Jean Gazis Copywriting & Content Strategy

Another of my photos was featured in the Sierra Club's "Daily Ray of Hope" email today. This is my third one to have been selected—not bad, considering there are over 900 contributors and more than 10,000 pictures in the Flickr pool.

Photo Credit: Jean Gazis
Location: Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY

I took this on a "hike" with my sons' Cub Scout pack on February 20, in Prospect Park. (Near the small bridge over the small waterfall at the West end of the water by the Audubon Center.)

Used with this lovely quote:
"If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow."
—Rachel Carson

Maybe I should go submit some quotations, too.

Ideally, OTHER peoples' mistakes. Here's a great bit of marketing advice for web developers on applying lessons learned from the things your users do wrong to improve your site on Gaspedal's "Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That!. This is also a very good email newsletter - you can sign up on the blog.

It's always cool to see something linking two of my favorite topics! I found this blog post on The Language We Use via Drupal guy Michael Angeles's user experience blog. It's a discussion of how the words employed can shape thinking without the speaker being aware of it.

Excerpt: "what can be dangerous about design patterns is that some patterns get TOO ingrained in our minds. They become the only way we can even conceive doing X,Y,Z, and we freeze our creativity."

I got this link from a Facebook friend, and it's well worth a look for anyone interested in building better websites. 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites by Paul Boag.

Here's a great quote: "if you build a website for everyone, it will appeal to no one." There are is also some great stuff on content management systems and social networking.

Here's a link to Maira Kalman's NY Times blog: The Pursuit of Happiness"

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: abstemious and facetious.

Are there really only two? This feels like a challenge to think of another!

I've recently been moving all my personal email over to a new account, and I can't believe how many newsletters and organizations have an unsubscribe link that's simply that, with no way to easily change your email address or sign back up. What a missed opportunity!

Marketers, if I have to specifically go back to your site to find the newsletter signup again, or jump through hoops trying to guess what login I might have used 3 years ago somewhere, I'm a lot less likely to opt in. Make it easy for me!

I've been enjoying the Sierra Club's Daily Ray of Hope email, which consists of a photo and quotation every weekday morning. (I actually found it when I wanted to unsub from another of their email broadcasts that was getting annoying.) You can submit photos via a Flickr group, so I put in a few. They used one of mine back in April, and another today. Very flattering!

Today's Photo:



Pumpkins in a doorway on Union Street near the community garden in Park Slope, October 2008.

I've been using FreshBooks for invoicing and tracking payments. It's a very easy to use online service, of which there are many, but they also have some nice newsletter and blog items that I enjoy - a "we know our customers because we are like our customers" mentality.

This article: 7 Ways I've Almost Killed Freshbooks makes some good points about building a startup. I especially like this quote: "Doubt is born out of fatigue and loneliness, and there is a lot of both when you are running a start up. Hang in there and keep your feet moving - there’s still a lot of time for you to change the world."

If people who say that their vote doesn't matter drive you as crazy as they do me, here's a timely WikiHow page on How to Convince Someone to Vote with some excellent suggestions.

Just one more vote per precinct in Florida in 2000 could have made the difference. If that's really true, wow!

Now, go VOTE. It matters.