Tag Archives: proposal

When the “Wrong” Content Goes Viral

Have you ever had a piece of content go viral, but wish that ANOTHER piece of content had gone viral instead? Join the club.

Three examples of unintentional viral content

Here are three examples in which the “wrong” content went viral. Two of the examples are personal, but the first example has nothing to do with me, the Internet, or even the 21st century.

Example 1: Steam behind the wrong song

Back in the 1960s, a singer named Gary DeCarlo was working under the pseudonym Garrett Scott. “Garrett Scott” needed a single, so he was slotted to record a song called “Sweet Laura Lee.”

Because it was a 1960s single, it needed to have a B-side. You couldn’t let all that vinyl on the back of the record go to waste. Any song would do, since it was just filler for “Sweet Laura Lee.”

So DeCarlo and two of his friends resurrected a 1961 song called “Kiss Him Goodbye,” went to the studio, added a silly chant because the 1961 song lacked a chorus, and cranked out the B-side in an evening session. They did it so quickly that the chorus didn’t even have any real words, just “na na.” Actually, the B-side was SUPPOSED to be bad so that disc jockeys would play the A-side:

B-sides in the ’60s were often ad-hoc affairs designed to be clearly inferior to the A-side so that disc jockeys wouldn’t flip the record. The three musicians who recorded this had that in mind for this song, and kept it simple: there is no bass or guitar on the track….

From https://www.songfacts.com/facts/steam/na-na-hey-hey-kiss-him-goodbye

The song “Sweet Laura Lee” went nowhere, but who cares? The record company liked the B-side, invented a fake band name Steam, and the song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” went to the number 1 position on the Billboard charts. A real band named Steam was formed and went on tour…without Gary DeCarlo (although DeCarlo received songwriting royalties).

From https://open.spotify.com/track/5xMLcSEstX1jN4arpNXqtX

Example 2: Becoming the unintentional Shipley expert

Fast forward to the 21st century and my creation of blog content for Bredemarket.

I needed to populate my blog with both content marketing-related content and proposal-related content, so in December 2021 I wrote a post entitled “96 Smiles: All about the Shipley Business Development Lifecycle.” I’ve been familiar with the Shipley lifecycle for decades, but probably not as familiar as hundreds if not thousands of proposal practitioners.

But I’m the one who wrote the blog post about it.

And it kinda sorta became popular. I went to Google on Friday morning and searched for the words shipley 96 step, and these are the results:

From https://www.google.com/search?q=shipley+96+step

So now, right behind Shipley Associates itself, the next leading authority on the Shipley Business Development Lifecycle is…ME.

So now the bredemarket.com website is getting all sorts of traffic related to Shipley, and my Ubersuggest account is, um, suggesting that I optimize the website to capture even more Shipley traffic.

Except that I’m not really doing much with the Shipley process itself; I just talked about it.

Of course, the traffic may have nothing to do with capture and proposal management, since the post makes several explicit and implicit references to the ? and the Mysterians song “96 Tears.”

From https://open.spotify.com/track/4PEeZ2U4UfP2Jo8EtIOjus

You may detect a music theme in these examples. It gets better.

Example 3: When neglected music becomes more popular than my current gig

Bredemarket started in August 2020, but it isn’t my first foray into Internet money-making.

I’ve been creating instrumental music for decades, and in 2017 I started creating and selling music on Bandcamp under the name “Ontario Emperor.” While I haven’t created any new music there since 2019, and while I haven’t done any promotion in years, I did do a little bit of promotion back in 2017, going so far as to set up a Facebook page called “ontarioemperor,” which I’ve mostly ignored.

What I HAVEN’T ignored is the slew of social media channels for Bredemarket. Some of you are aware of this, since you’ve recently received invitations from me to follow Bredemarket on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube. If you haven’t, feel free to click on the appropriate links and subscribe now.

So as I’ve been building up my Bredemarket social/content presence and spending a lot of time on this, I received a notification from Facebook this week that, with no effort on my own, my neglected ontarioemperor Facebook page now has over 600 followers.

So as long as you’re following me everywhere else, go ahead and follow me there also.

Now I’m not sure how much Ontario Emperor’s Facebook popularity can benefit Bredemarket, since there’s little or no discernable overlap between synthetic music fans and people requiring marketing and writing services. But who knows? I could be wrong there also.

Sadly there is no Spotify link here since Ontario Emperor’s music has never been uploaded to Spotify, but you can listen to the song “For a Meaningful Apocryphal Animation” on Bandcamp. Coincidentally, I recently posted a free version (with no listening restrictions) on one of the Bredemarket web pages. Or you can listen to it below.

“For a Meaningful Apocryphal Animation.” Recorded May 15, 2017 in Ontario, California. Composed by John E. Bredehoft. © All rights reserved.

A final thought

Jerry Springer. By Justin Hoch, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16673259

So sometimes things you want to promote don’t get popular, and things you don’t necessary want to promote get popular.

Rather than being disappointed, just go with the flow, say “na na” to the naysayers, and speak about Shipley with soothing instrumental music behind you.

Take care of yourself, and each other.

Five Truths About Your Target Audiences

This post explains what “pillar pages” are, the pros and cons of Bredemarket’s pillar pages, what I’ve learned from the “Target Audience” pillar page that I created, and how this can help your business deliver effective, converting messages to your prospects.

What are pillar pages?

I’ve been working on “pillar pages” for the Bredemarket website for over a year now.

By Rama – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=638837

As I stated before in an April 2022 blog post, a “pillar page” is simply a central “cluster” page on your website that discusses an important topic, and which is linked to other pages that provide more detail on the topic.

Think of a wheel with a hub and spokes. The pillar page is the hub, and the related pages are the spokes.

By Zereshk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=171752

How can Bredemarket’s pillar pages be better?

As of July 5, 2023, I have created five pillar pages, which I label as “topics of interest” on Bredemarket’s “Information” page.

Now these pillar pages aren’t as mature as I’d like them to be.

  • I haven’t really multi-layered my keywords that link to the pillar; currently things are fairly simplistic where benefit “spoke” blog posts link to the benefits “hub” pillar. I haven’t explicitly optimized the “hub and spokes” for people who search for, say, features.
  • Similarly, the organization of each pillar page is fairly simplistic. Each pillar starts with a brief discussion of the topic in question, and is then followed by excerpts from and links to blog posts that provide more detail on the topic. (And the blog posts themselves link back to the pillar, providing bidirectional…um, benefits.) It’s functional, but perhaps you’d be better served if the pillars grouped subtopics together, rather than listing all the blog posts in reverse chronological order.

But the pillars do their work in terms of navigation and search engine optimization. If you want to find out what Bredemarket says about a topic such as benefits, it’s fairly easy to find this.

What have I learned from the Bredemarket Target Audience pillar page?

This post delves into the fifth of my five pillar pages, the Target Audience page.

By Christian Gidlöf – Photo taken by Christian Gidlöf, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2065930

I’ve recently worked on beefing up this pillar page by linking to more Bredemarket blog posts that discuss target audiences. And in the process of making these additions, I’ve realized some things about target audiences that I wanted to summarize here. (Repurposing content refocuses the mind, I guess.)

In the process of improving my pillar page, I’ve gleaned five truths about target audiences:

  1. You need to define at least one target audience.
  2. It’s not illegal to have multiple target audiences.
  3. Different target audiences get different messages.
  4. You can create personas, or you can not create personas. Whatever floats your boat.
  5. Target audience definition focuses your content.

I’ll discuss each of these truths and suggest how they can improve your firm’s content.

One: You Need to Define At Least One Target Audience.

The first and most important thing is that you need a target audience before you start writing.

By David Shankbone – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2786722

If you have no target audience, who is receiving your message? How do you know what to say?

For example, the primary target audience for THIS blog post is anyone from any type of company who could use Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services. It’s not limited to just the identity folks, or just the Inland Empire folks. If it were, I’d write it differently.

Here’s another target audience example that I used in an October 2022 blog post:

  • If you’re a lollipop maker and you’re writing for kids who buy lollipops in convenience stores, you’ll write one way.
  • If you’re a lollipop maker and you’re writing to the convenience stores who could carry your lollipops, you’ll write another way.
From https://bredemarket.com/2022/10/30/six-questions-your-content-creator-should-ask-you/

Do you see how target audiences influence what you write?

Two: It’s Not Illegal to Have Multiple Target Audiences.

I recently criticized myself in jest because my self-promotional LinkedIn post identified two target audiences: companies who could use my services as a full-time employee, and companies who could use my services as a Bredemarket contract consultant.

This does have some drawbacks, since if I had chosen one or the other, I could have streamlined my post and made my message stronger.

But in this particular case, I chose to “muddy the waters.” Mary, grab the baby, targets rising.

Not Limp Bizkit. From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhF7gnRZBpY

The content addressed two target audiences at the same time, although this post prioritized the companies looking for full-time employees.

As long as you know in advance what you’re going to do, you can define multiple target audiences. Just don’t define a dozen target audiences for a 288-character tweet.

Three: Different Target Audiences Get Different Messages.

Perhaps you are writing a single piece of content that must address multiple target audiences. A proposal is an example of this. For example, a proposal in response to a request for proposal (RFP) for an automated biometric identification system (ABIS) affects multiple target audiences.

By Love Makes A Way – https://www.flickr.com/photos/lovemakesaway/15802177909/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=101171928

Here’s an example of multiple target audiences for a theoretical Ontario, California ABIS proposal, taken from a May 2021 Bredemarket post:

  • Field investigators.
  • Examiners.
  • People who capture biometrics.
  • Information Technologies.
  • Purchasing.
  • The privacy advocate.
  • The mayor.
  • Others.

That’s a lot of target audiences, but if you’re submitting a 300 page proposal that answers hundreds of individual questions, you have the ability to customize each of the hundreds of responses to address the affected target audience(s).

For example, if the RFP asks about the maximum resolution of captured latent fingerprint images, your response will address the needs of the “examiner” target audience. Your response to that question won’t need to say anything about your compliance with city purchasing regulations. (Unless you have a really weird city, which is possible I guess.)

At the same time, if the RFP asks if you comply with E-Verify, this is NOT the time to brag about supporting 4,000 pixels per inch image capture.

Four: You Can Create Personas, Or You Can Not Create Personas. Whatever Floats Your Boat.

If you haven’t read the Bredemarket blog that much, you should know that I’m not very hung up on processes—unless my client (or my employer) insists on them. Then they’re the most important thing in the world.

If you find yourself trapped in a room (preferably padded) with a bunch of certified marketing professionals, they’ll probably toss around the word “persona” a lot. A persona helps you visualize your target audience by writing to someone with a particular set of attributes. Here’s an example from the October 2022 post I cited earlier:

Jane Smith is a 54 year old single white owner of a convenience store in a rural area with an MBA and a love for Limp Bizkit…

From https://bredemarket.com/2022/10/30/six-questions-your-content-creator-should-ask-you/

If I’m going to write a particular piece of content, this persona helps me focus my writing. As I write, I can picture Jane in my mind, fetching the giant cups for the soda dispenser, planning her next trip to the big city, and wondering if her customers would mind if she started blasting this song.

Not the Seldom Scene.

Having this persona in my mind can be an excellent writing support.

  • What would Jane think about a list of target audience truths?
  • What would Jane think if a Limp Bizkit song appeared in the middle of the list? (She’d like that.)
  • Most importantly, would that post about target audiences induce Jane to explore the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service?

So you can create personas, either on the fly (take a LinkedIn profile of a real person and change a few facts so that the persona becomes Jim, a 35 year old product/content marketer who specializes in healthcare) or through an extensive and expensive persona research program.

By Idaho National Laboratory – Flickr: Microscopy lab, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16101131

But what if you escape from the padded room, run away from the marketing professionals, and swear up and down that you will never ever create a persona?

Will your marketing efforts die?

No they won’t.

You can still target your writing without inventing demographic information about the person reading your content.

It depends upon the effort you want to invest in the task.

Five: Target Audience Definition Focuses Your Content.

I kind of already said this, but I wanted to explicitly repeat it and emphasize it.

Regardless of whether your target audience is defined by an expensive research effort, a tweak of a real person’s LinkedIn profile, or the simple statement “we want to target latent fingerprint examiners,” the simple act of defining your target audience focuses your content.

By Lookang many thanks to author of original simulation = Fu-Kwun Hwang author of Easy Java Simulation = Francisco Esquembre – Own work http://weelookang.blogspot.com/2015/05/ejss-thin-converging-diverging-lens-ray.html, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40429189

Your text addresses the target audience, and doesn’t go off on tangents that bear no relation to your target audience.

This makes your message much more effective.

But is the message of this post resonating with companies needing content creators?

If you’re still reading, I guess it is.

Bredemarket can help you define your target audience for your content, and can help you define other things also that are necessary for effective content.

Would you like to talk to me about the content you want to create, and the message you want to deliver to your target audience?

Are you ready to take your firm to the next level with a compelling message that addresses your target audience(s) and increases awareness, consideration, conversion, and long-term revenue?

Let’s talk today!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to cross-reference this blog post with my Target Audience pillar page.

Fill Your Company Gap With A Biometric Content Marketing Expert

Companies often have a lot of things they want to do, but don’t have the people to do them. It takes a long time to hire someone, and it even takes time to find a consultant that knows your industry and can do the work.

This affects identity/biometric companies just like it affects other companies. When an identity/biometric company needs a specific type of expertise and needs it NOW, it’s often hard to find the person they need.

If your company needs a biometric content marketing expert (or an identity content marketing expert) NOW, you’ve come to the right place—Bredemarket. Bredemarket has no identity learning curve, no content learning curve, and offers proven results.

Identity/biometric consulting in the 1990s

I remember when I first started working as an identity/biometric consultant, long before Bredemarket was a thing.

By Federal Bureau of Investigation – https://washingtonian.com/2016/11/24/the-fbi-opened-its-crime-lab-here-in-dc-back-in-1932, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128508441

OK, not quite THAT long ago. I started working in biometrics in the 1990s—NOT the 1940s.

In 1994, the proposals department at Printrak International needed additional writers due to the manager’s maternity leave, and she was so valuable that Printrak needed to bring in TWO consultants to take her place.

At least initially, the other consultant and I couldn’t fill the manager’s shoes.

Designed by Freepik.
  • Both of us could write.
  • Both of us could spell “AFIS.”
  • Both of us could spell “RAID.” Not the bug spray, but the storage mechanism that stored all those “huge” fingerprint images.
  • But on that first night that I was cranking out proposal letters for something called a “Latent Station 2000,” I didn’t really know WHAT I was writing about.

As time went on, the other consultant and I learned much more—so much that the company brought both of us on as full-time employees.

After we were hired full-time, we spent a combined 45+ years at Printrak and its corporate successors in proposals, marketing, and product management positions, contributing to industry knowledge.

Which shows that learning how to spell “AFIS” can have long-term benefits.

Printrak’s problem

When Printrak needed biometric proposal writing experts quickly, it found two people who filled the bill. Sort of.

But neither of us knew biometrics before we started consuting at Printrak.

And I had never written a proposal before I started consulting at Printrak. (I had written an RFP. Sort of.)

But frankly, there weren’t a lot of identity/biometric consultants out in the field in the 1990s. There were the 20th century equivalents of Applied Forensic Services LLC, but at the time I don’t think there were any 20th century equivalents of Tandem Technical Writing LLC.

Peter Higgins. From https://www.search.org/biometrics-expert-peter-higgins-to-receive-searchs-highest-practitioner-honor/

The 21st century solution

Unlike the 1990s, identity/biometric firms that need consulting help have many options. In addition to Applied Forensic Services and Tandem Technical Writing you have…me.

Mike and Laurel can tell you what they can do, and I heartily endorse both of them.

Let me share with you why I call myself a biometric content marketing expert who can help your identity/biometric company get marketing content out now:

  • No identity learning curve
  • No content learning curve
  • Proven results

No identity learning curve

I have worked with finger, face, iris, DNA, and other biometrics, as well as government-issued identity documents and geolocation. If you are interested, you can read my Bredemarket blog posts that mention the following topics:

No content learning curve

Because I’ve produced both external and internal content on identity/biometric topics, I offer the experience to produce your content in a number of formats.

  • External content: account-based marketing content, articles, blog posts (I am the identity/biometric blog expert), case studies, data sheets, partner comarketing content, presentations, proposals, sales literature sheets, scientific book chapters, smartphone application content (events), social media posts, web page content, and white papers.
  • Internal content: battlecards, competitive analyses, demonstration scripts (events), email internal newsletters, FAQs, multi-year plans, playbooks, project plans, proposal templates, quality improvement documents, requirements documents, strategic analyses, and website/social media analyses.

Proven results

Read about them here.

Download

So how can you take advantage of my identity/biometric expertise?

If you need day-one help for an identity/biometric content marketing or proposal writing project, consider Bredemarket.

How Can Your Identity Business Create the RIGHT Written Content?

Does your identity business provide biometric or non-biometric products and services that use finger, face, iris, DNA, voice, government documents, geolocation, or other factors or modalities?

Does your identity business need written content, such as blog posts (from the identity/biometric blog expert), case studies, data sheets, proposal text, social media posts, or white papers?

How can your identity business (with the help of an identity content marketing expert) create the right written content?

For the answer, click here.

My…Umm..Opportunity is YOUR Opportunity

A little over a year ago, Bredemarket announced two changes in my business scope and business hours. I stopped accepting work from clients who marketed systems to identify individuals, and I reduced my business hours to Saturday mornings only.

Generated at craiyon.com.

I had to change my business scope and business hours. On May 9, 2022, I started a full-time position with a company in the identity industry, which meant that I couldn’t consult on weekdays and couldn’t consult on identity projects.

But things change.

As of May 31, 2023, I will no longer be employed at my day job.

Which is my misfortune…um…opportunity.

Generated at craiyon.com.

Has Bredemarket changed its business scope and business hours a second time?

Yes.

As of June 1, 2023:

  • If you need a consultant for marketing or proposal work, and your company is involved in the identification of individuals, Bredemarket can accept the work.
  • If you need a consultant who can meet with you during normal business hours, Bredemarket can accept the work.

So what?

My…um…opportunity is your opportunity.

Now that I can expand my business scope and business hours again, you can take advantage of my extensive marketing expertise, including deep experience in the identity industry.

This means you can obtain quickly-generated and expert content with an agreed-upon focus.

This means you can get content that increases your revenue.

What kind of content?

Blog posts, case studies and testimonials, proposals and proposal text, white papers, and many other types of content.

How about e-books?

Yes I also write e-books.

These two e-books explain (a) how Bredemarket starts a project with you, and (b) how Bredemarket has helped other businesses over the years.

(UPDATE OCTOBER 22, 2023: “SIX QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU IS SO 2022. DOWNLOAD THE NEWER “SEVEN QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU” HERE.)

How Bredemarket Can Help You Win Business (April 16, 2023)Download

How can I find out more information about Bredemarket?

Contact me.

But wait…what if Bredemarket changes its business hours and business scope a THIRD time?

I very well could change Bredemarket’s business hours/scope again.

Maybe I’ll find a new full-time position in a couple of weeks, and I’ll again have to reduce hours and scope.

Which basically means that you have to ACT QUICKLY to ensure you can reserve my services.

(See “how to create a sense of urgency.”)

Generated at craiyon.com.

Four Mini-Case Studies for One Inland Empire Business—My Own

I guess I can be persuasive. I just persuaded myself to do something.

On Saturday, I wrote the post “Six Benefits for Inland Empire Businesses from Case Studies.“

Then I asked myself, why not write a case study for my own Inland Empire business, Bredemarket?

If I could demonstrate that Bredemarket benefited a firm via a case study, that could help Bredemarket get business from other firms. I said so myself:

A well-crafted case study can be the first step in convincing a potential customer to become a paying customer.

From https://bredemarket.com/2023/04/15/six-benefits-for-inland-empire-businesses-from-case-studies/

Achieving 400% of My Goal

But once I started writing the document, I decided that one case study wasn’t enough.

So I wrote four mini-case studies in the same document, briefly describing how I helped four Bredemarket clients create different types of content so that they could win more business.

  • I helped one client to quickly generate consistent proposals. One of the client’s salespeople even provided me with a testimonial. (You may have seen it before.)
  • I helped another client share persuasive case studies. The client kept on coming back to me for more case studies—a dozen in all—and other work.
  • I helped a third client position via blogs and a white paper.
  • Finally, I helped position a sole proprietor.

After the four mini-case studies, I briefly described how Bredemarket works with clients. (Sleep is involved.)

By Ilya Repin – Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60387757

I didn’t get into my six questions, since I already wrote an e-book on that topic, but I did provide an overview of the initial meeting, the content iteration process, and my work for hire policy (which explains why I didn’t name the four clients listed above).

So would you like to read my four mini-case studies?

Here is my latest e-book, “How Bredemarket Can Help You Win Business.”

How Bredemarket Can Help You Win Business (April 16, 2023)Download

And if I can help you win business, let me know. I have Saturday morning office hours.

What I Missed About QR Codes in 2021

A lot has happened with QR codes since I last wrote about them in October 2021. (For example, the Coinbase Super Bowl ad in 2022, and its demonstration of security risks.)

Now that I’m revisiting my October 2021 post on QR codes, I wish I could change one word to make myself look smarter.

See if you can guess which word I want to change.

I have since chosen to adopt QR codes for some of my Bredemarket work, especially in cases where an online reader may need additional information.

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/10/15/a-qr-code-is-not-a-way-of-life/

Did you find it?

Instead of writing “online,” I should have written “offline.”

I don’t know whether I just made a typo, or if I intentionally wrote “online,” but I shouldn’t have.

Why QR codes rarely make sense online

Because if you’re online, you don’t need a QR code, since you presumably have access to a clickable URL.

But if you’re offline—for example, if you’re watching a commercial on an old-fashioned TV screen—a QR code makes perfect sense. Well, as long as you explicitly identify where the QR code will lead you, something Coinbase failed to do in 2022. “Just click on the bouncing QR code and don’t worry where you’ll go!”

But there’s one more place where QR codes make sense. I didn’t explicitly refer to it in my 2021 post, but QR codes make sense when you’re looking at printed material, such as printed restaurant menus.

Or COVID questionnaires.

Which reminds me…

What I didn’t tell you about the Ontario Art Walk

…there’s one story about the Ontario Art Walk that I didn’t share in yesterday’s post.

After leaving Dragon Fruit Skincare, but before visiting the Chaffey Community Museum of Art, I visited one other location that I won’t identify. This location wanted you to answer a COVID questionnaire, which you accessed via a QR code.

I figured I’d do the right thing and answer the questionnaire, since I had nothing to worry about.

  • I was vaccinated.
  • I was boosted.
  • I hadn’t been around anyone with COVID.
  • I didn’t have a fever.

I entered the “right” response to every single question, except for the one that asked if I had a runny or stuffy nose. Since I had a stuffy nose, I indicated this.

But hey, it’s just a stuffy nose. What could go wrong?

When I finished the questionnaire, I was told that based on my answers, I was not allowed in the premises, and if I was already in the premises I should leave immediately.

Which I did.

And which is why I didn’t write about that particular location in yesterday’s post.

Bredemarket, pressing the flesh (sometimes six feet away)

But back to non-health related aspects of QR codes.

The Ontario Art Walk was actually the second in-person event that I had attended that week. As I noted on Instagram, I also went to a City of Ontario information session about a proposed bike lane.

Now that COVID has (mostly) receded, more of us are going to these in-person events. My target market (businesspeople in the United States) is mostly familiar with the century-old term “press the flesh.” While it usually applies to politicians attending in-person events, it can equally apply to non-political events.

Whenever I go out to these local events, I like to have some printed Bredemarket collateral handy in case I find a local businessperson looking for marketing services. After all, since I am the Ontario, California content marketing expert, I should let relevant people in Ontario know this.

In those cases, a QR code makes sense, since I can hand it to the person, the person can scan the QR code on their phone, and the person can immediately access whatever web page or other content I want to share with them.

On Saturday, it occurred to me that if I ran across a possible customer during the Ontario Art Walk, I could use a QR code to share my e-book “Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You.”

Unfortunately, this bright idea came to my mind at 5:30 pm for an event that started at 6. I dummied up a quick and dirty page with the cover and a QR code, but it was…dirty. Just as well I didn’t share that on Saturday.

But now that I have more time, I’ve created a better-looking printed handout so that I’m ready at the next in-person event I attend.

If we meet, ask me for it.

Making myself look less smart

Well, now that I’ve gone through all of this trouble explaining how QR codes are great for offline purposes, I’m going to share the aforementioned handout…online.

(UPDATE OCTOBER 22, 2023: “SIX QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU IS SO 2022. DOWNLOAD THE NEWER “SEVEN QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU” HERE.)

Which has probably prompted the following question from you.

“Why?”

Four reasons:

  1. It gave me the excuse to post the question “Why?” above, thus reiterating one of the major points of the e-book.
  2. Because I felt like sharing it.
  3. Just in case you don’t make “Event X” that I attend in the future, you can experience the joy of printing the flyer and scanning the QR code yourself. Just like you were there!
  4. To demonstrate that even when you provide a piece of content with a QR code, it’s also helpful to explicitly reveal the URL where you’ll head if you scan the code. (Look just below the QR code in the flyer above.) And if you receive the flyer in online form rather than printed form, that URL is clickable.

Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You: the e-book version

I love repurposing.

So I’ve repurposed my October 30 blog post into an e-book.

This gave me an opportunity to revisit the topic and add critical information on wildebeests, George (H.W.) Bush, and Yogi Berra.

But more importantly, it allows me to share my thoughts with a wider audience.

If you missed the October blog post, I state that there are six critical questions that your content creator must ask before creating content. These questions apply whether your content creator is a consultant, an employee at your company, or you.

The e-book discusses each of these six questions:

  1. Why?
  2. How?
  3. What?
  4. Goal?
  5. Benefits?
  6. Target Audience?

And as I note in the e-book, that’s just the beginning of the content creation process.

Whether you intend to use Bredemarket as your content creator, use someone else as your content creator, or create your own content, the points in this e-book are helpful. They can be applied to content creation (case studies, white papers, blog posts) or proposal work, and apply whether you are writing for Inland Empire West businesses or businesses anywhere.

And if you read the e-book, you’ll discover why I’m NOT sharing it on the Bredemarket Identity Firm Services LinkedIn page and Facebook group.

You can download the e-book here. And you can be a content marketing expert also.

(UPDATE OCTOBER 22, 2023: “SIX QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU IS SO 2022. DOWNLOAD THE NEWER “SEVEN QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU” HERE.)

Who’s laboring on Labor Day?

Bredemarket has always restricted its business to the United States. (Lately I’ve focused more on California’s Inland Empire West, but that’s another story.) So everyone in my target market is celebrating Labor Day today.

Theoretically.

It’s important to note that most other countries celebrate the contributions of labor on May 1, but for several reasons the United States chose a different day. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO page that explained this no longer exists, but I quoted from that page in a tymshft post a decade ago:

Despite the popularity of May Day and the appeal of an international holiday, the American Federation of Labor pushed to secure Labor Day as America’s primary celebration of its workers. This was due to the more radical tone that May Day had taken. Especially after the 1886 Haymarket riot, where several police officers and union members were killed in Chicago, May Day had become a day to protest the arrests of anarchists, socialists, and unionists, as well as an opportunity to push for better working conditions. Samuel Gompers and the AFL saw that the presence of more extreme elements of the Labor Movement would be detrimental to perception of the festival. To solve this, the AFL worked to elevate Labor Day over May Day, and also made an effort to bring a more moderate attitude to the Labor Day festivities. The AFL, whose city labor councils sponsored many of the Labor Day celebrations, banned radical speakers, red flags, internationalist slogans, and anything else that could shed an unfavorable light upon Labor Day or organized labor.

From https://tymshft.com/2012/05/01/the-american-perspective-on-may-day-or-i-am-not-a-commie/

So for over a century, most Americans have chosen to celebrate Labor Day on the first Monday in September.

Well, some Americans.

I took a walk.

My employer for my day job is closed today (at least for its U.S. workers), so I kinda sorta took it a bit leisurely, waking up at…5:35 in the morning.

You see, this is the last week of my company’s wellness challenge, and because of the current heat wave in Southern California, I wanted to get my walking in while the temperatures were still in double digits (on the Fahrenheit scale; that’s something else that Americans do differently than the rest of the world).

I didn’t take any pictures of myself walking today, but here’s one that I took Saturday while I was walking inside (at the Ontario Mills indoor mall).

At Ontario Mills, Saturday, September 3, 2022. It was about 25 degrees cooler inside than it was outside.

Other people were working.

But while I took my early morning Labor Day walk, I ran across a lot of people…working.

  • There were the people at the Starbucks in downtown Ontario, busily supplying breakfast sandwiches and drinks to people.
  • There was the woman at a 7-Eleven in Ontario, letting me hydrate with a cold drink. (She may have been the owner, but owners deserve a day off too.)
  • Finally, I passed two men who have been working on and off on a residential wall, and today was apparently one of the “on” days. I hope they’re not working in the afternoon.

The truth is that, even in the midst of COVID, the entire workforce can’t shut down entirely. Some people have to work on days when many people don’t work. Remember that even in “blue law” states, preachers certainly work on Sundays.

Me too.

But still my morning walk was somewhat relaxing, because even though it was a weekday, I didn’t have to end the walk by 8:00 to start my day job. So while I got my steps in, I did so somewhat leisurely.

So what did I do after my walk was done?

Well, I did Bredemarket work.

  • I renewed my City of Ontario business license. (Online, of course, since city offices are closed for Labor Day.)
  • Right now I’m writing this post.
  • And after I write the post, there’s an email that I need to send.

So I guess I didn’t completely take the day off either.

But at least I’m not buliding a wall out of doors.

Oh, and I work on Saturday mornings also.

Of course, since I’m employed full-time, Bredemarket itself is a weekend job for me. My official office hours fall on Saturday mornings, for example.

While this is work, in a way it’s not work, because it’s a refreshing change from my normal work. (And since I enjoy my normal work, that isn’t so much work either. If you’re not working at something you enjoy, then you’re working.)

And if you don’t enjoy creating written content, let Bredemarket help you create it.

I can help you with white papers, case studies, blog posts, proposal responses, or other written content. (Well, unless the written content involves finger, face, driver’s license, or related identity services. There’s the day job, you know.)

If I can work with you to create your written content, please contact me.

Remote working obscures one fact about us

After spending three years in semi-remote work (I was in an office, but my boss was in a separate office across the country), followed by over two years of near-complete remote work, I’ve realized that there are critical differences between the remote work experience and the traditional in-office experience.

For example, I spent all day last Friday working in my shorts, and none of my coworkers was the wiser. This is something that I never would have done if I were in an office. (Decades ago, one of my former coworkers turned up in shorts on a casual Friday and received glares from one of the executive secretaries all day.)

In the remote workplace, we present our physical personas via the cameras on our computers and smartphones, and all of the context outside of the camera range is lost. This post highlights one of these pieces of context, highly critical in in-person interactions, but almost completely obscured in remote interactions. Is the loss of this piece of context important?

My observation at late 1990s Printrak

Before explicitly talking about this lost piece of context, let me go back 25 years to the days when I drove to work at 1250 Tustin Avenue in Anaheim every day.

In those days I worked in Proposals, and the Proposals Department was not too far from the executive offices. This is where Richard Giles, Dave McNeff, Dan Driscoll, and others at the VP level and above worked.

Passing by the executives in the halls, one thing was very apparent. Most of the executives were taller than me. I happen to be over 6 feet tall myself, so these other executives were very tall indeed.

This is not unique to Printrak. In 2004, when Printrak had been gobbled up by Motorola, a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology observed that for certain professions, there was a positive correlation between height and income.

…height was most predictive of earnings in jobs that require social interaction, which include sales, management, service and technical careers.

From https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing

I should add a caveat that at Printak in the late 1990s, all of the executives except one were male. This skewed the height effect, since (as the study noted) the average height of women is shorter than the average height of men. (The study controlled for sex, as well as age, to compensate for these differences.)

But this doesn’t negate the fact that many executives are of above-average height…with some notable exceptions.

By Jacques-Louis David – zQEbF0AA9NhCXQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22174172

My observation at my 2022 home office

Which leads me to my observation about a key point of remote work.

I hope you’re sitting down as you read what I’m about to say.

Actually, that’s what I’m about to say. Most remote workers are seated.

For remote workers, the desk chair is the great equalizer. By Emiellaiendiay at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Sreejithk2000 using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10532585

During my years that I exclusively worked at my sole proprietorship Bredemarket, and during the subsequent months that I’ve been in full-time employment, I have never met most of my clients or coworkers in person. Unlike my coworkers and clients that I met in the hall in Printak’s Anaheim office, I have no idea if I’m taller or shorter than most of them. I have met some people at local events such as those sponsored by 4th Sector Innovations, and I anticipate that I’ll meet some of my new company’s coworkers at some point, but as of now I don’t know if most of the people that I interact with would look up to me in person, or if I would look up to them.

Does the height obfuscation of remote workers matter?

Since my associates and I usually don’t gather around water coolers, I’m missing the contextual information derived from our relative heights.

But is this important?

Short people will answer this question with a resounding “no,” believing that the height of a person is immaterial to their effectiveness.

“Short people are just the same as you and I.” The philosopher R. Newman. Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3305960

Tall people who are honest will answer this question with a resounding “yes,” since height does have a psychological effect that is lost when everyone is sitting.

Perhaps the short people are right. As we conduct more and more remote work with people throughout the country and around the world, in-person interactions are naturally going to decrease and we’ll interact more via Zoom, Teams, and other videoconferencing methods.

So now, the only thing that will matter is the deepness of your voice.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pou4-hJql5E

Now I’m hungry.