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To Honor Gutenberg’s Moveable Type – what’s your favorite font?

September 30, 2008 By 1 Comment

Today, September 30, marks the anniversary of the Gutenberg Bible, published back in 1454 or 1455. Although not the first work printed with moveable type in Europe, seems the Koreans and Chinese had been doing it for a century or two before Gutenberg, yet, it was the first major work done in this fashion and with a quality that was amazing at the time.

Where would we be if type had not become adjustable?

movable type

movable type

To honor Johannes Gutenberg and the other inventors – what is your favorite font for digital work and for use in print?

Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: Design, Historical Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Financial Crisis Puts Communication in the Forefront

September 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I attended a local business association meeting and eventually the topic of the financial mess the country is in came up. With four bankers, a couple financial planners, and lots of small business owners and employees in the room, opinions were varied, but everyone was concerned.

For the bankers, communicating to their customers has recently become almost a full-time job. Everyone it seems is concerned about the FDIC coverage of their money. It seems staff meeting and lots of communication tools (web site, emails, newsletters, etc.) are being used to get their message to their customers.

For financial planners, the FDIC is just one of the items they are answering questions about. IRA and 401(k) coverage and insurance are other items that are testing there communication skills. Individual meetings with clients are keeping them busy.

Some blamed the media for hyping the situation, but as WaMu joins Lehman Brothers, IndyMac and others it’s hard to blame the media 100% , as something is going on.  But why the confusion on what is happening in the marketplace? Most media outlets are doing their best to educate readers and viewers by putting animations of how mortgage securities are grouped together and sold, but when their value crumbled then the panic began.

The federal government outside the FDIC (who is using Suze Orman to educate) is doing a horrible job. communicating. It seems the politicians aren’t even sure why they are being asked to spend $700 billion. Approval ratings aside, what do you think of President Bush’s messages over the last few days?

Bloggers haven’t let it go by unnoticed.  Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s apparent lack of communication skills have become the topic for many. I heard that he made the mistake of asking for the blank check from Congress with only a 3 page summary of his plan. Brevity has it’s place in modern communications, but three pages doesn’t seem to do the job.

What do you think of the job your bank and you government is doing in communicating the issues and financial crisis to you? Let me know.

Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: Communication Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Brian Yerkes – Cool Blog Idea

September 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment

A fellow designer/blogger – Brian Yerkes is at it again, first he had the business card for bloggers idea. Now the Share the link love with his subscribers. As I enjoy reading Brian blog, I thought I’d throw him some link love myself. And he says he’ll do the same back, what blogs and designers do best. Thanks Brian, keep up the cool blog ideas.

Filed Under: Blogging, Design, Historical Tagged With: , , ,

Marketing Yourself

September 12, 2008 By 2 Comments

Recently, I was made president-elect of IABC Philadelphia, which means as a volunteer for the local chapter of the International Association of Communicators, I’m preparing to become president of the chapter. As part of it, I have been the subject of press releases (iabc-board-press-release-_2008), newspaper interviews, (pbj-people, act-board-appts, chestnuthill_piece_aug2008, inquirer-people) and getting a lot of attention.

This is quite a change for me, as I was always the one behind-the-scenes, getting others media attention and promoting their business.

But in this age of social media, wired and wireless communication, I’m still amazed at two things:

1) people still rely heavily on traditional media – actually reading the business section of local dailies. That’s a question for another blog entry. Why?

2) the speed that social media can spread news, and how insurance salesmen jump on any mention of you in a press release to “talk to you about your current financial situation.”

I’ll be adding more links to this entry as I gather all the press hits a single release has garner. But what has your experience been in marketing – not your business – but yourself? How easy was it? What did you find worked and didn’t work? Let me know.

By the way, here’s my GQ shot I used for all the media attention. Thanks to Paul Pugliese and Tony DeFazio for making me look so good.

Tim Ernst

Tim Ernst

Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: advertising, Historical, Networking, Social Media, Work/Life Balance Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,