Lingolook

I have just done something I thought I would never have the opportunity to do again.

I took a week off.

Yes I checked my mails, yes I did drive 250 miles back to Milan for a meeting that didn’t need me there. But even though I was still ‘on’, I actually took a week ‘off’.

It’s amazing how a few days can clear your mind, or in my case, make it up.

Now I’m back, I feel refreshed, revitalized and, more importantly, re-focused.

More than thinking outside the box, it’s as if I see the world above the clouds. Possibilities, opportunities, potential, all within my grasp, yet seemingly so far from my clients’…

Shame the real world is fast approaching beneath my feet.

I still have time left. Time to solicit a website I’ve been waiting 9 months to be delivered, time to start the biggest project of my life, time to look my kids straight in the eye, and giggle with them for hours on end.

Soon, routine will settle in with all the unpleasantness of a small dog whose cocky bark repeats incessantly with bone grating persistence. Soon can wait, right now, I’m a star.

Best not to think about tomorrow when today is so sunny, so sweet.

Taking a week off from Twitter, RSS feeds and even newspapers is a very, very pleasant experience for no other reason than you are suddenly presented with an inordinately large dollop of time on your hands. Time to decide… Time to kill… Time to think… Time to breathe…

Remember what that felt like? Didn’t think so.

In the fast connected world, time isn’t actually used by us, we do not hold the keys to our time. More often than not it is used (badly) by our clients to get things done (badly). It’s taken from us, and we readily give it up in return for feeling part of the moment, part of the big equation. How sad is that?

One of my random thoughts concerned a very big client of a client who’s taking too long to get what I can help them embrace. Not just social networks, the whole online caboodle. The web, its codes, conduct and - now - transparency are all beyond what they’re prepared to welcome on board in one fell swoop. They need more time to absorb the message, assess the potential damage and prepare their excuses.

And in my current position of outsourced copywriter, I’m not exactly in a position to help.

Which brings me back to time. When you have enough time on your hands to realize that you don’t have the time your clients need to decide, what do you do?

You start your own project, that’s what you do.

Thanks to the one person I’m always happy to hear from and who has inspired me without knowing it, I am expanding my product portfolio to include conversation marketing. I think I’ll be the only one selling (or buying) it for a while in Italy but at least I’ll be in excellent company

A new service will allow me to concentrate on using my time well for the benefit of my clients, or in other words: the better I use my time, the better the quality of service I offer my clients.

And the project? Well I’ve just got off the phone with a web design agency in Toronto and am happy to say I’m going to give them the green light. I can’t believe that after twelve years, my little idea will finally get the chance to prove its worth. I hope I don’t make a hash of it as without wishing to sound too full of myself, the world really does need something like this.

Thought that would make you jump.

If any of you know any English language teachers or bloggers/writers looking to participate in something really radical (and get paid for it), please give them my mail. Trust me, they will thank you.

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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…

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It’s been how long?

Wow. I’ve lost all momentum. Kids are the perfect excuse but they’re not the only things that can stop a good party.

Every now and then a manic idea sweeps through the corridors of power on Planet Acer and I’m left to come up with concepts, ideas, and best of all speeches in the blink of an eye. I’m very excited about what’s going down as there’s nothing like a major event to give a dreary copywriter a big, fat, creative kick up the arse!

Good job I’m good - and fast

There’s a breath of fresh air heading in my direction. It dawned on me yesterday as I was reading a really interesting interview about Gary Vaynerchuk and his take on the video blog platform.

What Gary has done is take the technology out of the medium and has replaced it with good, old-fashioned personality. Duh!

This is the kind of vibe I’ve been wanting to model my own initiatives on and may well borrow from it for the online language course I’m in the middle of developing.

Speaking of projects, the new, improved Runaway Parents site is nearly up and running and I really can’t wait to get my teeth into it. This project started out as a way of getting my wife involved in what I do (writing, blogging) and we’re now opening a company that’s going to transform it into a cute little niche site.

So while I’m here I might as well plug what it is we’re going to do: If any of you know of a romantic getaway or restaurant in your neighborhood no matter where you are in the world and/or would like to get involved as a parent who loves getting away from it all, drop me a line. I’ve modeled ad revenue sharing into the site design and have an affiliate system for advertisers so you’ve got nothing to lose!

Does anyone know anything about community video publishing on YouTube? I’m going to start the ball rolling by publishing the first few lessons on the free online language course I’ve got on the boil but what I really want is an open environment where other teachers are free to join in and publish their own lessons (viral teaching???). Again, ad revenue sharing will be built into the site structure so we all benefit but I’m wondering if YouTube is the best medium. I know Blip.tv and Viddler are pretty sharp but they seem to be more suitable for single-user sites.

On Wine Library.TV, only Gary’s doing the videos. How would he organize it if he let visitors upload their own videos?

Plus I know it’s old(ish) but look at YouTube’s popularity.

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