Technical Communication Professionals in Southwest Michigan | Prima Communications, Inc.
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The Power of Free
Posted on 17. Feb, 2011 by Jeremy in Graphic Design & Other Cool Stuff, Prima Communications Blog
At a recent expo, I had a great opportunity to give something away. It wasn’t a shirt or a pen or a donut sample (those guys were down the aisle and the smell was maddening). I gave away website maintenance, one of our core services. I did this for two reasons:
- The unselfish reason: We like to make people happy, and this guy was unhappy.
- The selfish reason: Giving it away might lead to paying business later.
I was manning our booth and offering website and documentation services to the attendees when another exhibitor walked across the aisle and asked if we work with existing websites in addition to creating new ones.
We do, I assured him.
He and I talked about his site’s issues, the most urgent being incorrect contact information and an absent developer. Of course, the site was set up to require the developer to update the contact information.
Job security for the developer, pure frustration and lost business for an unhappy client.
We talked a bit more and he agreed to send me the site’s access information. I don’t recommend this in general, but we were right across the aisle from each other. If I started doing anything shady he could have walked across and flipped my table over, so we were both comfortable with the situation.
I had a laptop in the booth, and it took about twenty minutes to log into the site, edit the contact info, and get everything up to date.
A frustrated fellow exhibitor became a happy new client. Those free twenty minutes led to a contract to redo several websites and a delighted customer who recommends us every chance he gets.
If you have an opportunity to make a difference by giving something away, do it.
You can’t afford not to.
5 Proofreading Tips You May Not Have Learned in Pubic School
Posted on 22. Sep, 2010 by Jeremy in Documentation & Training, Prima Communications Blog, Writing & Marketing
It will be very embarrassing if there is a spelling error in this pot post.
But not as embarrassing as the “Pubic Schools” billboard touting the 15 best things about South Bend, Indiana’s public schools. Credit to Blue Waters Group for taking responsibility for the typo, admitting four people looked at it and didn’t see the error.
Photo by Lee MacMillan
I didn’t catch it the first time I read the sign, and spell check certainly wouldn’t help. So how can you make sure your content is correct?
5 Proofreading Tips You May Not Have Learned in Pubic School
- Let virgin eyes read it.
- Read it out loud.
- Read it out loud backwards.
- Change Case
- Go big.
If you helped write it, chances are you’ve seen it at least a dozen times. You’re probably sick of it. This increases the chance of skimming. Let fresh eyes take a look and ask them to:
Slowly. Someone saying “pubic” out loud in an office is going to get attention. And when that’s done, ask your proofer to:
This will help prevent the aforementioned filling of blanks. It’s much easier to skim “pubic schools” than “schools pubic.”
Depending on the letters, misspellings and missing letters can be harder to spot if your text is ALL CAPS or lowercase. Observe:
PUBIC SCHOOLS
pubic schools
The missing L is more obvious in all caps.
Change it up for review.
While you’re changing the case, bump the size up. Keep going, get to one word per page. If you’re scrolling through the pages and come to one with
PUBIC
sprawled across it, you’ll probably stop the presses.
Embedding an iframe Google Calendar in a WordPress Page
Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by Jeremy in Graphic Design & Other Cool Stuff
This is kind of a workaround, but it’s the best solution I’ve found so far for getting a Google Calendar onto a WordPress page – including the tasty iframe!
Check out the Google Calendar working on a WordPress page here to make sure it’s what you’re looking for.
You’re going to need three things:
- A Google Calendar
- The Random / Rotating Ads V2 plugin
- The PHP Execution plugin
Get the plugins, install and activate.
Go to your Google Calendar’s settings and select the Calendar Details tab:
Then click the Calendar Address HTML button:
And click the link for the configuration tool:
Adjust your settings and copy the HTML -yes all of it, including the iframe stuff!
Go to your WordPress Tools and click Datafeedr Random Ads:
Click Add New Group at the top of the page. Name the group “calendar” (or whatever you want, without the quote marks). Paste the Google Calendar HTML into the Ad #1 field.
You can leave the Before and After fields blank:
Click Save Ad Group. Copy the line of PHP code that shows up next to your ad group:
Go to the WordPress page on which you’d like your Google Calendar. In the HTML editor, paste the line of PHP code. I had to wrap mine in “code” tags, so you may want to do the same:
Publish/Update the page and take a look at your fancy new Google Calendar page!
Check out the Google Calendar working on a WordPress page here.
If You Aren’t Building Your Bridges, Who Is?
Posted on 11. Jan, 2010 by Jeremy in Prima Communications Blog, Writing & Marketing
Pie is yummy.
I was at a small deli/bakery when the owner overheard me mention our blog. It went something like this:
Me: Blog blog blog.
Owner: You have a blog?
Me: *sniff* That’s right.
Owner: Can you post a positive review of my restaurant? We have a website, but if you Google our name the first link that comes up is a bad review. We must change this!
I wasn’t sure what to say. First of all, me putting a positive review up might not budge the bad one, regardless of my widely respected taste in delis and bakeries.
Second, if she has a website, why not address the review there?
- Invite the poster back for another piece of pie.
- Add enough happy customer reviews to tip the balance.
- And sure, ask other folks to post positive reviews on their sites, as long as they’re genuine.
Whatever you do, don’t let someone else build the bridge between you and your customers. They can do whatever they want with that bridge; burn it, park Hummers sideways on it, even put trolls underneath it.
What have you done so far this year to build your bridges?
MichBio Expo – Opening Reception Tonight!
Posted on 03. Nov, 2009 by Jeremy in Business Efficiency, Documentation & Training, Prima Communications Blog
Join us at the MichBio Expo in the Radisson Plaza, downtown Kalamazoo.
In addition to providing tons of information about documentation, process mapping, and other technical wizardry, we’ll be offering attendees the opportunity to film a short video resume or personal statement that they can add to their LinkedIn profile or website.
If you’re attending the expo, stop by our booth and say hello, or give us a shout on Twitter @primatweet.