I awoke last Friday to the first snowfall of the season — unusually late for Minnesota. If you happen to live anyplace where the temps dip into the lower register and stay there for long stretches, you know the first snowfall heralds the season of marathon commutes. If you listen carefully, I swear you can hear the entire working community dropping F-bombs.
Ahhh, the Texas Drought of 2011. This shot was taken while crossing the Pedernales Bridge west of Austin — I had wanted to document this view that I had seen several times over the past few months to show the docks scattered on the dry land where the receding water had left them, not noticing at the time that the first of those docks is now back on the water…
Being the proud owner of multiple button machines, I’ve fabricated more than my fair share of round promotional items. In my eight years of button-making, I’ve seen a lot of great designs and a metric ton of absolutely terrible ones. When used as a promotional tool, your button is basically like your business card — it represents you and your brand. So why not put forth the extra effort to make your buttons look amazing? Here are a few pointers to help you avoid the most common pitfalls I’ve seen in my years as a buttonatrix. And these rules don’t …
A couple of weeks ago, I was having. a. day.
If you know anything about The Starr Conspiracy, you know that we don’t do anything, um, halfway. So you can bet that Transform, a new HR conference from our friends at TLNT, will be unlike any HR conference you’ve ever seen.
“Details, details, details.” When most people say this, they’re complaining. Not me. I live for details. And I’m one of those lucky people whose occupation is also their passion. In my work at The Starr Conspiracy, I get paid to play “Where’s Waldo” all day long, to be Quality Control, to spot tiny problems buried in marketing materials long before they can become not-so-tiny problems. Dropped words, duplicated words, misused words. Newspapers (remember those?) call people like me copy editors.
(Preface: If you read a version of this post recently via my Twitter feed or Facebook link, forgive the redundancy and simply skip to the bottom paragraph. It’s been added for y’all.)
Let’s be clear: Your brand wasn’t built on your belief to always tell clients the truth even if it means dropping the occasional F-bomb to get your point across. You know whose was? Ours.
Although rabid right-wing patriots shoulder their Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles and peer through the sights when they hear me say it, I’m a veteran. Today’s my day. Veterans Day — the only holiday I can celebrate because of a decision I made for myself rather than because someone else was born or died, or some battle was won or begun. I want to thank all of the companies and institutions in America that honor the veterans on this special day. Especially the restaurants and The Home Depot. In fact, I have set an intention to show as many of these …
So I’m in Boston now. Moved up in mid-August this year (Texas summers can suck it). Needless to say, it’s awesome. My wife is attending Harvard Business School, and I’ve opened up our New England/East Coast office. There’s been a lot to adjust to — learning to work away from the hive that is The Starr Conspiracy headquarters, expanding our network and reach into a new region, supporting Erin as she navigates an amazing opportunity and learning environment, and drinking all the beers I’ve never heard of and can’t get in Texas. Among those four things, I’m pretty much left …
When did fourth-and-goal become a fourth-and-goal situation?
Occupy is coming to your city! Are you ready if your employees get involved? Check it out on TLNT.
There are 7 million annoying things you could be doing on Twitter. Chances are you’re doing three of them.
HR and Social Media: Beyond Recruiting on HREOnline discusses how recruiting opened the door for HR in social media. Recruiters are now in a unique position to use their social media knowledge to improve collaboration, communication and knowledge management for their organizations.
“Joe, thanks for your great contributions over the last year! Please enjoy this venti mocha latte in return.”
Technology rules. It touches every facet of our lives – personal and professional.
As many of you know, I am The Starr Conspiracy‘s social media strategist. It’s a lovely job. My clients are smart and successful vendors who sell software and services to HR professionals.
In a life before I was a content agent here at The Starr Conspiracy, I was an account manager and writer at a boutique agency that focused solely on benefits and compensation communication. In essence, the firm’s clients were HR leaders, its target audiences were employees and its “products” were the ins and outs of its clients’ benefits and compensation programs.
A week has now passed since the HR Technology Conference in Vegas. Not sure if it was the locals, the locale or the locos, but I’m spent. If I were a gambler, I’d bet every attendee is feeling the same.