post goes out, it’s natural to rally up the troops to leave a praising comment or two. It helps start the stream of natural comments off in the right direction, so your launch can get more praise, encourage discussion and gain the best footing possible.

But if your troops are too overzealous in their praise, it can’t help but look cheesy and fake, like a cheerleading demonstration, and that’s a huge turn-off to future commenters.

This video featuring Ron Jeremy giving a harmonica lesson (really) was sent to me this morning. I thought it was pretty funny, and I almost said so in the comments. Until these posts changed my mind:

“AMAZING!!!! RJ is the man…BooyPictures rocks!”

“WOW! not only was that an amazingly hilarious video but I really want to learn how to play the harmonica!!!!!!!”

“Gotta love booya, they’re common enough you don’t unsubscribe but not so rare that they stop getting funny.”

“Bahahah! Even better than I imagined!”

What does that third one even mean? A better option is just to leave comments other commenters might expand on (“Is this real…?” comes to mind). Granted, there’s not much to work with for a video of Ron Jeremy giving a harmonica lesson, but at least being on the same playing field as your readers does a lot to keep things real.