Bzzzt gzzt... Earth to PubliGestion, Earth to Publigestion!
A month before this post, you would've pulled a taro card and told me I would work at PubliGestion and I still wouldn't believe you. We could even bet on it and I'd probably be the one ending up buying the first round of Prestige, byen glase!
2 weeks before, the Agency deployed two of their own kind to visit me. They came in with their flying saucer, flashed a blue light at me and that was it. I was an official UFO (eMarketing Coordinator/Designer in human terms) stationed in the "Zen Room"; A little e-room called this way by our Marketing Director... because it's usually where the cosmic energies conjugate. I share the space with two other ETs. One deals with keeping me busy from 8:30 to 4:30; she's the Interactive Community Strategist and the other is an Intern from Planet Mark_Elenin. We are the Social Media Department and boy do the inhabitants here drink black coffee!
Though it sounds scary, working with aliens like the creative folks here at Publigestion is proving to be a great experience, like eating double bacon cheese burger with extra ketchup in zero G. In my next post, we'll go into the details about the life of a Digital Marketer in Haiti.
This Saturday, I had the “what do you want to be when you grow up?” conversation with my 7-year-old godson, and the clever little dude replies: “when you were my age, Facebook didn’t exist right?” To which I had to obviously reply “No. It didn’t.” With a grin on his face he says: “When I’m your age, I’ll have a career in something that doesn’t exist yet.” How cool is that?
Facebook was a few years old when I got to college. The first thing I signed up for with my “.edu” email account was Facebook. Back then the social network was only opened to college students, and grandma was not sending you FarmVille requests! ... And the rest is history.
When Zuckerberg and his team decided to open it up to the public at large, it was clear his baby would become a digital superpower. It is unimaginable how much social networks have turned our world upside down giving a whole new dimension to being citizens of the world. On a marketing standpoint, think about their influence on the ways we communicate, advertise, collect intelligence and research on research.
To my dear “digital native” godson, here are a few jobs you might want to keep an eye on…
- Cyber Security Specialist: Keep our lives safe. The cop of tomorrow. People with this speciality will be a hot commodity.
- Organic Food Engineer: This may have a weird sound to it, but in the future, who knows what will be on the menu. Hint: climate change.
- Application Developer and Simulation Expert: The designer of the future will not only make things look beautiful, but functional:from how we perform surgeries to flying to drinking and driving. Holograms?
- Robotics Manufacturer: Microbotics will be to your generation what the Radiography is to mine. Obsolete, and no longer impressive. Here at PG, we're predicting that cars will do more than just parallel park themselves. Artificial Intelligence beyond what the term means today.
- Social Media Curator: Yes, my job will still exist. No, it is not just a bubble! Haha. :-)
If you want to be a Power Ranger or Sponge Bob when you grow up, comment below. Cheers!
Is this your 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th time reading PubliGestion’s Blogger’s Block? Do you regularly check us out on Mondays? If you answered yes to both, then you’re our loyal niche. We love and adore you, as much as the recent Avicii party with Prestige! Hugs and kisses for you! :-*
For the marketing enthusiast that is “customer loyalty.” But to the none-marketing folks, customer loyalty describes the behavior of repeat customers, (ahem, could we count stalkers here?) as well as those that offer good ratings, reviews, or testimonials. And why are we talking about this today? Because in the advertising/marketing world, good customers turn into brand ambassadors who in turn give companies like PubliGestion good word of mouth, a.k.a. buzz for the marketing savvy. Imagine good gossip where each brand ambassador would tell 10 other people about their good experience and those 10 would tell another 10 and those 10 would… you get the point.
So if you like this angelic gossiping working for you, or groupies shouting "I love you" wherever you go, here are a few pointers to remember about customer loyalty:
1- Your customers have a heart. They’re made of flesh and blood. They are your friends, or in some cases your secret lover. Treat them accordingly.
2- Be relevant in their lives. Offer them quality products and services that address their needs. Give them as much bang for their buck as possible.
3- Be competitive. Make them choose you over the many others, and strive to make them stay with you. Create value for your brand because value is at the heart of customer loyalty.
4- In relation to item#3. Uniqueness makes you competitive. Would you like to order the same plain jambon-fromage sandwich everyday? People want something special, something different from what they’re used to. Add some spice to that smoked ham and gruyère cheese on baguette.
The ultimate goal is happy customers who will return to purchase again, which equals to profitability, as well as happy stakeholders. We all want to be happy. Love, life and profits! ;-)
Designing is like life. No? You brainstorm, you plan then make things happen. Pretty much the same. But designing, like life, has its way of leaving you in a dike, bound with USB cables, gagged with JOs, your arse lit on fire and with deadlines circling overhead like crazy vultures.
Like other designers, I’ve had my fair share of ball-breaking situations, and it feels like your PC just gave you "the blue screen of death, dumping physical memory now... 10.. 9.. 8... 7..." Feels hopeless. But if you ever find yourself in this kind of situation, I discovered that the only way to get out of it is to become a tank. This applies to everything else in designing (and in life). So, here are 4 ways on how to become a tank:
1. Never surrender. Never give up! To some this is translated to: "so long as there is coffee, we can work!" If you’re alive and can still wield a mouse, all awesomeness is on your side. You’ll be able to pull through things, just breathe.
2. You have friends, co-workers and people around you that are willing to help. Never underestimate, or neglect people. Whenever you feel the urge of surrendering, ask for help to accomplish your task.
3. Keep in mind that even a damaged tank is still armored and fully loaded. Always, use your strengths to your advantage. It is easier to build on strengths than on weaknesses. Weak skills when worked on will just become, at its best, mediocre skills.* For things you can’t do refer to Item#2.
4. If really pushed to the limits and all system shuts down. The only choice is to retreat. Refuel, recharge and live to do it all over again tomorrow. Have a nice meal, get some sleep and you’ll find that tomorrow will be a better day.
So when you’re stuck, do these and you’ll find that there’s always some fight left in you! Otherwise get yourself a nice glass, remove the tank top, distill rain from Venus and quietly weep.
If you like these tips, please leave comment below.
We know we’re in Haiti but, God bless the Swiss!!! The design world probably owes it to Switzerland for giving birth to the Swiss Style Graphic Design which gave the basis for our modern graphic design sense and how we perceive and use whitespace as designers.
But whitespace is more than just a design style that was attacked and defended in Switzerland. As often demonstrated in Whitespacelover, it’s a discipline. It’s everywhere and in everything we do. It’s the lull between melodies, the calm before a storm, the breath before an I love you too, the stillness in prayers and the silence that allows us to communicate. Whitespace is life!
Even if you’re not a designer, you still live in a world of whitespace! Here are 10 evidences, tips and tricks on why you live in whitespace and how you can deliberately see and tap into it.
1. Whitespace is responsible for comprehension. The gap between spoken and written words are whitespaces. Without it this entry would look like a mush of letters on your screen. Or worst Kate Beckinsale’s sexy voice would sound like mosquitoes raping termites in your ears!
2. The more whitespace there is in your apartment the more spacious it will look and the more restful the environment will be. Not to mention that it will look better in photos. Try clearing unnecessary items or grouping them in a corner to create more space.
Ref: http://ow.ly/4VGqN
3. In Taoism The Void is the state of nothingness from which all things become. Incidentally, whitespace is the design element that allows all other design elements to exist. Hmmm, cult of the designers anyone?
4. Your perception is greatly affected by whitespace. People tend to perceive something as elegant, classic or high-end in appearance when whitespace is mindfully applied in a design.
5. Whitespace is the ultimate something. What makes a Prestige bottle useful? It’s not the actual product we see but the empty space we can’t see that gives those brown bottles utility. Okay! A beer is useful too but don’t throw away your beer on Thirsty Thursdays for the sake of whitespace.
6. Essential designing principles such as “less is more” and Pareto’s Law, commonly known as 80-20 rule, are basically the wise use of whitespace.
7. If you want to design using the Swiss legacy, turn on the grid system in Photoshop (view>show>grid) and design like the Swiss Style Masters. Use ample gaps instead of separators to separate the elements in your layout.
8. A caution to designers. Amateur or clumsy use of whitespace could make a design look as if the graphic designer went lazy, resulting to an incomplete-looking work.
9. Apple, whether their designers are conscious or not, uses whitespace a lot in their OS interface, product design and ads. This naturally leads to an upscale image and a good end user result.
Ref: http://ow.ly/4VGuz
10. Design with whitespace in mind. Premeditate the space you’re given before starting to work. Our designers here at PubliGestion do it by roughly sketching a layout on a paper. They use shapes and lines to assign graphic elements their proper position in the layout.
PubliGestion Bloggers’ Block is a team of talented creatives, marketing personnel and UFOs blogging about their views, what’s new and some juicy bits about living in Haiti and in Outer Space!
