So, after I had gotten into a good mood, I had a review at my job.

Not so good, this review.

Now that it’s had some time to sift, there’s some contradictory information that’s been handed to me, that I intend to follow up on until I get some plain, straightforward answers. I don’t think it’ll be quite as bad as pulling teeth.

There is some good that has come of this. Certain aspects of my life and my motivation have seriously gelled, and in a way that would not likely have come to pass without the double-thwack that I received yesterday.

Oddly enough, they moved me to a bigger desk. My only real response has to be… more Transformers!

Work is work, and I am going to fix the problem. There’s no need for me to be performing poorly in any way whatsoever, and that is within my ability to change. So, I’m changing it.

…

Plan B is in full effect, y0. Tested, verified, and confirmed. It is the new hotness, thanks to . Tonight and tomorrow will consist of a frenzy of eBay and writing. Flurry, maybe. Frenzied flurry. Of fiction and fantasy. And, uh, eBay. Crapple.

Quickest way to feel a little less bad about being a jerk – stumble upon someone who is FAR more annoying than you. Dear gods, his valley girl voice is getting through my noise-canceling headphones! Volume UP!

I even frustrate myself sometimes with how the method in which I wake up can shadow my whole day. Thanks to working second shift, I usually go to bed around 3 or 3:30 in the morning, and wake up between 11 and noon. This is pretty much my natural sleep schedule. Phone was vibrating from 8 AM to 10 AM, when I finally acknowledged that yes, someone called, and no, I didn’t want to listen to the voice mail right now. This completely negated any good I did by going to bed early last night (around 1:30), and put me in the mindset of just wanting to sleep. Then, from 10:30 to 10:45, I was woken up three times by the dog whining and yipping out the window at someone or something that he really wanted to go and meet. He has no concept of whining softly. NONE. So, there was yelling at the dog (and the associated guilt) and then rolling over and going back to sleep. And then he went crazy again, because was back from her trip to hang out with . I decided that it was time to get up.

And then I destroyed her good mood. She had bought me shirts. In the hazy frustration, anger, and petulant irritation, my mind tried to tell me that she was trying to dress me. I knew, and know, that this is not the case. She bought three shirts, all of which I like. The reality of the situation is that she’s paid attention to what I like well enough to shop for me, which is something that she likes to do, and I do not. And she accidentally bought them all one size too small. Instead of taking that as a compliment (She thinks I’m thinner than I am! Cool!), I let the mind weasels have some air time (I am going to look terrible in those, unless I walk around all day sucking in my gut).

I showered. I took my pills. I brushed my teeth. My mood slightly improved. She started cleaning the living room, and I packed up and wrapped an auction item. And then the passive-aggressive bile that lives in a bad place in me spewed forth with reckless abandon. Instead of thanking her for doing some cleaning, I shared my opinion that you could never really fully clean a house that old. I tried shutting my yapper and took the trash out. I couldn’t keep it closed for long, because she was cleaning the bookshelves now. We found the extra copies of my novel from the last signing (it’s a good thing that there are only two), and I was switching music for her. Then, my OCD ridiculousness about books being stacked on top of books on shelves, and CDs doing the same thing twinged me, and I did not keep my mouth shut. And then I bitched that she kept buying stuff, when we are trying to get rid of extra stuff.

That was the end of her patience. Really, it should have cut me off long before then. I realized that I was being passive-aggressive, and I came here, to Gone Wired.

Yeah, I screwed up. I was mean. I undermined all of the positive stuff that she was trying to accomplish. I was the person that I can’t stand in others. This is not an apology. I’ll do that in person. This is a warning to myself, primarily, that I need to keep fighting against being that guy.

This was yoinked from who got it from who got it from a fark.com discussion. The comment thread in his journal is a really interesting read. I dig what this guy is saying, and I’m wondering what you think, especially those of you with backgrounds in advertising and marketing. So, without further ado…

—

Advertising isn’t working like it did a few years ago. You’ve noticed this, right?

Most advertisers are convinced that technology is to blame.

TV advertisers will tell you that TiVo and her sister Digital Video Recorders are blocking their television ads. But according to a recent report released by Leichtman Research Group, only 12 percent of American households own a DVR.

But TV ad results are down far more than 12 percent.

Radio advertisers will tell you that everyone is listening to iPods and satellite radio. But in truth, most of radio’s loss has been in the 12to 17 year-old age group. These pre-adults are now spending only 51quarter-hours per week listening to commercial radio, down from a zenith of 65 quarter-hours per week during the pre-Internet 80s and early 90s. The rest of us are listening about as much as we ever did.We wake up to radio alarm clocks and listen at work and in our cars.Overall, the audience for commercial radio has declined only about 4percent over the past 3 years.

But Radio ad results are down far more than 4 percent.

Online news aggregators gather worldwide news for us and deliver it instantly to our desktops. Traditional Newspaper subscriptions are at an all-time low and so are Newspaper ad results. But the results are declining faster than subscriptions.

Yes, technology is to blame. But not in the way that you think.

I’m paid according to how much my clients grow, remember? So I don’t really care what the problem is. My job is to find it and fix it.

Here’s what I’ve discovered, tested and proved:

1: Internet surfing has trained us to disregard empty words.
2: Relevance has become more important than repetition.

Bottom line: Meaningful messages are working better than ever, especially when the fundamental premise of your ad is clearly stated in the opening line. Ads full of unsupported claims and overworked “image-building”phrases are being rejected before they ever enter the brain. So say what matters. Say it tight, say it true.

The audience is still there. What’s gone is their willingness to pay attention to drivel.

You spend about a minute each day going though the mail delivered by the Post Office, right? Before Yahoo and Google came along, those 6 minutes each week constituted your total weekly exercise in the high-speed evaluation of content. But now you’re spending more than a quarter-hour per day scanning search engine results and web pages for relevant,meaningful, salient information. These daily quarter-hours are teaching you – and your customers – to more quickly recognize and disregard word-fluff and other irrelevant information. We’re learning to filter out hyperbole and empty phrases.

Is this beginning to make sense to you?

To make your advertising work like it should, you’re going to have to:

1. Talk about things your customer actually cares about.
2. Write your ads in a style that rings true.
3. Avoid heroic chest thumping. “We are the number one…” is now considered gauche and passé.
4. Close the loopholes in your ads. Offer evidence to support what you say.
5. Be specific. Details are more believable than generalities.
6. Deliver a real message. Substance is more important than style.

Creativity and repetition can no longer cover up the fact that an advertiser has nothing to say. You’ve got to have a message that matters.

Do you?

Roy H. Williams

Something that my Dad used to say to me when he was frustrated with my behavior is running through my mind today. “You know better than this. You knew what you needed to do. Why didn’t you do it?” All that I could do was shrug my shoulders. I didn’t know why I hadn’t done the obvious thing, so there was no explanation to give.

I feel that way now. The house is a mess. Buddy has tracked mud from our back “yard” all over the place. I could have swept. I didn’t. There are a ton of dishes to do. I could have washed them. I didn’t. I could have made more effort to finish up the four classes that I have remaining at MSU. I still can. But I haven’t. I could push myself at work to achieve something above and beyond the expected. I haven’t. I could force myself to write every day, to use up the ideas that constantly flow into my head. I haven’t. I could have already started to burn teaser CDs for PenguiCon. I haven’t.

Why? *shrug* There’s no reason. I preach that all it takes to improve the world around you is to put your ideas about it into motion. I have had all sorts of ideas about the house, about the back yard, the front yard, things I could do… and I haven’t done them. I haven’t picked up a rake or a piece of trash from our lawn (damn kids) or repaired the hose (sprung a leak, possibly from getting run over by a mower), or moved the hose to someplace where it doesn’t make the whole porch look crappy. I haven’t picked up any of ‘s pots or plastic planter things from last year. No matter how many times I’ve looked at how the grass is encroaching on the sidewalk, I’ve never made an effort to get or borrow an edger to take care of that. No matter how many times I’ve complained about how muddy the driveway is, I have made zero effort in getting gravel or broken up pieces of concrete or the old brick that is scattered all over, half-buried, in the back “yard.”

…

As I wake up more fully, there at Theio’s, with the caffeine, ibuprofin, and acetaminophen all working to get rid of the headache that I had from sleeping like crap, and I’m thinking that things might not be as bad as they sound. Is it important to know why the bad behavior, or pattern of behavior, exists in order to change it fundamentally? If I try the “fake it ’till I make it” technique, will I be treating the symptoms instead of the disease, or will I be eradicating the disease through forming a new set of behavioral patterns? Will I be able to stand not knowing?

Is there always a why? Is it laziness for me to stop looking for the reasons, cut to the chase, and try to modify the end result? Or is it laziness to allow the bad patterns to continue while I search for the cause(s)?

…

If I say that I need to force myself to do them, then I am working against myself. If I say that I need to change my behavior, then there is a clear and forward progression of items that are clearly recognizable and can be dealt with. If I say that I need to discover the cause of the bad behavior patterns, then there is a quest that must be embarked upon, discovery must happen, followed by revelation, and then employing the results of that revelation into day-to-day life.

Is there something obvious that I’m missing?