Image Control: Lesson One

Google provides a free and useful tool for keeping tabs on what is said about you. It's called Google Alerts, and you'll find it here.

Set an Alert with your name as the key words. Set alerts using any and all names and nicknames by which you are known. To stay fully informed, set alerts for your business name, and any projects or groups with which you are intimately involved.

Now, on a daily basis, you will have a better idea of what, if anything, is being said across the web.

If it turns out to be less than flattering, there are ways of dealing with it. A one hour session on Policing Your Web Persona is available.

Otherwise, enjoy your reading and forward the good stuff to friends and family!

Holiday Greetings!

Which holiday? It's hard to know anymore when Christmas decorations go up before Halloween, and Halloween stuff has been on the shelves since before Labor Day. But, today, I'm talking about Christmas, Chanukah and New Years.

Today is a good day to get started on your holiday card list strategy. Strategy? Yes, Strategy.

Things to consider include:

• Will the greetings be sent by mail or email?
• If by mail, an envelope or postcard?
• Is this greeting intended for friends and family, clients or both?
• Will you use two different cards?
• If for business, will you use a stock card or create something that highlights your brand?
• If for friends and family, will you use a stock card, a photograph, or something else?
• What is the budget

While these questions are considered, another, as Derek Smalls might say, practical question arises:

Is your mailing list in order?

Since you are reading this on a computer, there is no good reason for your mailing list to not be computerized.

If your list is in a tattered old address book or on various scraps of papers or post-it notes, now is the time to get it all into a normalized database or contacts manager.

Once you've done this, not only will your holiday mailing list be a snap, but you'll also be able to keep track of birthdays, anniversaries and all kinds of other important information in an organized way.

Get started on this now, and it's not an overwhelming task. If you need help, get in touch. We've managed card lists that ranged from a few dozen to a few thousand. We've also designed eye-popping and news-making cards for our clients.

iPhone or iPad Just Not Quite Right?

Don't forget that simply shutting it down, letting the screen go all the way to black, and then starting it back up again, cures a lot of what ails these things. In fact, it's a good habit to shut these things down and start them back up with some regularity... I'd say at least once per week.

It's also a good idea to plug in to iTunes and do a backup first - and every so often, just for good housekeeping.

As long as your backup is fresh, plugging in to iTunes and using the restore function should solve any lingering problems, but don't do this if your device is jailbroken and/or unlocked. There are ways to get these devices back to 100%, but if you are uncertain how to do that, you are best off being shown the first time.