You know that I make a big deal about the step before content draft creation where Bredemarket asks questions and creates the plan. But sometimes that isn’t necessary.
Some music managers insist on a pre-programmed planning session to truly engage the target audience.
“I was f—ing around with this stupid little riff,” Slash recalled to Q Magazine in 2005, via a Guns N’ Roses fan archive. “Axl said, Hold the f—ing phones! That’s amazing!”
And that finger exercise, a guitar version of a Bach invention, was the birth of “Sweet Child O Mine.” The band continued to develop the riff into a complete song.
Or almost complete. Producer Spencer Proffer thought the song needed a breakdown at the end.
According to Slash’s autobiography, written with Anthony Bozza in 2007, Axl Rose listened to the demos on a loop, then started muttering “where do we go?” to himself, thinking things over.
The picture accompanying this post was taken in a medical facility in Palm Desert, California.
For purposes of this post, ignore the “creative” punctuation and capitalization.
I want to concentrate on the word “light.”
If I were creating this sign, I would have chosen the word “soft,” as in “Keep your conversations in soft tones.” Concentrating on the volume.
Then again, people in medical waiting rooms may be stressed. It’s critically important that the patients, caregivers, and others are NOT stressed (to the extent possible).
And that won’t happen when the conversations are…heavy.
“I hurt.”
“I hope these chemo treatments are successful. The hassle of chemo isn’t worth it if the cancer comes back.”
“My insurance is a mess, and so many things aren’t covered. Insurance isn’t worth it.”
“At least you have insurance. I can’t afford it, and can’t afford to pay for this visit.”
So I guess the sign writer was correct. If you are in a medical waiting room, keep your conversations in LIGHT tones to reduce the stress on everyone else.
“[T]he most extensive scam imaginable was launched against me and against many other writers….
“Two women (or two men? Political prisoners in China–or Nigeria? Or even in Iran?) emailed me. Each impersonated a real editor and a real literary agent. This began on April 23rd and continued on through April 27th or April 28th. They appropriated the name of Marilyn Kreztner at Blackstone Publishing and Caitlin Mahony at William Morris Endeavor….
“Please understand: Given the realities of publishing, most writers are a desperate lot. And oh-so-vulnerable to flattery. If a publishing person praises our work–we melt. We glow. Writers specialize in Big Dreams.”
And despite some lingering suspicions, Chesler sent some of her work to both people. But before she could send $700 for an editorial consultant to “improve” her work, Chesler had already contacted the real Blackstone Publishing and the real Wiolliam Morris Endeavor and confirmed that these were not the real Kreztner or Mahony.
If you’re a writer, you must check the site Chesler recommended, Writer Beware. It include a detailed post about this sort of scam, including examples of the scammer communications.
Reminder: while I write books, mine aren’t sold by publishing houses. Visit my Gumroad site to purchase my ebook, “Proving Humanity: The Six Factors of Identity Verification and Authentication.”
Theory is great, but it’s not reality. And that applies to the relationship to a company, like yours, and its writing contractor, perhaps someone like me.
You already know that you can’t just go to a writing contractor and say “write stuff.” But by the same token you don’t have to create a detailed brief and a detailed style guide. Yes, writers would love that, but if I insisted that clients give me a detailed briefing I wouldn’t have any business.
So Bredemarket helps its clients. I ask YOU the questions. Here’s a quick video about my seven questions.
The seven questions I ask.
I’ve also written a book about the seven questions, which you can download here. (And this book, unlike my book on the six factors of identity verification and authentication, is free.)
So don’t worry about developing a detailed briefing book. We will work together to determine the content you need.
Let’s talk about your needs. I’ll make it as easy as possible.
There is a difference between a writer and a content creator. It becomes obvious when you read WordPress’ recent post, “How to Slop Your Content in Five Steps.”
With one glaring exception, the Bredebot project. This is a highlighted experiment to see how far a well-prompted bot will go.
So my specific response to these steps is to consider the gap analysis in step 2. Bots are good at such analysis, but they have to be watched in case they don’t get their facts straight.
But I won’t give Claude the permission to write and post articles, or even any permissions on WordPress. This is a security issue, after all; how do YOU control site access for non-human identities?
In fact, I may not even use Claude for step 2, even if it’s the cool kid this week last I checked. I may use Gemini…or a thousand Bangladesh techies…or a million Pentiums…or Mika.
How you work with outside content creators
But what about you?
Before answering, take the five steps above and change the name “Claude” to Barney…or Bredemarket.
Would you give Barney or Bredemarket that power over your website?
Maybe…or maybe not.
How Bredemarket works with you
In the case of Bredemarket, I usually do NOT have direct access to my clients’ websites, sending them Word documents instead. And in the one instance where I did have website access, I left every one of my drafts in draft mode.
And when I perform a gap analysis, I present my client with choices and ask the client to choose the topic, or at least approve my suggested topic.
Because your website is not mine, or Mika’s…or Claude’s.
I know that the experts say that “too much knowledge is actually bad in tech.” But based upon what I just saw from an (unnamed) identity verification company, I assert that too little knowledge is much worse.
As a biometric product marketing expert and biometric product marketing writer, I pay a lot of attention to how identity verification companies and other biometric and identity companies market themselves. Many companies know how to speak to their prospects…and many don’t.
Take a particular company, which I will not name. Here is the “marketing” from this company.
We claim high facial recognition accuracy but don’t publish our NIST FRTE results! (While the company claims to author its technology, the company name does not appear in either the NIST FRTE 1:1 or NIST FRTE 1:N results.)
We claim liveness detection (presentation attack detection) but don’t publish any confirmation letters! (Again, I could not find the company name on the confirmation letter lists from BixeLab or iBeta.)
Google Gemini.
So what is the difference between this company and the other 100+ identity verification companies…many of which explicitly state their benefits, trumpet their NIST FRTE performance, and trumpet their third-party liveness detection confirmation letters?
If you claim great accuracy and great liveness detection but can’t support it via independent third-party verification, your claim is “so what?” worthless. Prove your claims.
Now I’m sure I could help this company. Even if they have none of the certifications or confirmations I mentioned, I could at least get the company to focus on meaningful differentiation and meaningful benefits. But there’s no need to even craft a Bredemarket pitch to the company, since the only marketer on staff is an intern who is indifferent to strategy.
Google Gemini.
Because while many companies assert that all they need is a salesperson, an engineer, an African data labeler, and someone to run the generative AI for everything else…there are dozens of competitors doing the exact same thing.
But some aren’t. Some identity/biometric companies are paying attention to their long-term viability, and are creating content, proposals, and analyses that support that viability.
Take a look at your company’s marketing. Does it speak to prospects? Does it prove that you will meet your customers’ needs? Or does it sound like every other company that’s saying “We use AI. Trust us“?
And if YOUR company needs experienced help in conveying customer-focused benefits to your prospects…contact Bredemarket. I’ve delivered meaningful biometric materials to two dozen companies over the years. And yes, I have experience. Let me use it for your advantage.