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Barb Bergeson Studio Gallery
Barb Bergeson is on a mission to demystify and unstuffify portrait photography. She believes that we should capture life's best moments on film, not life's most awkward postures. She redesigned her website to reflect her attitude and attract younger, hipper customers. As the writer, I was charged with conveying the essential information customers need as well as Barb's sense of fun and her dedication to photographing each person's true self. (Visit her site and click "barb & the gang" to see what I mean.)
CUPA-HR eNews
When Standard Insurance Company was given an editorial slot in the online newsletter of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, the company gave that assignment to me. My challenge was to present a balanced look at employee benefits without tilting the playing field toward my employer. CUPA-HR eNews liked the result and ran it in full in their April 16, 2008 issue.
eBay
eBay Live! is eBay's annual gathering of the tribes - the one time all year when eBay buyers and sellers can meet in person. The 2004 event was eBay's third, and this time around they wanted to raise the bar: not only increase overall attendance, but boost attendance by PowerSellers, eBay's most coveted users. To reach that goal, eBay turned to Wirestone.
At Wirestone, I was involved with eBay Live! from concepting (the "Leap!" theme) to demand generation (postcards, ads, and e-mail blasts) to the organization and editing of the Community Conference Guide. eBay Live! 2004 exceeded the client's expectations, attracting more than 10,000 users to the conference, of whom approximately half were PowerSellers. A good time was had by all.
DeepCanyon
Hewlett-Packard spun off DeepCanyon during the dot-com boom years of the late 1990s. If we could explain in one sentence what we did, we'd probably still be in business!
My responsibilities at DeepCanyon, besides making everything readable, included creating an op-ed track that would interest our readership of marketing professionals. When necessary, I filled in for our columnists.
Visio SmartPages
Consumer magazine (circ. 400,000) for drawing-and-diagramming softwaremaker Visio. Readership: Casual users to gearheads.
My challenge as the editor:
Drawing-and-diagramming software is useful stuff, but unless you're an engineer, reading about it is boring. Many non-technical people in offices today find Visio (now Microsoft Visio) software already loaded on their computers. The more they read about it, the better they'll be able to use it. How then do I get them to start reading?
- I searched for the human element in every story I assigned.
- In "The Liveliest Art," I found a screenwriter who not only used Visio software to chart her characters, she also used it to keep track of her own love life!
InterAction Magazine
Consumer magazine (circ. 800,000) for interactive-gaming softwaremaker Sierra On-Line. Readership: ages 6 to 60.
My challenge as the editor:
Keeping the car-chases-and-explosions crowd interested without losing the more mature readers.
- In the case of Caesar III, a city-building simulation set during the era of the Roman Empire, the colorful graphics and rah-rah text would hold the first group. How do I convince the latter that this is a game with considerable intelligence behind it - or at least catch their eye?
- My solution in this five-page article was to construct a historical timeline of Rome running along the bottom of each page.
Power Chess
This "uncannily human" (Computer Life) chess coaching program was an innovation when it appeared in 1996. The program adapted to your level of play; it wouldn't crush you, but it made you work for the win. In postgame analysis, the coach spoke to you and illuminated pieces and squares to help you improve. Power Chess was intended for woodpushers as well as people with tournament experience.
I served as Assistant Designer on this project, and by the time we shipped I had written everything from the dialog for the program's talking coach to the Help file to the box copy. I also represented the product on press tours to computer magazines and on newsgroups and bulletin boards.
Xerox
The Xerox Launch Collaterals Group creates a brochure for every new product. For this machine, my assignment was to become the product expert, distilling the specs and essential characteristics into one informative, persuasive, readable document that also met the requirements of the product marketing managers.
Xerox
The Xerox Launch Collaterals Group also creates “print samples” to showcase the superior color quality of the company’s printers and copiers. These pieces are usually in the form of fictitious newsletters, posters, menus, and so on – something to catch people’s attention. In this case, the machine in question was aimed at administrators in the health-care industry. My assignment was to create a fake hospital newsletter and make it interesting – and not give out false or misleading medical information! Working with our lead designer, we created a handsome, factual, and, yes, fake piece that interests people in and out of health care.
The Last Star Trek Parody
And now for something completely different.
Where Are They Now?
