WordPress, Save Me Money!

WordPress has huge money saving potential, whether you’re looking for a blog to be built, a small business website or a large dynamic website with a boat load of features. WordPress will eliminate a lot of the cost heavy pieces of the project.

Five Things WordPress Has Already Done So You Don’t Have Too

• Content Management System so you don’t have to pay someone to update or create content
• SEO, WordPress was built with SEO in mind so your sites start off more likely to rank better
• Media gallery so you can manage all your images in one place and when you upload new ones you don’t have to pay someone to resize it, it’s done automatically
• Social Media integration, there are countless easy to install plugins that will integrate your site or blog with twitter, Facebook and other accounts
• Themes are often free but even the premium themes are relatively inexpensive. You can upload a theme and have a finished site in no time (if you aren’t looking for a custom solution

WordPress, Save Me Time!

Today there really isn’t much of a reason to build a website without a cms. Whether you’re using joomla, drupal or WordPress the money and time saving opportunity is too great to go without a prebuilt cms. However, WordPress really shines because of its 10’s of thousands of free themes, plugins and support docs. It also makes sense for the web firm or agency to use a cms because when they do it right, it saves them time and money too.

Since time = money we can refer to the above list for more time saving features of WordPress. However you should note that the resources available to WordPress really put it over the top. The themes are great if you aren’t in need of custom design. The support is amazing, this is important because if you’re requesting something unusual your developer may need help and in that case there is a huge community of active developers eager to answer WordPress related questions. The biggest selling point is WordPress plugins. The same developers above often create awesome plugins to do everything from adding a twitter stream to your homepage, to allowing rating of posts, to comment systems for better community driven talk to search engine optimization tools. This is a huge time saver because without WordPress these plugins would be useless and in fact would require custom development and many more hours.

WordPress, Save Me Brain Cells

WordPress is so easy to use it almost causes confusion (haha I know what I said). When I’m training clients on how to add, remove or edit content on their site we start in the WordPress dashboard. This is the hub of your WordPress site. It shows numbers on posts, pages, comments and more. It also updates you on news and answers simple questions like “What Theme Am I Using?”.

The funny thing is that training is so fast and so simple that clients often say “That’s it? Wait, there must have been something I’ve missed, this is too easy”. At this point we often run through the creation of a new post or the editing of an old one again just to be sure. It’s common for my clients to be surprised at how easy it is to work with.

Aside from that if you are a developer or designer you will have an easy time with development as well. The crew at Automattic did a spectacular job creating WordPress but more importantly creating it in a way that will make development a breeze. Whether you’re in need of support or just want to use the codex for a quick function look up, endless programming info is at your fingertips. There is also a huge community available to help you.

Tell Us How WordPress Has Made Your Life Easier or Project Go Faster

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Neal Advertising created this site for Lexus of Northborough to provide valuable information to Boston area Lexus owners. Visitors to the site will be able to quickly access specific vehicle recall information on all Lexus models as well as schedule an appointment for repair as well as research recall responses made by Lexus.

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We are proud to announce that Neal Advertising has won a Gold Davey this year! Our winning entry is a radio spot produced for smart center Boston called “Smart Driver.”

Listen to the spot here.

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Business and Dating

We’ve all experienced dating. Waiting for the phone to ring, sharing your dislikes and likes, having open communication, and just plain manners. Well I bet you’ve never thought dating dilemmas could apply to work situations. Listed below are 5 dating scenarios with solutions that can be used at the work place or even on your next date.

Is my phone on?

After a date has gone really well we wait with anticipation for the next one to take place. We check our phone over and over for any missed calls or text messages. Some may even go as far to call themselves just to make sure their phone is still working. Well, sitting around at your desk waiting for a client to call you back can be the same way. Whether we are waiting approval on an ad or have a question answered, we sit and wait and wait and sometimes wait some more. The best way to handle a non-responsive client is to pick up the phone yourself and call. Yes, we can give them the benefit of the doubt that they are extremely busy and maybe calling you back slip their mind. But when you do call, don’t be afraid to sound pushy or too needy. Take control of the situation and try to make contact with the client. Use all means of communication. If the client doesn’t answer, leave a message and follow up with an email. Persistence by being respectful is the key.

Does this outfit look good on me?

Ladies, you know you ask this and Men, we know you hate to hear it. So what happens when a client shows you their “ensemble” and you just aren’t crazy about it? You must be delicate. Be honest but take their feelings into consideration. Take a piece of what they are presenting you and play up the qualities and say something like “This ad would look really great with what you are saying, especially if we just change the positioning.” This way you aren’t totally neglecting their “taste” but helping to modify it and making it better for them. They can still feel a part of the creative process but you can use your design expertise to make that ad stand out. Ladies, like ads, just love to grab your attention.

Performance failure?

So you’ve had some great dates and now it’s time to invite them back to your place. But what happens when you’ve built this night up in your head and there is performance failure? RELAX! Don’t freak out. Yes it happens to everyone. Here’s how to cope when a clients campaign isn’t performing up to par. Explain what you think happened. Be honest and up front. Lay out all the factors that came into place. Talk it over and try to figure out the next solution. Maybe take the ad campaign a little slower and not try to rush into everything all at once. Before you know it, everything will be performing splendidly.

Go dutch?

You’ve had a great dinner and just finished a bottle of wine and the check arrives. Who grabs it first and do you go halvsies? Money can be a hard topic to discuss so how do you handle it when discussing it with clients? Be up front. The old saying is “time is money and money is time.” The last thing you want to do is spend endless amounts of your valuable time on something that is not going to pay out. The same goes for the client. They are taking an investment into your work and want to see it pay off. They don’t want to pour loads of cash into a project that won’t have them hearing “cha-ching” ringing in their ears. In a business relationship there is always room for negotiating. Don’t be afraid to stick to what you are worth. Be fair and equal and don’t get taken advantage of.

My friend, told your friend, who told me…

Ah gossip. Rumors spread quick and by the time it reaches your ear the story has changed 10 times. What to do? Confront the client. It’s best to hear things directly from the person you deal with. Just calmly discuss the client’s needs with them so you can get all the facts up front. This will give you a better understanding of what direction the client would like to go with their ad or what concerns they may have about the task at hand. It’s always best to have open communication with your client. It gains respect and a great relationship.

Now, go get’m tiger!

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Hatch Award

We’re proud to announce that Neal Advertising received a Bronze Bowl at The Ad Club’s 49th Annual Hatch Awards. What project won this award you ask? This blog! UnderTheBigTopics.com was the only blog to receive an award in the blog category.

The Hatch Awards celebrate excellence in our creative community recognizing the best and brightest advertising agencies in New England.

Congratulations to illustrators Alexis Pacelli and Bryan Woodbury, designer Danielle Pikus, developers Jason Narciso and Jesse Friedman, art director Chad Foster and the rest of the Neal Advertising team!

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Well, the summer is coming to an end and I have harvested most of my veggies and looking back on the whole experience I can’t help but realize that much of what I learned while gardening rings true for the creative process. I hope the following observations help grow your creative process.

Plan

Creating a vegetable garden from scratch took a great deal of planning.  I had to consider where to locate the garden, if I should build raised beds, what I would plant and so much more.

Planning might seem like an unlikely step in the creative process to some, but it’s importance should not be overlooked. Unlike waiting for divine inspiration or stream of consciousness, planning helps you focus on the task at hand, puts a creative team on the same page before starting a project or brainstorm and can save time.

Consult

I learned early on that I wasn’t going to have a successful garden without a little help. I visited the library and checked out a half dozen books on New England gardening. I talked to my parents, I talked to my neighbors and I talked to coworkers who have gardens. Asking others to shed some light on what they have learned made the greatest impact on my approach to the garden.

You never have to go-it-alone in the creative process. You can always research similar projects in books, magazines and online. Your best resources, if you have them, are your coworkers. Brainstorm, bounce ideas off each other and ask for critiques on how you might make your project better.

Nurture

I didn’t realize just how much I would care about my little seedlings until I found myself waking up a half hour early everyday this summer to water my plants. I spent countless hours weeding, feeding and preventing animals and insects from eating what I was working so hard to grow and you know what? It was worth it.

Developing a style and refining your creative process takes time. Just like those plants in my garden, creatives grow everyday and nurturing your creative process will help that growth. If you find things are getting stale or just aren’t working, try something different. Find inspiration in others and everything around you. How can you apply the life you live to your creative process? What are creative’s doing in different fields? What are you creating in addition to the professional work your involved with?

Adapt

With all the rain we had early in the summer, I had a serious slug problem. I didn’t want to use chemicals so I asked a friend and he told me that you can trap slugs in partially filled beer cans. It worked like a charm! I hadn’t planned on slugs eating my lettuce or the groundhog who lives under my shed to eat my cucumbers so I had to adapt to these situations quickly to solve the problems they were creating.

I can count on one hand the amount of times I haven’t had to deal with an unexpected situation (client changes) when undertaking a project. You have to be able to adapt and adapt quickly. There is always a solution to a problem and quite frankly, I think that finding those solutions is part of the fun.

Share

What I learned in the garden this summer will certainly be passed on to my friends, family and neighbors. The beer can trick I mentioned was a great tip that I passed on to neighbors who were having the same problem.

Sharing your creative input and what you learn through the process is part of being in the creative community. Help your co-workers out, share with other creative teams, blog about recent projects and share insights with clients.  This helps them grow and in turn, will help you grow as well.

Enjoy

I had a great time growing a vegetable garden this summer and I can’t wait to start all over again next season. The planning and hard work I put into my garden this summer paid off in delicious veggies and herbs and a summer filled with fun and satisfaction.

You have to have fun and love what you do if you are going to be good at it. You’re a creative because you love to create. You are compelled to create. This is your passion in life and when something is created with passion and love there is nothing better… so have fun!

What did you learn about the creative process this summer?

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I can reach in to a proverbial “hat” of web posts and pull out dozens about Twitter Best Practices. In an effort to prevent from having to repeat myself, I’ve linked to a few below written by trusted industry leaders (linkbait anyone). The idea behind using Twitter best practices is that you are a business or person who wants to create a community to share and improve your brand. Before you can do this you have to figure out who you are; The Leader, The Follower or The Zombie.

• The Art of Writing an Effective Twitter Profile by Zach Braiker
• Guy Kawasaki: Twitter As a Tool for Social Media by Lisa Barone
• How To Manage Twitter by Chris Brogan
• 20 Must Read Beginner Twitter Tips for Small Business Owners by Mark Hayward

A common question that always seems to come up among friends or colleagues is “You’re surrounded by zombies and you can choose only one weapon, what is it?” A lot of people go for the shotgun but you have to realize that you’re eventually going to run out of ammo. The next choice is usually a sword or machete. How does this apply to Twitter? Well…

In any chaotic post-apocalyptic world where citizens are threatened by brain eating zombies (social network), you have individuals who set themselves apart as authorities. These people lead us and motivate us to keep the community alive. Everyone else are followers or zombies. The follower should not carry a negative stereotype, however. Followers are good, with out followers we wouldn’t have leaders. Followers are the backbone of any community and should be considered extremely important. Zombies on the other hand are lifeless beings existing only to feed off everyone else. This is especially true on Twitter.

Let’s start by asking: “Why Are You On Twitter”. The answer is usually one of the following five answers.

1. Your friends, family or celebrity crush is on Twitter and you need to know what it’s all about
2. You’ve been on Twitter for a while, tweet about being bored in a doctor’s office or what crazy thing your kid is doing but haven’t really figured it all out yet
3. You’re a business owner or representative and are on Twitter to deliver important content, answer questions and increase reach to your customers or clients
4. You’re a professional and have something to offer to the world (or at least you think you do) and you want to be apart of a community of like minded tweeps
5. You’re a spammer and want to sell, drive traffic or eat brains

You’re probably not a 5 because I don’t think Zombies can read.

1’s and 2’s welcome to Twitter, I hope you enjoy your stay.

3’s and 4’s I want to tell you a secret. Being on Twitter or any social network isn’t about gaining as many followers, fans or friends as possible. It’s about creating a community where active users can be engaged and gain something of value you from you, share that information with their community and create advocates of your brand. I would choose to have a small number of active users with strength and authority in their community over 10’s of thousands of zombies following me.

This is a point I try to make to all my clients and students. Tweeps who are desperate to increase their followers by any means possible aren’t providing any value or substance to you or anyone else. They’re greedy and eager to reach a rather pointless goal, because they believe this is what makes you an authority. The truth is that anything worth doing is done over time with a lot of effort. These Zombies only act to create more zombies. By following them and countless others you lose sense of what’s real, start aimlessly wondering the universe and gain and give nothing.

There are of course exceptions to any rule. However I fear a Twitterverse where everyone is speaking and no one is listening.

So what’s your favorite Zombie weapon? I like http://topify.com they make it easy to kill zombie followers right from your email account. If @topify isn’t available for some reason I’m a big fan of a riding mower!

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This website will provide an easy and functional place for John Sheehan and his team to write, engage and help the local people.

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Most of you would not know who I was talking about if I mentioned the name Paul Rand. You would, however, be able to identify the IBM, Westinghouse, ABC and UPS brands by looking at their logos. Paul Rand is responsible for that.

Born In Brooklyn New York 1914, Paul Rand became one of the most well known graphic designers in the field most notably for his logo and corporate identity design. Rand was able not only to produce a quality logo design but he had a great ability to explain the importance his designs would have on branding a company. Graphic designer Louis Danziger says,

“He almost singlehandedly convinced business that design was an effective tool. [. . .] Anyone designing in the 1950s and 1960s owed much to Rand, who largely made it possible for us to work. He more than anyone else made the profession reputable. We went from being commercial artists to being graphic designers largely on his merits.”

Rand’s simple clear cut designs are some of the best and most recognized logos being used today. He said that neither logos nor art need be over the top to be recognized and grab attention. As the says goes..more is less.

UPS just went though a very controversial issue when they changed Paul Rand’s original logo to a more flash and 3D looking logo. Now UPS has a logo that blends in with the crowd. It is a very trendy logo and lacks the creativity that Rand originality put in. What is your opinion about the update?

In the process of paving the way for graphic designer he also helped brands thrive and become more recognized. It is something to think about and appreciate.

Paul Rand

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