Talcott Mountain Media

I recently saw Bill Maher’s film Religulous, where he examines beliefs of a number of religions, both mainstream and fringe.  He concludes the film with an impassioned plea for humanity to reject religion.  Religion, Maher says, is responsible for a host of human ills, including hatred, intolerance, tribalism, and more.  In his view, all religions are essentially shared delusions or socially acceptable forms of insanity.

Maher points in the right direction, but he doesn’t go far enough in his inquiry.  He sees the tribalism and intolerance, and is quite happy to lay the  blame for them at the door of religion. Because of his own preferences and prejudices, he doesn’t ask the next logical question: why are these ills evident in religious groups?  He assumes that faith, specifically religious faith, and reason, especially scientific reason, are opposing forces.  The fact of the matter is, faith is not an enemy of reason, or at least need not be.  Read more »

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Windsor High School announced recently that they would start handing out tickets for “Creating a Public Disturbance” to any student that swears on school grounds.  In Connecticut, where WHS is located, this is an infraction carrying a fine of $103.00.

This policy is akin to using a shotgun to kill a fly.  It is hypocritical, enforcement will be necessarily capricious, it places unneeded economic burden on families, is possibly an incorrect application of the law being used, and it teaches unquestioning obedience to authority despite common sense.

To take this one at a time, the hypocrisy is obvious — I dare Principal Russel Sills and Resource Officer Gregory Carter to say with a straight face they never swear, either now or in the past.  Swearing is a normal, ancient, and common part of language.  To pretend it doesn’t exist is a Victorian attitude best left to the past.  It is also notable that this policy applies only to students, not to administrators, staff, or teachers that swear on school grounds.

The capricious nature of enforcement is also self-evident.  Will WHS be installing language monitors to hand out tickets in every school space?  No, of course not.  Some swearers will be unlucky enough to do it in front of Sills or another teacher, some will swear in front of a teacher that doesn’t care about the policy enough to enforce it, and some will do it on school grounds but out of earshot of our modern-day Bowlders.

The students have already noted the economic cost: “I don’t have $103. …I can’t even afford lunch,” said Tyshawn Hicks, a junior.  Imposing an unnecessary cost on families in a poor economy is extraordinarily tone-deaf.

It is questionable whether this is even the kind of application the Legislature intended when it created the charge of Creating a Public Disturbance.  The statute reads:

(a) A person is guilty of creating a public disturbance when, with intent to cause inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he (1) engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior; or (2) annoys or interferes with another person by offensive conduct; or (3) makes unreasonable noise.

Does any person really think a four-letter word really causes “Annoyance or alarm” in this day and age?  Is a swear word by itself violent?  Obviously not, so the only retreat the school would have is saying swearing “annoys….by offensive conduct.”  In all honesty, however, if one is truly annoyed by  swearing in a public school, one is probably in the wrong field.  Students swear, teachers swear, coaches most certainly swear, and parents swear.  Windsor attempts to create a little island of hyper-civility that is doomed to fail.

This last is probably the worst part of the whole  mess.  When officials state they will implement a policy with these defects it sends probably the exact opposite message the administration wants.  It says: “Do as we say, not as we do.”  It says: “Our policies don’t have to be right or sensible, we just have to follow them.”  It says: “Arbitrary exercise of power is acceptable.”  Are these the messages WHS really wants to teach its students?

All in all, a policy born of misguided moralism and not educational need.

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The doctor most responsible for linking autism to routine childhood vaccines was reprimanded today after a long investigation for unethical research. Although the panel that released the finding explicitly stated they were not investigating whether such a link existed, this is yet another blow to that link.

In 1998, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, The Lancet, published a study that first linked autism-spectrum disorders to the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine. Although the study’s actual findings were very cautious and based on only 12 children, one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, announced at a press conference that MMR vaccinations should be halted immediately.

Since that time, all but one of Wakefield’s co-authors repudiated his findings and The Lancet has issued a full retraction, meaning the editors felt the paper should not have been published at all. Every other study looking to see if the MMR vaccine might cause or contribute to autism has reported negative results. Despite this, Wakefield’s opinion has scared legions of British and American parents into not vaccinating their children, and measles cases have climbed steadily. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 131 cases of measles reported in 2008, sending 15 people to the hospital. This is still a far cry from the rates before the MMR vaccine was developed, when the US suffered 450 measles deaths a year, but it had been almost eliminated in the US before 1998.

The body that released today’s report is the General Medical Council, the UK’s regulatory authority for all doctors. Although Wakefield is an American citizen and trained in American medical schools, at the time of the study, he was teaching in the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London. Among other findings, the GMC found that Wakefield ordered tests and treatments on children he was not qualified to perform, and that during the study phase he at times proceeded without ethics approval or violated approved ethical guidelines. In one notable instance, he paid children attending his son’s birthday party 5 pounds each to draw their blood.

The Council also that Wakefield’s relationship with a lawyer building MMR vaccine cases was a conflict of interest. This last point is perhaps the most important. Dr. Wakefield had a financial interest in discrediting MMR vaccinations and in showing that the MMR vaccine could cause injury. It is hardly surprising, then, that he is the first, and almost the only, scientist to publish findings of such injuries.

The General Medical Council is now considering sanctions to impose on Wakefield, up to and including canceling his license to practice medicine in the UK. Even the worst punishment they can impose won’t affect Wakefield much, however, as he has since returned to the US and is the Executive Director of an autism treatment center in Texas. Although Wakefield is personally insulated form the effects of his unethical research practices, the same cannot be said for our society at large.

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In our last newsletter, Michelle Stanish from Mpression Graphics gave us some good information about basic color choices.  We talked about was the way colors can enhance a message by evoking emotions and that certain colors can either excite or turn off target audiences.  Many of these same issues apply to combinations of two or more colors.  Very, very few web pages, printed materials, or other communications are monotone, of course.  This means selection of multiple colors give an almost infinite choice of ways to enhance a message.

One problem with selecting color palettes is that colors can deceive the eye.  When two colors are placed next to each other, they modify how you perceive them.  A neutral gray can appear greenish and dark next to one color, but brownish and pale next to another.  Taking advantage of effects like this can help create a mood, such as dim evening light or bright noonday lighting.  These effects can also suggest emotions or supply connotations that can enhance a message.

Some classic color combinations that are good are:

• Orange, yellow, violet, and green i.e., “kindergarten colors,” are a good basic combination for anything directed at young children
• Dark, solid reds, blues, and browns are lend appealing solidity to messages aimed at a senior audience, but remember to ensure very high contrast for any text
• White, pale purple, and pink are stereotypical colors for marketing to women, but are still often effective
• Green, white, and brown are basics for anything you need associated with environmental or ecological causes
• Strong impact colors like red, orange and yellow, usually combined with black, are eye-catching indicators of safety or danger messages
• Green and white, blue and white, and red and white are all often used to communicate for health or medical reasons
• Blue, orange, red, yellow and white form a warm calming palette great for travel-related messages

So where can you find good palettes that will enhance your message?  There are some good web tools out there that can take a pleasing photo and generate a palette for you, including hex codes for HTML specification.  Color Hunter and DeGraeve Color Palette Generator are two such tools.  Color Hunter allows you to select images on the web or upload your own, while the DeGraeve tool generates both subdued and vibrant palettes from the same image.

The Big Dogs of Marketing  will be discussing more about website improvements in our next issue, which comes out the third Tuesday of every month. We’ll see you on February 16th.

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So far we’ve been mostly talking about two things in these newsletters: technology and words. There is, of course, a third component to every effective web site or other marketing message: graphic elements. I’ve asked Michelle Stanish of mpression Graphics to help explain some basics about the use of color.

Color is one of the most basic tools in the graphic designer’s toolbox. Selecting the right color for the graphic elements of a message is part of good communication. Colors affect our emotional responses to a message or convey messages, even if we are sometimes not aware of it.

Color design has to consider multiple things: the target audience, reactions evoked by a color, how one color affects another when used together, and associations that color evokes. What works for one audience, for example, will not work with another. A classic instance of this is how one group will perceive a bright color combination as exciting and inviting, while another will perceive the same combination as juvenile and amateurish.

Another major factor that a designer considers is the cultural meanings of color. These meanings are taught to us from the time we are very young – even a child knows red means stop and green means go. Depending on how well colors are selected, the graphic elements of a marketing can either reinforce or undercut the message conveyed. Some associations that colors you may consider using are:

• Red – considered the warmest and most energetic color, conveys strong meanings like danger, warning, strength, enthusiasm, desire, etc.
• Orange – another warm color but one that evokes either strong positive or strong negative reactions, so should be used with caution
• Yellow – the color that appears brightest, saturated hues are associated with enthusiasm and happiness while muted ones with jaundice and dishonesty
• Green – a relaxing color that is easy on the eyes, associated traditionally with both nature and wealth, now often used to promote “environmentally friendly” or medical products
• Blue – the coolest color is also considered both calming and businesslike • Purple – combines the coolness of blues with the energy of reds, bright versions are linked to youth and fun, deep versions are linked to wealth and nobility
• Brown – a very neutral color used to convey “earthiness,” either in terms of stability or in terms of natural and organic concerns
• Black – the best color to add for contrast, on its own can communicate negative emotions like evil or absence of light or positive emotions like authority and elegance
• White – the balancing color and also the color that provides a negative space for other colors to work in, evokes simplicity, purity, cleanliness and innocence

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Bill Baldwin, owner of Compelling Marketing Communications, and Matthew Craver, owner of Talcott Mountain Media, have announced the formation of a new business alliance serving Connecticut.Compelling Marketing Communications, mpression graphics, Paolucci Illustration and Design and Talcott Mountain Media have all joined together to deliver even higher quality services to their small and mid-sized business clients.

Compelling Marketing Communications specializes in creating and enhancing web sites, getting those web sites noticed by the right people and email marketing. Talcott Mountain Media contributes the written words for web sites, email newsletters and other marketing tools. mpression graphics, owned by Michelle Stanish, specializes in graphic design. Michelle’s primary contributions to the alliance include logo and web site design. Paolucci Illustration and Design, owned by Sarah Paolucci, specializes in illustrations, drawings and graphic design.

For more information about this new alliance and how it may benefit your organization visit CMC’s Partners.

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Everyone knows what a boat anchor is, and what it does. The average person, though, probably doesn’t know how it works. In the same way, we all have psychological anchors in business and in life, but many of us don’t know how much to trust or defend these anchors.

Ask any kid to draw you a picture of an anchored boat and the anchorline will run straight up from the seafloor. In real life, an anchor doesn’t work by holding a boat down. It works by holding a boat against the current. The force holding an anchor to the floor is horizontal, not vertical. This means the boat is free to move a great deal. As the tide goes in and out, the boat will move in a circle around the anchor.

We have psychological anchors in the same way. These are beliefs that we feel anchor us to solid truths we can depend on. There are all kinds of psychological anchors. Religious, social, political, and even things like what tastes best. They all help us make our way through a confusing world. After all, if you don’t know what is true and basic, then how can you react to the daily challenges of life or make choices in difficult situations?

Just like a boat anchor, however, our psychological anchors need to allow flexibility and movement.

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By this time, hopefully, we’ve convinced you that measuring and tracking certain measurements can tell you if your company’s web site is actually making a difference to your business. What if it isn’t, though? For example, what if the bounce rate is high, indicating many visitors don’t explore the site? There is no one single answer applicable to everyone. Factors such as your product or service and target market should be determining the approach that best suits a web site. If you are marketing a soft drink to teens, then improving the graphic design might be the answer. A TV show targeted at tweens may produce better results if they host a web site heavy on interactive games and social networking features. Most business-focused web sites, however, will probably get the most bang for their buck by focusing on what their visitors are really after – the content.

Potential web site visitors are seeking answers. You have a very limited amount of time to demonstrate to those visitors that your web site has those answers, five seconds or less. Think about how you yourself approach the web – probably through a search engine. How many times do you decide to visit a site based on the site’s description and one sentence in a list of search results? You need your pages to have accurate, meaningful, readable content to attract and hold the attention of visitors.

In previous years, the best way to attract attention was to design a web site around search engines. This meant packing a web site with hidden keywords, hoping that you put enough relevant ones in. Today, the leading search engines mostly ignore hidden keywords, focusing instead on the content the user sees. The best approach to keeping those visitors is therefore: put the content that is important to your customers into the body of the web page, and concentrate on answering the questions they have.

Compelling Marketing Communications and Talcott Mountain Media will be discussing more about website improvements in our next issue, which comes out the third Tuesday of every month. We’ll see you on October 20th.

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In our last issue, we discussed the importance of measuring the Return on Investment (ROI) for a small business web site. If you aren’t measuring this, you don’t know if the website has any value to your business.

But what defines ROI for a website? Measuring ROI for many financial investments is straightforward: if a bond pays $1.05 on every $1.00 invested, the ROI is obvious. With a website, however, the “return” is much murkier. Are people seeing your message? Is the message compelling enough to keep these people on your site?

There are a number of ways of measuring these parameters. By doing so, and by tracking these measures over time, you can get real information about your website. Some of the most important are:

Stickiness – How long are people staying on your website each time they visit? The longer someone visits, the better. This means they are spending time carefully gathering more information about your business and what it can do for the visitor.

New visits – How many of the visits are people who have never visited the website before? Carefully measuring this is very important because these people are first time visitors. Your business has made contact with a new person and has an opportunity to develop a relationship with a new potential customer.

Bounce rate – What percentage of visitors exit the website from the very first page they land on? If this number is high, the website is performing poorly. If the visitor is not bothering to click to any other pages, the website made a bad first impression.

Compelling Marketing Communications and Talcott Mountain Media will be discussing more about website improvements in our next issue, which comes out the third Tuesday of every month. We’ll see you on September 15th.

Talcott Mountain Media and Compelling Marketing Communications are here to help you.

If you would like more information about how Talcott Mountain Media and Compelling Marketing Communications may be able to help your business prosper call Matt Craver at (860) 286-0782 or Bill Baldwin at (860) 604-5573.

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For many small business owners, a web site is just part of running a contemporary business. A few years ago self-proclaimed experts warned, “Go digital or go home,” and, “Get on the web or die.” Many of us took these statements at face value. Now that we have these web sites, however, what good are they?

The list of possible responses usually runs something like:

• “It gets my name out there.”
• “Our competitors have web sites, so we need one.”
• “It makes us looks good/modern/professional.”
• “It improves business.”

The problem is these responses have very little impact on what business actually does: make a profit. A web site should be looked at the same way you would evaluate a prospective employee or consulting arrangement. If it doesn’t make your life easier, bring in revenue, or reduce expenses, it isn’t doing anything productive for your business. Your web site required capital for development, hosting, domain name registration, and more. What does it bring back for that outlay?

Running a web site without measuring the return on this investment is like flying blind. Most of us do not know what we would even measure to evaluate a web site’s productivity. Are there informative tools and ways to measure what the web site produces for your business? The answer to this question, fortunately, is yes. Bill Baldwin of Compelling Marketing Communications can explain how to measure the return on your web investment in clear language. Instead of flying blind, think of it as flying with the equivalent of full air-traffic control support.

Talcott Mountain Media and Compelling Marketing Communications are here to help you.

If you would like more information about how Talcott Mountain Median and Compelling Marketing Communications may be able to help your business prosper call Matt Craver at (860) 286-0782 or Bill Baldwin at (860) 604-5573.

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