Writing, marketing and technology
I watched Helvetica last night on DVD. It’s a fascinating documentary that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the almost ubiquitous typeface and explores its cultural significance. It may sound like a bore, but the film shows how amazingly widespread the font is. As one of the interviewees says it’s like the air – it’s just [...]
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I’ve finally got my home cinema set up. Here’s the line-up: Samsung 40″ 1080p LCD TV. Very nice screen. Has a PC input as well as two HDMI ports. Hush Media Centre PC. It runs Windows Vista Ultimate. It came with an HD sound card and a Hauppauge twin-input video capture card and a graphics [...]
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Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister is the one book you MUST read if you are in any kind of professional, knowledge worker business. Although it is written for the software companies, in fact it is packed with insight that applies to any business where people work with their brains. [...]
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I’ve been reading Bruce Pilgrim‘s book, Talking to My Cats: A Small Business Journal, and it’s a hoot. It’s more of a memoir than a book of guidance for budding writers. And when I say memoir, I mean bitingly funny stories of copywriter-abuse. As a marketing guy myself, I can sympathise with the situations he [...]
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I know it’s a bit recherch? to review a book review but I read one this morning that I thought was particularly well written. It’s a review of Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The book is by Vincent Bugliosi and the review is by Thomas Mallon and it is published in [...]
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Jumptags is like a cross between del.icio.us and a DOS command line (or Windows Vista Search if you prefer your DOS searchified). You can use it to store RSS feeds, web pages, Skype contacts and access them with a few key strokes. You can also build up collections of things and share them with friends [...]
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Last week my Orange C600 phone finally did my head in. It kept crashing and the little joystick wouldn’t point downwards. So I decided to replace it. Writing emails SMS-style with a numeric keypad is hard work. (I think people younger than me have some genetic modification that means they can do it.) So I [...]
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This is a review of Life’s a Pitch by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity. (Actually, it’s a chance for me to quote them, criticise them, give them some grudging praise, make a joke or two and display my own prejudices. Another disclosure: the publishers sent me a free copy of the book to review.) The [...]
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The Economist reviewed Carly Fiorina’s biography, Tough Choices last week. Like the curate’s egg, they reckoned it was good in parts. The review closes with a damning paragraph: Her bigger theme is leadership, and this is where Ms Fiorina fails. Again and again, she interrupts a good narrative with vain and verbose harangues about corporate [...]
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Slate have got an online version of the The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón. This may be one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words. Check it out.
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Matthew Stibbe is CEO of Articulate Marketing and Turbine, the easy, online way to deal with office paperwork. He edits Golf Hotel Whiskey and writes the Forbes Aviator column.
Check out my new, free eBook, 30 Days to Better Business Writing, 71 pages of expert tips and advice to make you a better writer. Available on Kindle, paper and free online.