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a new beginning…a new opportunity

October 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Opportunity is a funny thing, when you aren’t looking for it, it seems to pop up left and right. When I began RavenWood Creative, I networked, I passed out business cards and told former colleagues and friends all about my Marketing and Communication experience. I depended on Word-of-Mouth advertising and it worked great. Former colleagues gave me opportunities to work on projects both internally in their companies and externally to try to market their wares or services.

Everything was going great. The company I started, which I thought would be providing mostly writing and graphic design services, quickly evolved to one providing web design 80 percent of the time. I found there was a need for small and medium size businesses to have a single source of marketing materials, whether they are online or on paper. WordPress became a powerful ally, as most clients wanted the ability to create content and update their own website to talk directly to their customers. My design skills came in handy when creating new web graphics and corresponding brochures, business cards and advertisements. My desktop publishing skills were tested and expanded as I began laying out hundreds of pages of reports and books for clients such as Monitoring Analytics and Flourtown Fire Company.

Then I saw it, an ad from a financial firm, they needed help with their marketing and communications. The job entails everything I’ve been doing with RavenWood Creative wrapped up in a neat little company that is rapidly growing and with plenty of opportunity. So as my relationship changes with my clients, I ask for patience and understanding as we make this transition to a new opportunity for all of us. It’s been a pleasure working with everyone, as most relationships go, they’ve had there ups and downs, but in the end I hope your relationship with RavenWood Creative has helped grow your business and opened new opportunities.

Tim

Filed Under: Blogging, marketing, Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Marco … Polo and Lessons He Left for Us Today

January 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Marco Polo

On this day back in 1324, Marco Polo died. I remember as a child, The Travels of Marco Polo, was one of the first books I signed out of the library. I remember sitting on the steps of my house reading the book cover to cover. The stories of the explorer venturing out of Venice and traveling to China fascinated me. But did you know, Marco Polo didn’t write his own story. As the story goes, after traveling throughout Asia for 24 years (after his Father and Uncle traveled there), and naming all the kingdom he found in the time of Kublai Khan – Polo returned home and the Genoese captured him as a prisoner of war as they fought with Venice. It was while he was imprisoned that he related his story to a fellow prisoner, who wrote it down. The ghost writer, rumored to be, Rustichello of Pisa, was for the most part lost to history but the tales of Polo’s adventures lived on. The book became a top seller in medieval Europe.

But you’re probably wondering why I’m writing about Marco Polo, who has been for the most part relegated to a summertime swimming game and the history books, on a blog that for the most part deals with design, marketing and communication. The lessons of Marco Polo for the modern world:

1) If you have a story to tell … but feel you can’t do it justice, find someone who can, and let them tell it. But do share your story, as it may inspire others, like a young boy in the suburbs of Philadelphia to one day venture out on his own and tell his story.

2) Go outside your comfort zone, as Marco Polo did leaving his native Italy to visit with cultures and people that surely shocked him.

3) Be a student of life and the people within it. Just as Polo studied Khan’s empire and became a trusted advisor to him, being able to speak four languages and teller of tales he engaged this foreign audience in China who was as curious to learn from him as he was to learn from them.

4) Take risks, venturing down the Silk Road was a bold move at the time, putting his life on the line with bandits and warlords was to be admired.

5) Stick you your guns, when The Travels of Marco Polo was released, most in Europe thought it to be a book of lies. Polo died being considered a creator of fairy tales more than an explorer, but Polo remained firm his stories of his travels were true. Many think that Polo and others embellished their stories to sell more copies, which is probably true.

6) Network, Marco Polo supposedly was given a golden tablet from Khan himself that let him travel freely throughout Asia and warded off bandits. So it goes to show you even in the 1200s it was who you knew that had a powerful impact on your life.

So let me know your thoughts on the Marco Polo lessons for the modern world. What book do you remember reading as a child? Does a story that entertains us and takes us to another world need to be entirely factual, or is it the fact that Polo promoted it as such, that turned his audience against him, (i.e. Oprah and James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces)?

Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: Historical, Inspiration, Networking 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: , , , , , , , , ,

Do we really need to use jargon?

May 21, 2008 By Leave a Comment

My wife, Eileen, works in marketing for a manufacturing company. Lately, she’s been venting at home about all the jargon in the corporate world. Recently she’s taken up collecting the jargon terms that she feels are being overused. Her goal to fill a “buzzword bingo card.” So far here’s her list:

pushback
escalate
value add
talent management
intuitive
robust
enroll
leverage
gap-closing
showcase
point of pain

To which I would like to add, synergy, maturity, and driven. My wife is not alone, recently I found two sources debating all the jargon used in business. The first is at myragan where communicators and PR executives are discussing the need to use jargon for their clients, “internal” and “external” and among themselves. The second comes from one of my favorite resources on networking and brings up a great point, that with all this jargon in use, your “audience” or even your coworkers might not understand what you’re talking about. It comes from Steve Smolinsky and Kay Keenan at Conversation on Networking and their free email newsletter.

“Jargon Addendum: We are always so happy when readers take something we say and try it out, add to it, and, most importantly, send us the results. This story seems to be a great way to end this month’s issue so read on to the fine thoughts and great information from Jeanne Best:

“Jargon seems to be generational. I am working w/2 twentysomethings and managing them through the planning/execution of a convention of 400+ people. So the other day I was explaining the detailed spreadsheet one of them needed to set up to track materials and I said I know this is a lot of detail but we really need to have a major CYA – you know, cover your a__. The young man said yes to the assignment w/no expression so I asked him do you know what CYA is? He said no. So I explained it. The young woman in our office stopped in and I explained we have to keep this detailed info and that is was an exercise in CYA and I said do you know what it is? Her guess was Catholic Youth Association – made me feel bad to explain reality after all we had all just gone to see the Pope in D.C. but I said no cover your a__. So I learned a new lesson in communication.”

This is such a great example of assuming others know what you’re talking about. It’s another great reason to be clear, to keep away from jargon, to refuse to use abbreviations, to spell it out. Not only that, notice how clever Jeanne is. She actually did what we suggest: ask it they understand. And look what she found out. Thank you Jeanne. Now if you only knew about those little ¤¤ signs we like to use.”

So what jargon terms bug you the most? Let me know and help my wife fill out her bingo card.

Until next time, Tim


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Filed Under: Communication, Networking, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Bloggers United for a Good Cause

May 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Today I’m joining the chorus of bloggers united for Human Rights today, May 15. My issue – the junta – or ruling military dictators that have kept relief supplies for themselves or relabeled foreign aid coming into Burma or Myanmar after the cyclone recently devastated the country. They relabel the supplies with their country’s symbols and crests so the people will think the government is helping them.

Bloggers Unite

Evil coming in many forms, but this blatant refusal to assist other humans in surviving a natural disaster is a new low. Even when the US failed to act promptly or properly in helping its own citizens struck by Huricane Katrina, we knew the government had good intentions, but were just overwhelmed by incompetence and bureaucracy. In Burma, it seems the government is overwhelmed, but also fearful of losing power even slightly by letting aid in. How sad, let’s hope the international outcry and attention Burma is receiving will change things there.

Find out more about Bloggers United from blogcatalog.

Until next time, let me know if you are doing a Human Rights blog and what your issue is concerning. Tim


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Filed Under: Blogging, Networking, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Some Great Green Tips – Great Networking Ammo

May 6, 2008 By Leave a Comment

With the green movement picking up steam and becoming more and more prevalent throughout corporate America, your knowledge of energy-saving tips or recycling could open up a lot of possiblities. Take networking for instance, if you know the difference between FSC and fossil fuels or have designed green communications – you’re in a better position than someone who barely recycles at home.

 I applaud corporations like Whole Foods Market which has been at the forefront of creating a better environment for all:

1) They’ve stopped using plastic bags, thus preventing 100 million plastic bags from hitting the waste stream.

2) They sell more organics than anyone else.

3) They promote eco-friendly packaging.

But what can you do, as a communicator or a corporate employee? You can request that brochures, magazines and marketing materials are eco-friendly. Insist on FSC-certified papers for your projects. Insist on them from your printer, your suppliers, your vendors. The FSC or Forest Stewardship Council, based in Germany is an international organization the promotes responsible stewardship of the world’s forests. It verifies through a strict certification process where the paper you are printing on or using in packaging is tracked all the way back to its source and must be from sustainable sources to be FSC-certified.

I know from now on I’ll be requesting FSC papers and printers for all of RavenWood Creative’s work. What tips do you have to make you home or organization more green? Let me know. Can your organization stop making paper copies for large events and instead pass out DVDs or flash drives to the attendees? Can you use more electronic means to get your point across rather than printing it? Can you make sure you recycle, reuse, and reduce what you use? Sure you can, let me know what your company is doing and we can discuss it here and share it with everyone. An organization I’m involved in IABC has done most of this and is preparing to do more, which we all can, do more to clean up our environment, our air, our water and get away from our dependency on oil! Gas prices are a great networking ice-breaker, knowing a bit about how to reduce our use of it is a great conversation starter.

Until Next Time, Tim


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Filed Under: Environmental, Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Word of Mouth Works

April 17, 2008 By Leave a Comment

A lot of my business comes by word of mouth. Someone hears from one of my clients on how pleased they are with RavenWood Creative’s work and voila I hear from another potential client. I guess that’s at the core of what WOMMA is all about, seems if there is a way of doing business, someone will find a way to make it their business. WOMMA or the Word of Mouth Marketing Association is using the Internet and social media to “standardize and define Word-of-mouth marketing and advertising.  It’s a neat concept, they define several sorts of marketing on the site and have a community that you can join to help spread the word about your company, but in the end you have to have a quality product and be of service to your customers.

Speaking of word or mouth, I heard about a unique company that through business is trying to better the situation in the Middle East. John Studer, and his company No Sweat Apparel, is a great example of of social entrepreneurialism. With the modest ambition of helping to solve the Middle East crisis, No Sweat Apparel manufactures organic cotton t-shirts in a factory in Palestine, at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Owned and operated by a Jew, organized under a Muslim union, and produced in a factory run by a Christian, the founders of No Sweat believe that mutually beneficial economic incentives are a key component to helping resolve the crisis in the Middle East. What’s more is that they are doing this in an eco-friendly way; the t-shirts they produce are environment-friendly organic cotton.

No Sweat Apparel has already received support from groups such as Jewish Voices, the American Jewish Committee, the Islamic Institute of Boston, and even the Israeli and Palestinian foreign ministries.

No Sweat has sold about 500 t-shirts so far, but with word of mouth hopefully many more. In this age of the power of the net, anything is possible. For more information about the company (or to order a t-shirt), visit their web site http://www.nosweatapparel.com

Oh, by the way, I heard about No Sweat from Ideablob, yet another cool idea that social media has made possible, but that will have to remain a topic for another day. Do you know of any company on the forefront of social change by just conducting business? Let me know, and I’ll give them a shout out here.

Until next time, Tim


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Filed Under: Networking, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Words are Important – Just ask Senator Obama

March 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Recently, I was at a business card exchange and was doing what comes so unnaturally to most folks. I was talking to a young owner of Astera Video Productions, located in the suburbs of Philadelphia and, of course, networking and exchanging business cards. Usually, it’s the status-quo, the friendly banter and pleasantries and both parties go their separate ways. But Tony from Astera was different, he engaged me in a conversation about my business, he examined my card and asked me geniune questions about my business. Where do I find my clients? What services do you offer them? Pretty standard stuff. But then he asked me about the words on my business card. Why did you name your company RavenWood Creative? (see my previous post for an explanation) I then stopped Tony and asked him “well first tell me me where Astera came from?” He laughed and said I do a lot of business from the Yellow Pages and I used to have a name that began with “S” so I looked in a book for an “A” name and formed Astera which is a play on the Latin word astrum meaning star.

As Senator Obama has reminded us lately, we put a lot of thought and, most of the time, meaning behind our words. “We the People … All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others,” or, one of my favorites, ”Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’”

There’s power in our words.

And as Gerry McGovern has pointed out in his work on the power of the web, words are the foundation of the internet, albiet in digital form of 0s and 1s. The combination of 0s and 1s form the stirring stories of our lives, our businesses, our hopes and dreams. When was the last time you looked at the word you use on your site? What do they say about you and your business or interests? Is your navigation or the word you use clear to the viewer or are they some words only people within your company use. With everything online, customers don’t have much time or more importantly patience to decifer “your langauage” to find what they want. Brevity is king on the net, but clarity is the Queen.

What are your thoughts? Write me some words in the Comments. Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: Communication, Networking, Web Design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Corporate Blogging Experiencing Growing Pains

February 23, 2008 By 1 Comment

I’m fortunate enough to be doing some Intranet work for a large global corporation that embraces technology. There Intranet is far reaching and vastly out shines what I’ve seen from other “progressive” corporations. My work is just refined to an initiative for a division in the US, but their Intranet spans the globe and is very current. But I’m not writing about the entire Intranet here, rather one of the tools that – let’s call them “Company S” – is experimenting with and feeling some growing pains and adoption issues with - the corporate blog. Unfortunately, they are internal blogs and can’t be shared here, but we can examine their challenges and learn from them.

It’s interesting Company S has taken the blog and run with it, there must be 25-30 different blogs covering such topics as diversity, design, social media, technical or engineering to great ones on odd jobs at Company S, Second Life and management. It’s the management one in particular that is experiencing the growing pain and participation issues. Seems the blog started in the fall of 2007 and has had 15 weekly topics presented from different members of the management team. That fact alone makes me wonder, because this blog doesn’t have a single voice, does that effect employees getting involved? As for participation their are roughly 3,000 employees that have access and supposedly be interested in what management is saying, yet over the 15 weeks their have only been a total of 95 comments.

Armed with these stats, the party responsible for the blog, management but also the corporate communications team is asking for feedback through the blog. Asking about its value, the topics presented, and how to get more employees involved. So far the most comments of any topics have arrived at the blog – with an overwhelming majority finding value in the blog. Seems the employees want to make some changes to this blog to build its value. It’s the present topics that people are finding fault with. They feel that are to academic, generic or sterile. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the employees are seeing through the facade and getting a sense that nothing daring or transparent is being shared within the blog. That management might not be truly writing this blog. A blog needs to be written by its author, not a department assigned to present sales figures and company position in a sterile and formulaic fashion. It’s not the cc department’s fault, and it’s not confined to just Company S, every company wanting to take advantage of this communication tools need to be daring and get beyond the old school mentality that they control the message, but also need to convince management to author their own messages and start sharing. Once they do that, and take the celebrity bloggers and political bloggers lead they will find similar participation. As BusinessWeek pronounced if you aren’t using social media to reach and motivate employees and customers – your competition will.

Let me know your thoughts on this topic – can corporations use the blog to its fullest, or are old school mentalities dooming it?

I’m going to discuss the other blogs at Company S and some of the great discussions they create in future entries. Please let me know your thoughts, until next time, Tim

Filed Under: Blogging, Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Agree with Keith – Never Eat Alone

February 20, 2008 By 3 Comments

Networking is one of my favorite topics for my blog – I’ve found business, colleagues and friends through networking and try to pass on tips whenever I can. Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of FerrazziGreenlight has a great marketing/networking site and book called Never Eat Alone. That simple tip, whenever you are at a conference, meeting, convention, traveling for your business – to never eat alone – it is strong advice to build your network. I’ve gotten business referrals from the oddest encounters – volunteering in the community, taking a training class, or just having lunch with someone – works for me – I try to never eat alone – plus I find I eat less when I’m dining with a colleague or acquaintance, which helps on the diet end of things.

I also subscribe to an email newsletter on networking called Conversation on Networking from Steve Smolinsky and Kay Keenan and find all types of great tips and stories to use in my business. I recommend it. Steve spoke at an IABC networking event and I found it very well received, he had us such ”great communicators” get outside our comfort zone and cliques and actually engage each other in conversation and actually network.

Please share any tips on networking with me here. Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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