I’ve been talking about needing a program like this for a long long time. Fortunately, Jesse Grosjean from HogBay Software developed it. It’s called Write Room — a writing program that harkens back to the days when you could just open Word Perfect on DOS, put your head down, type, and finish a project all in one sitting. Of course, back then the only distractions available were other mesmerizing DOS applications, generating silly ASCII drawings of Christmas trees, and wondering how it was possible to get all that a couple of megabytes onto a 5.25” floppy disc (at least I did).

Today, the distractions are too many and multiplying. Too many widgets, too many apps, too many icons. All filling our screens and cluttering our vision, begging for just a little attention, and then a little more.

Look! A Twitter update!

Is that Simon Cowell in a thong?! Hmmm… wonder if he’s got an ass double.

Squirrel!

Write Room obliterates these and any other distractions from your line of vision and lets you focus on the writing at hand. It’s dead simple to use and offers a few customization options. Sure, it’s not nearly as robust as Microsoft Word, but robustness isn’t the reason you’d use WriteRoom.

Simplicity is. And focus is. And finishing the damn piece you’ve been working on for five days is.

Write Room allows you to do one thing without distraction: write.

If you want to use Write Room, you’ll need a Mac running OS X 10.4 or later. There’s a 30 day free trial available, after which you’ll gladly pay $24.95 to continue using it. There’s even a handy dandy iPhone app available for $4.99 so you can create and edit documents on the go.

Happy writing. Well, at least happier writing.

We just have to realize that some customers will never be good customers.

They take advantage of our generosity because hey, times are tough, and we’re supposed to bend over backwards for the sale because then, if we do, they’ll tell people how much we did and wasn’t that sooooo nice of us? And besides, don’t we always talk about how social media is about generosity? About giving of yourself to the community? And about how generosity itself is a business model?

Yes, we will go out of our way for you. Yes, we hope you like what we do for you so much that you’ll tell people about what we can do for them. And yes, it is about generosity.

But it should work both ways. Aren’t our customers part of that community too?

So when we’re generous with you, we expect a little generosity in return. At the very least a little fairness.

Is that too much to ask? What do you think?

On Thursday evening, during Jane Campion’s new film, Bright Star, cell phones glowed in the foreground throughout the film like cicada-sized fireflies. On, off. On, off. Check here. Check there.

The next day, a guest at Conversation Friday explained how her daughter and her daughter’s friends sometimes interact — how they have conversations with friends standing right in front of them while their heads point down, waiting for something to happen on their cell phones.

Another guest followed, telling us how their son reacted when he and his wife took his cell phone away for 24 hours. His son’s physical reponse fell just short of hyperventilation, which led to the comment: “You can’t! It’s my life!”

Have we arrived at tech-co-dependency? Can we not disengage for the duration of a movie? A meeting? A conversation? Is the presence of another human being no longer enough to hold our attention?

While I certainly engage on Facebook and twitter quite frequently, I’m not referring to the frequency or intensity of participation, but rather, to the ability to disconnect when necessary, appropriate, and respectful. In an effort to curb my own use during such instances, I’ve resorted to leaving my cell phone in the car when out to dinner, leaving it at my desk during meetings, and plugging it in to charge in a different room while I’m doing puzzles with my daughter. Despite the efforts, I’d still plead guilty to many incidents of attention deficit in the presence of others.

So, how do we turn this around for ourselves and our children? How do we remind ourselves and educate our children that engaging in the moment with the people right in front of our eyes is more important than virtual engagement with the people we’re connected with through a mobile device? That giving our undivided attention these days is more valuable a gift than it has ever been?

Thoughts? Opinions? Leave a comment. Better yet, why not forget the computer altogether and write me a letter? Or call me to chat about it. Yeah, sure, fine. On the phone.

Photo Credit: compujeramey

A client told me about his suspicion regarding a competitor lifting copy from his site for their own web site. In about 20 seconds, his suspicion was confirmed.

Here’s how:

1. Go to your web site.
2. Select a section of text and copy it — two to three sentences should do* (see below for more).
3. Head to Google, paste the text into the search bar, and put quotes around it.
4. Hit search.

If you see only one result (yours), you’re golden. Move on. If you see more than one result, however, it’s likely someone’s been hijacking your copy — or, umm… the reverse may be true (in which case, cut it the heck out).

What some people may not realize is that duplicate content can hurt search ranking.

Check out this page on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog for more detailed information on that. Want do something about it? Visit this page on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act where you can file a notice of infringement.

Original content these days is more valuable than ever. We all need to take advantage of the uniqueness of our personality and the uniqueness with which we express it.

Cherish it. Use it. And yes, profit from it.

*When selecting text from your site, be sure to copy enough original text — in other words, text and syntax created by you. For example, if I select and search Google for the first sentence of this paragraph “When selecting text from your site, be sure to copy enough original text — in other words, text and syntax created by you.”, you’ll see it only exists in one place: on this post, meaning I didn’t lift that copy from anywhere other than my own noggin’.

I-10 east
I95 north
traffic on 278
Hilton Head South Carolina
Beachside Tennis
meat lovers pizza
booboos & band-aids
shrimp & grits
crabbing
biking on the beach
swimming
biking to harbor town
lighthouse climb
114 steps
smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, chopped onions
Savannah, GA
Paula “not eatin there” Deen
river street
dockside southern style buffet
cornbread fried chicken collard greens mac and cheese stuffing
a salad
tiny beers with tiny limes — yes, coronitas
Claire Ben Ashley Julie Brandon
Myra Virgil
Jen Ruby Michael
Nicki — and Josh via text
stacy’s pita chips
ahi tuna salad
salty dog
missing Rodney
green ice cream with chocolate chips
chocolate ice cream
you really want cotton candy ice cream?
cool water currents
happy dolphins
shark!!
low tide rivulets
like walking in a dryer full of wet clothes
tandem bike drag
Italian night
grampa
stroganoff
effen raspberry vodka
canceled golf
early departures
i’ll-fitting merrells
low country boil
she’s eating broccoli & hot dogs?
beach walks
crabbin’
crab hats
hello kitty kite
butterfly kite
bi-plane kite
mushy sand
pizza flavored pretzels? yea, gross.
hummus
Italian night
fried calamari
diet sunkist & vodka? really?
bananagrams
cranium
harbour town
signe’s heaven bound bakery
traffic on 278
I95 north
I-10 east
get the dogs at MoJo’s
i don’t wanna cook either — Lucy Ho’s, please
that was a great vacation.
good night.
love you ruby.
love you mommy and daddy.
love you too.
can’t wait till next year.

What do you think? Is this fanning business getting out of hand?

Every email is not important and urgent.

The same with every phone call and voice mail.

Do you have to do every part of every project yourself? Or can you delegate?

Are you spending too much time on stuff that’s neither urgent or important? Like worrying about things you don’t have any control over? Or making mountain ranges out of mole hills?

In this era of 24 hour connectedness, time-management isn’t what’s needed. It’s you-management. The more the clock ticks and tocks, I sense it’s not about attacking a to-do list but about writing out a want-to-do list, and figuring out how to delegate or spread out the to-do list so that the want-to-do list gets done.

After all, spending more time on the things you want you to do versus the things other people want you to do is way more important. Those are the things re-fuel, energize us, and keep us going. Most importantly, they allow us to give more to the people who count on us.

So, how’s today looking?

The only comfort in grey is imagined.

Grey is a state of mind — a nebulous mass of indecisiveness. Grey is a maybe. Grey is nothing but an excuse. Grey says it’s okay to straddle the fence, delay the decision, and avoid a position. Grey keeps you average and impedes greatness.

Yes, grey exists, and it’s good to be able to perceive and understand it, but living grey is a whole other matter.

Be black. Be white. Be whatever color you want to be. But make it solid. And f* grey.

How are you doing these days? Hopefully well, but likely not. I don’t have to tell you what’s happening out there. You know the dirty details. You’re surrounded by them.

As the bad news begins to rise a little higher than you’re used to, think about this: leaving the agency setting and moving in-house.

(Wait wait! Before you click off. Hear me out. I’ll be brief, because I understand your attention span, like mine, is in a state of perpetual truncation.)

1. Why work with some clients you like and some you don’t? Why not work at one company you love?

2. Creativity can happen in so many places these days, with so many intricacies and layers, your options are limited only by your creativity.

3. To think that one copywriter and one art director can successfully handle more than one client’s branding needs throughout a myriad channels is simply foolish.

4. To think that one copywriter and one art director can successfully explore the myriad tools available to reach multiple audiences is, again, foolish.

5. (See reason #1) Why work with some clients you like and some you don’t? Why not work at one company you love?

Sure, a lot of the companies we creative people would deem “worthy of working at (or for)” don’t have an in-house creative department. So what? Build it yourself. You’ve spent your career selling smart campaigns to some of the biggest and baddest companies in the world. Selling a mid-size company with a portfolio full of promise on a way to save money and create better more insightful work should be a no-brainer for you.

So, should you take on the assignment, here’s a rough strategy statement:

Convince any one company I truly love and believe in that I can create more effective and insightful work than their advertising agency of record because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darnit, who’s got the money to keep paying for a big damn agency these days?

Thoughts? Ideas? I know you have ‘em. Leave ‘em here.

Have a good one.

Photo Credit Jim Frazier

Just about every time I mention twitter to a friend or client, they respond with a cockeyed look and pursed lips — like I’ve just squeezed grapefruit pulp into both their eyes.

It reminds me of the early years when I evangelized True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes off Red Hot Chili Peppers’ first album (check out that cheesy-awesome video below). Then making friends listen to Yertle the Turtle off Freaky Styley. Digging into Anthrax and deconstructing Efilnikcufecin.

All these shiny new tools and how we continue using and exploring them are a lot like the underground music that defined some of us way back when. Our love for the unique made us a little different, socially questionable.

Today, however, that is our advantage. We are connecting dots. We are painting pictures. We are doing remarkable things with very few resources — just like innovators have always done. With every tweet, blog, video, and podcast, we are essentially pushing deeper into the communications underground. The cool thing is there’s a lot more air and light down there than there is up here.

Thoughts? Comments? Love to hear ‘em. Let’s keep pushing.