Author: Michael Cornnell

Proofreading Vortex

Michael Cornnell

Greetings loyal readers,

We’re finished with the July issue right now, and I thought it would be fun to share with you a little bit of my last few days in the office, which, until I started writing this week’s blog, have been entirely devoted to proofreading the issue. If you’ve never experienced the utter joy that is reading the same material over and over again, looking for the tiniest mistakes, let me paint you a most wondrous picture of what a single day of proofing is like. Remember, to get the full effect, imagine you’ve been doing this for at least four days straight.

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Making Time

4236 B.C. FOLLOWING the 365-day cycle of the star Sirius, ancient Egyptians record the very first year. An auspicious day for humanity to be sure, but even more so for those in the calendar business. After all, without the star-gazing and detail-obsessed people hanging out by the Nile all those years ago, they’d be without a job.

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Desktop Deluge

WE’VE ALL BEEN there. Wandering slowly through the long, wide aisles of your local office megastore, sifting through shelf after shelf of office products, wondering what to buy. There are no-smudge pens and tri-colored pencils, stapleless staplers, safety scissors, decidedly unsafe industrial scissors, and more brands of plain white paper than what is realistically conceivable. Deciding amongst all the different products can be difficult, which is how one usually ends up sitting in the fluorescent, timeless hallways, mulling highlighter colors for 45 minutes.

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Video Killed the Editing Star

Michael Cornnell

My apologies for the egregious absence in updates. I’d make the predictable excuse of being colossally busy, but being predictable is terrible, so instead I’ll tell you the reason I haven’t written in so long is because I was stuck in a Groundhog-Day [link]-like time vortex for three weeks, forced to live Mothers’ Day over and over again until I got it right (note for those interested: giving your mom an Egg McMuffin and one of your delinquent student loan bills as gifts is not an acceptable way to start the day).

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Happy (Earth) Mother’s Day!

Michael Cornnell

I recently interviewed Mark Trotzuk, president of Boardroom ECO Apparel, for one of the articles I’m currently writing for our upcoming June responsibility supplement, which is a mini-issue about all kinds of great stuff like corporate social accountability and environmental stewardship.

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Cinco de Busy

Michael Cornnell

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! I’m sure you’re all aware, but “Cinco de Mayo” translates to “fifth of May” in Spanish, or “Congratulations! Your magazine is kicking butt, but is also starting like three new projects in May! Enjoy trying to write a blog!” if you speak Promo Marketing.

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Intelligent Beams of Light

Michael Cornnell

It’s serious deadline business time right now on the magazine, so I don’t have a lot of time to devote to a long, clever post neatly relating to our industry (or attempting one anyway). I thought I would instead just give you all a quick blurb of something that that didn’t get into my computer accessories story for May.

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Advertising Advertisements

Michael Cornnell

PPAI announced yesterday that it was buying advertising time on one of Time Square’s JumboTrons to run a 15-second commercial explaining the value of promotional products in general as advertising tools. If you didn’t get their initial release, Charlie has the story in the newsletter for this week.

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Playing The Field

The mention of sports marketing may call to mind images of giant foam fingers waving in a crowded NFL stadium, or thousands of Yankee jerseys dotted through jammed subways before a playoff game, but there is more to athletic promotions than these professional teams can offer. From minor leagues and recreation organizations to high schools and colleges, there are numerous avenues for sports promotions as viable as their professional counterparts, if not more so.

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