As one letter writer so aptly put it, “that sound you hear is America going down the toilet.” What have we become as a nation when vigilantes fired up and fueled by the racist, hate mongers on vomit radio and Fox News are able to terrorize other American citizens just because of their nationality and religious beliefs. This is just too perverse for words. It takes me back to the early 60′s when I remember African American churches being fire bombed in the South and people of color being terrorized.

What you are seeing is the rise of the American version of the Taliban disguised as flag waving, Christian Patriots. Makes me ashamed to share the same citizenship with these morons. One only hopes that hate crime prosecutions will follow.

And does vomit radio or Fox news accept any responsibility for inciting this kind of behavior. I don’t think so. Wake up America, the American Taliban is coming to your town soon.

And why does this not surprise anyone? Ever since the recession began those businesses that were able to survive did so by adopting the “do more with less” business model. The beauty of this model is that it can be applied to any business of any size and serving any market from hospitals to advertising agencies and everything in between.

From the perspective of the employer/business owner this is a great time to be alive. They have motivated and loyal employees who will do most anything to keep their jobs. The amount of work place complaining I would suspect has dropped dramatically.  And probably most importantly, the employer can stop the disingenuous conversation with the employee that starts out with some variant of, “we are all like a family here at company X.”

So while their is no doubt that businesses are doing better and the bottom line is looking good, it might be wise to remember that the unemployment lines are just as long.

An awesome update to their amazing DIY e-commerce site. There are now 640, yep count em 640 configurable layouts. Amazing stuff.

“President Obama showed his understanding of the Constitution, and his respect for the American people, last week when he defended the right of a Muslim community group to build a mosque and Islamic center two blocks north of ground zero in Lower Manhattan.

Mr. Obama and all people of conscience need to push back hard. Defending all Americans’ right to worship — and their right to build places to worship — is fundamental to who we are.”

I couldn’t agree more. If clear thinking Americans don’t stand up to this hate mongering, racist, intolerance, our once great country will be the worse for it. It is astounding that people are so willing to buy into the nonsense spewed forth by the hate mongers. It’s never too late to stand up and do the right thing. Tale a stand, don’t let hate and ignorance rule the day.

Here are 14 attention grabbing tactics that you need to know if you’re launching a new blog for your business. The folks at the Social Media Examiner are a must read as far as I’m concerned.

First of all kudos to Roger Black et al at Ready-Media for seizing an opportunity to perhaps revolutionize the publishing business. The ramifications of this development and the forces at work in the publishing industry which allowed it to take place are the subjects of this posting.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere or have been on a two year sabbatical and out of WiFi range, you may have noticed the alarming trend among business owners both large and small to become leaner and more efficient (read profitable) as the economy pulls out of the recession. This has manifested itself primarily in the form of a nasty little phenomenon that I like to call, “Do More With Less.” This is certainly not new in the business world and has been around for a long time. What seems new to me is the trend on the part of business owners to find ways to wrap multiple skills into existing job descriptions. For example, employment ads seeking Administrative Assistant/Receptionist that is also a skilled web developer. Or graphic designers that also can provide administrative support to a busy executive. The list of examples goes on and on.

What does this have to do with using templates in the publishing of newspapers, magazines and their websites? If a publisher is looking for ways to become leaner and more profitable in a time when almost all print media is under siege, then what could make more sense then, “Do More With Less.” Who needs Art Directors and a team of Designers when perhaps as few as one or two individuals who can use Adobe’s InDesign can add the publications content to very stylish, well designed, complete with fonts templates. The savings from a business standpoint are readily obvious, produce great looking work without the overhead of a design team.  Or are their trade offs?

I think that there are significant trade offs that may not be readily apparent if one focuses only on the bottom line. Pick any magazine, newspaper or their accompanying website. They all have an artistic signature if you will that comes from the collaboration of a team of Art Directors, Designers and Copywriters  that assemble and layout the work using all of their years of experience and design nuance to produce the final work that goes to press. It is that signature that readers have come to expect and is the publications personality so to speak.

The problem with templates in my opinion is they strive to elevate efficiency and economy of scale to the level of artistic and creative development. Don’t get me wrong here, I use templates myself for small repetitive tasks and they are real time savers in the work flow. My templates are not art, they do not aspire to design greatness and they over time all look the same. Even today if you browse around the web there is a certain sameness that has developed. Blogs tend to look the same. Websites for the most part have the same design structure. Standards are good, we need them but do we want that to take over the publishing industry in the form of beautifully designed, well constructed and prepackaged templates?

Finally, let me finish by saying that having looked at the offerings in the Ready-Media gallery, I am very impressed with the work that they have done and the ease of use with which their packages can be deployed to interested publishers. Needless to say the credentials of Roger Black et al are impeccable in the design world. So it’s left to be seen how this all pans out. And what will become of the designers? That’s a question for another time.

Is this good or bad in the long term? I don’t really know the answer to that. What I do know is that the disingenuous, self serving, posturing of employers who like to tell themselves how well they treat their employees is so over!

The Strata Building in London

There was time when the USA would have been out in front of this technology and this building would have opened in some city in the US. Instead we are obsessed with hunting for fossil fuels and raping the environment in the process. Really a pretty sad commentary on where our priorities lie.

Educating the client, how important that concept is and yet how sometimes designers in their zeal to create and impress forget to attend to what I think is a critical part of being a freelancer.

This is a great example of how to bring the client into the process from the inside or put another way, educating them about the creative process. Call it what you will but I think the more the clients know about what goes on behind the curtain the better it is for all involved. Do you think that the “design contest promoters” spend a lot of time on client education? I think not.

Anyway, Thanks to Duane Kinsey at logobird for this important bit of advice.