Dear Webspace,

I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. After all the thought and consideration and excellent design time we (Kris & I) (but mostly Kris) put into you, I immediately stopped wanting to write.

See, I put a lot of pressure on you, Webspace. After Kris was finished with you, you were so pretty! And shiny! And I had a HUGE plan for you. WEWEREGOINGTOHAVESOMUCHFUNTOGETHER!!

Until the stress came. The stress made you feel a bit too much like work. I never wanted you to be all about crafts, Webspace. I really need a place to write and have a bit of a laugh. Something fun like Astrid’s posterous and Heather’s Mant Chronicles or even, Hyperbole and a Half

I need a place to come and write and have a laugh. You have great potential, Webspace. Let’s see what we can do with you.

I have a part-time job.  I work for a promotional company named Inventa and almost every weekend for the last six weeks I’ve travelled around to Department stores demonstrating this spiffy little coffee machine. It’s been a fun little gig.

I have a marketing brain. Since I was little I have loved analyzing and psycho analyzing commercials.  (I very clearly remember my four year old self being OUTRAGED at the shameless waste of GOOD peanut butter demonstrated in this commercial.   “He’ll never eat such ahuge sandwich. A pickle? REALLY? What will the rest of his family do when they want peanut butter?  DID YOU SEE IT FALL OVER ? Did his Mom  made him eat it anyway?”

My marketing brain is always on.  Worse: I think I’m better at it than anybody else (which is not true but of course I enjoy pretending I am). Last weekend I took a tour around the grocery aisle at the low-priced retailer I found myself at that day and saw this:

My first thought was “They must not hire people to write copy.” (and, yes,  signs are copy) then “Well, they probably don’t pay them very well. I bet they’re not motivated.”

Instant wasn’t appropriate.   On the same hand, neither is “cheese”.  At Safeway that aisle is labeled as “packaged dinners”, which also seems wrong. And are they trying to include pizza in that category? (instant potatoes and vegetable-like side dishes do not a dinner make) .

At 1am, it hit me:  “Boxed Pasta”.  It should be called “Boxed Pasta”.  I wish I’d been in that meeting. I would have fought hard for “Boxed Pasta”

On my way into the same store the next day I saw this, and realized the reason said retailer offers such (not really) low prices is because their in-store marketing/communications strategies are more of the “pull idea out of hat” variety:

Go for the good stuff.  CBC’s Age of Persuassion did a really interesting program today. The topic was advertising categories and Terry O’Reily dove right into the finer nuances around ad campaigns.  Absolutely worth a listen, you can find it here

I’m thrilled to be part of the current session of Calgary Compact’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 101 class.    I filled in an vacated seat and joined the class last week, in the third week of the inaugural session.

The eight week curricullum introduces variety of (working) topics in Corporate Responsibility:  Sustainable development, best practices, communications, employee engagement.  Instructor, Leo Wong, accesses current studies and profiles to show us best practices on each top.  For example, this week we discussed how companies ‘embed’ CSR into their corporate culture and different methods to engage employees.

CSR 101 speakers blow my mind.  We have access to local leaders working in the discipline, such as Sheila Carruthers at CSR Strategies Inc. and Gena Rotstein of Dexterity Consulting.

In my mind, this is all very sexy stuff. CSR is such a young field. I’m really thrilled to be part of such a dynamic group and I’ll be writing about my thoughts on this class, here at verbs.ca, over the coming weeks.    If you think you are interested in participating in the next session of CSR 101, learn more at Calgary Compact’s site here

From Made In Brooklyn by Jared Flood.  Knit in Berroco Ultra Alpaca.  A nice structure (not too bulky, not too smooth) and cost all of $50 to make.  Yes, please.

On ravelry

I watch news daily, mostly CBC.  The National is my fave (Peter Mansbridge! *heart*) .   I do not enjoy watching some other stations because their production techniques are so…  reactionary! kill kill kill! Fight! WE’RE TRYING TO SCARE YOU!

My biggest pet peeve are the eye witnesses or the average Joe-on the street, who, when asked for their opinion or to recall the facts suddenly are overcome with a disease: Second person perspective.

You want to explain what happened, but you’ve spent years watching television .  You understand there’s something different about how people speak when they’re inside the magical box.  Because you know they must have some sort of expertise on what they’re saying.

When it’s you who is the expert, you must speak with the authority of omnipotence. YOU MUST USE SECOND PERSON PERSPECTIVE.

Actually, you should not. It’s totally annoying.  STOPIT.  (I’ve been on the news once or twice) (it was a FIBRE fair, *not* a FABRIC fair. damn hell muggles

I deep-knee-bend love this “How to do a news story” from Charlie Brooker.  Enjoy!

Introducing verbs.ca My little piece of the internet, temporarily housed at sittingonmyhands.com. My amazingly talented friend Kris Hopkins

is helping me take it from WIP to Web Presence. Check out his online portfolio, and don’t try to resist his flash pieces

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