Sunday thoughts
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on January 6th, 2008
Tagged as: Acer, Acer Blog, Copywriting, Dell, Language Is Free, Richard Binhammer
I’ve been giving DreamHost a really hard time of late and apparently they have not been acting without cause. For whatever reason, best left to techies, I’ve been abusing their procwatch program whatever that is - they even explained the way of the world with an emphatic “procwatch kills NG lingolook killed 30846″.
Good Lord. Lingolook was killed?
Tech support says it’s a combination of poor code (probable) and high traffic (improbable) which leaves me with the understanding that I have a duff site that no-one visits. I like to think positively so I’ve replaced that possibility with another opinion and it has something to do with my 2008 online resurgence. I have been murmuring about my projects for long enough and the hard-working Sarah from Blogging Expertise is finally coming up with the goods and her uploading and tweaking has put the cheap but oh-so-very-cheerful DreamHost contract I had under too much strain. So, despite all her hard work, it’s all her fault 
Still at least it brought me to my senses. I’ve upgraded my account to a Virtual Private Server which sounds like the IT equivalent of the Champagne Room and I’m sure will work out just as expensive but at least it should keep things running. If I disappear you now know why.
Don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to 2008.
For starters I get to see whether my attempt at putting emotion into the Acer brand gets a warm or frosty welcome. Their annual kick-off is due at the end of January and this year it’s going to be totally different as it’s no longer a “one-nation-one-station” event but something more along the lines of “welcome Acer, Gateway and Packard Bell to your new home (Acer Group), allow us to present ourselves and show you that we’re a hip, smart, forward thinking bunch who know what we’re about, where we’re going and how we’re going to get there”.
Acer 2.0? Well that’s the plan…
Of course there’s a lot riding on this. I might be a master wordsmith but if the company doesn’t believe its own hype then the battle’s half lost. My guess is the company believes in itself but doesn’t yet fully understand its own hype and by that I mean the ability to measure the value of what it does beyond profit margins and market share, so anything designed to get it away from its “spreadset” (the habit of looking at the world through a spreadsheet) has got to be good for morale. Good for customers, good for products and, yes, good for Excel.
What else? Well I’ve set my sights on Canon’s latest HD gem, the HV20. In a few weeks I’m going to start filming multiple episodes of my free English language course site and see where it goes.
Allow me to explain a little about my past: like most English-speaking people who end up in Italy, my first job was teaching English. In fact I’ve been involved with my own language ever since just in different measures. Just check out my über glamorous career path:
Teacher –> translator –> creative translator –> copywriter.
That third category is an important moment in the life of any translator. Its like professional puberty and it comes when the translator’s balls suddenly get big enough for him or her to say: “Hey! This sounds crap in English (or whatever the destination language is). Why don’t you re-write the whole thing like this?” More than experience, this moment requires quite a lot of courage and really does separate the men from the boys or whatever the female equivalent to that is. From there on in, you’re good enough to write your own stuff.
Anyway, despite a stellar career as the world’s most invisible copywriter there is nothing like teaching. I think it has something to do with live feedback or something. Whatever. I really miss it so I’ve decided it’s time to get back into it, although in a version more in line with my way of seeing the world and that’s through a blog. I know how it should end up, but not how it should start so I’m just going to start recording and see where it goes.
Things to look out for in 2008?
I think Dell are going to take online conversations to new heights so expect to see Richard on Oprah in 3Q. I think 2008 will see Acer updating its frankly appalling website in tune with the newest kids on its family block. I also think this is the year flash memory notebooks finally go mainstream which means no or very few mechanical parts which means long, long battery life. Expect to see the word “longevity” come back into favour. How about calling it the UHT laptop (Ultra High Transportability)? Well it worked for milk…
-
Loading ... - 1 Comment
- Print this
The irresistible change of 2007
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on December 31st, 2007
Tagged as: Copywriter, Ken Robinson, Richard Binhammer
Hot on the heels of Richard’s end-of-year wrap up and well-wishings, I feel morally, professionally and compassionately compelled to do the same.
For all his generosity, consistency and more-than-welcome attention though, Richard has been unable to overcome those barriers that confine me and this blog to the dreaded but unquestionably deserved “occasional writer†category.
Yet his is the sort of support that keeps you afloat, and so if there is anyone I must thank for encouraging me to take this medium further, it is him.
2007 has been a watershed in my career as a copywriter or, as I commonly refer to myself, the IT world’s biggest ghost-writer.
I have always been out of the spotlight, whisked secretly into meetings with high-level management to help put sense to the latest initiative/product/idea and get the message out.
And this year I’ve written for occasions, launches, announcements and anniversaries that were once beyond the scope of my wildest dreams and aspirations. Now I’m churning out a couple a month.
But in 2007 with the arrival of the kind of relationships possible through blogging that this blog can only claim to scratch the surface of, everything I do and stand for changed ever so slightly but enough to raise questions. No longer absolute and unquestionable, it became relative.
There is a wonderful passage in Sir Ken Robinson’s book, Out of Our Minds, in which he says:
The dynamics of culture result in an irresistible process of change. Contemporary ways of life are not only different from those of the Victorians, they were largely unpredicted and essentially unpredictable. Cultural change is rarely linear and uniform. It results from a vortex of influences, which is hard enough to understand with hindsight and impossible to plan in advance.
I think the relativity of blogging is a pretty damned good example of the vortex of influences Sir Ken refers to and the accountability of thoughts, opinions and most of all ideals leads to the irresistible process of change he mentions at the beginning.
How far we’ve come is easy to measure. We all use the New Year to join the dots. I personally can claim a small victory in changing the way my biggest client sees itself in relation to the outside world and believe me that’s no mean feat.
But like Sir Ken infers, how far we as a community are going to take it is anyone’s guess.
I for one have a few things I’m going to try out in 2008. After all, if it’s irresistible, why fight it?
-
Loading ...
- 1 Comment
- Print this
If what goes around comes around, when it comes back, whose is it?
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 10th, 2007
Tagged as: Acer, Asides, Copywriting
As you can probably tell from my silence, May has so far proven to have been one hell of a month.
I’m not sure what’s more worrying, the fact that I’m still in one piece, or that May’s no where near over yet.
It’s had some interesting twists, a few hiccups and more than the odd surprise, but the result was/is breathtaking. It all started back in mid- April, when we were handed the Gemstone concept to work on. It was quite big move for Acer but, and I stand by this, a very astute one.
In essence, Acer has decided to take its “solutions provider” reputation to the next level by bringing in a subsidiary of BMW AG called BMW DesignworksUSA to review the industrial design of its notebooks. Have a look at the Wikipedia definition and you’ll see why this was a good thing.
With Santarosa not due until the 10th (today) and the products expected at the end of May we had some margin, but not much. Then, HQ brought the launch forward to the 3rd and all hell broke loose.
In little more than 2 weeks I produced an Acer signature design blueprint that would be used to anchor the concepts, wrote “design” brochures for both product lines, got the websites prepared, wrote a 15-page Acer News special design edition, a 30 minute presentation speech for senior management covering all design, product and commercial aspects and support material, press releases, invites, and a host of marketing collateral while the graphics department went to work on the show itself.
If that wasn’t enough, the day after the presentation we set to work on the Santarosa material. This time all that was needed were two generic product brochure body texts and two headlines that were to be used as a basis for the mini-site. Oh, and two press releases. Those were all published today.
Santarosa’s here, so now we’re working on the products themselves. This is endless.
The best part about working with this client is trying to satisfy the demanding needs of the OEMs. Intel, Microsoft, AMD and Ferrari are all very wary about what you can and can’t say about products they’re associated with, and learning how they think is key to getting things approved and published so fast.
Today I got a real kick. When Merom came out, I suggested we link the “Dual” core concept to a message of “more than twice the fun”. Wow! Everyone liked it. Except Intel who rejected it on the grounds that “dual” did not mean “double”.
I insisted (I got the mails to prove it). I lost. Oh well. Tomorrow’s another day.
Then on Monday I opened the Intel Santarosa messaging guidelines for consumer products and what was the first message that leaped out at me? “More than twice the fun”.
Funny that eh?
-
Loading ...
- 0 Comments
- Print this
Inspired by a Blue Monster
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 23rd, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab, Gaping Void, IT Blogs
I love it when this happens.
Lately I’ve been starting early and finishing waaay too late to be having any fun. My brain is so focused I’ve actually lost my peripheral sense of humour and have noticed I have iTunes playing less often. Productivity? Exhaustion? I don’t know as I don’t have any grey matter left over to give it any thought.
Anyway, like I said I work late. Tonight’s no exception and I’m having a hard time being creative. I’ve been writing almost non-stop for two weeks flat and my inspirations are drying up faster than I can type.
At times like these I usually start doing something I’d more or less given up. This time around I got back on my bike. Ahh, my beautiful Look 486. 8kgs of pure rocket science. 50km a day is enough to clear the mind (and lower the scales).
But not right now. Right now it’s dark and going out on the bike wouldn’t resolve anything as I need to be creative. Which leads me nicely to where this story is going. Click here, click there and I found myself being drip-fed some Hugh MacLeod.
Better yet I found myself watching a video about Hugh’s finest work, The Blue Monster.
Microsoft has a story to tell. My clients have a story to tell. I have a story to tell. This is well worth a watch if you don’t think you do.
-
Loading ...
- 1 Comment
- Print this
The luck of the Irish
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 9th, 2007
Tagged as: Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab, Projects
I have been asked to manage a series of property translations for a major real estate investment company that is going to take a while to set up.
That’s right: set up. I’m no fool. Trados can literally save days on translation projects like this and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with repeat commissions to trawl through.
As I *officially* no longer do translations, there is the small matter of having to re-install it and set up the fiddly translation dictionaries but it should only take a few hours to get up to speed. Licence permitting…
Note to self: if all else fails I must get my trusty translators in on this as there’s plenty to go around and absolutely no time to waste.
And things could very well fail as there’s a major product launch (or two) coming for another client who should brief me on timing, content and products (minimum 4 brochures) on Tuesday. I fully expect they will have to be completed by no later than Friday.
This is after I’ve finished writing the master copy and headline for their latest 42†Full HD wonder.
And there was me thinking I’d have time to scout out some new clients.
-
Loading ...
- 0 Comments
- Print this
Who said copywriters don’t need to adapt?
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 3rd, 2007
Tagged as: Copyright, Social Media, You Tube
Found quite possibly the most informative video on Web 2.0 I’ve ever seen this morning.
Compiled by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, it’s a phenominally quick revue of the changes that have happened over the web’s brief history and a profound look at the implications of these changes.
Watch and learn.
-
Loading ...
- 0 Comments
- Print this
Recent Comments