Author Archive
Five (or Ten) Minutes to Awesome
Posted: May 16th, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] It’s not news. In fact, it pre-dates most of today’s popular marketing vehicles. But that’s the point: in an era when we’re deleting the cruft from our email inboxes and social media streams faster than you can say “kudzu”, a hand-written, hand-addressed note cuts through the clutter like a hot knife through [...]
How Attractive Can You Be?
Posted: April 25th, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] When it comes to building a great mailing list, size doesn’t matter–engagement does. I should know–last summer, my little list of 2,500 devoted newsletter readers helped me to raise (well) over $50,000 in 50 days, without my ever asking them for a dime. The open secret to engagement is two-fold: (1) provide [...]
Evernote: Your New Favorite Everything Bucket
Posted: April 3rd, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] I’ve tried as many tools for the heck of it as I have out of sincere need. Like most productivity nerds, I just really, really like playing with apps and widgets. But the one tool I’ve found that’s both fun to play with and really useful is Evernote. Available as a web, [...]
First, Manage Expectations
Posted: March 26th, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] While I’ve test-driven all manner of vehicles for managing social media use, none have given me back more of my life and my sanity than something I created myself: a Twitter policy. Or rather, my policy; I was inspired to create it after stumbling on one created by Ike Piggott (who has [...]
Tracking the People Who Market For You
Posted: February 7th, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] There’s no question that tools like email newsletters, trackable bit.ly URLs and other digital tools with baked-in statistics are a boon to businesses wanting to market themselves. You can test different approaches and come up with meaningful measures of how comparatively successful your efforts have been. But one of the most effective [...]
The Frequent Writer’s Secret Weapon
Posted: February 1st, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] I measure the usefulness of any piece of software on my computer by how much I miss it when using someone else’s machine. By that measure, easily the greatest item I’ve ever bought has been the text storage and expansion utility for the Mac, TextExpander. (Full disclosure: four years after becoming a [...]
How You and Your Best Friends Can Make $100,000 (for someone else)
Posted: January 26th, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] For an introvert who’s generally happiest holed up in a cave, flailing away at a keyboard, I’ve racked up a surprising number of creative collaborations–everything from a TV pilot for a major network to a comic play (with music!) about two of the world’s least sexy chronic illnesses. Most recently, I completed [...]
Stop Marketing in the New Year
Posted: January 3rd, 2012
[by Colleen Wainwright] While no one can predict what the next 12 months will bring, there will almost certainly be too much of it. Too many “dig-me” blog posts. Too many pointless newsletters. Too many tweets and re-tweets and status updates. Way too many inspirational quotes. Altogether too many requests for the least little bit [...]
Slow-Blogging for a Fast-Paced Age
Posted: December 9th, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] Blogging hit the mainstream about four years ago, but much of the advice I encounter around how to do it well still seems written for the “Wild West” era of 2004-2006. Yes, you need to stick to your area of expertise. Sure, “Top 47 Ways” posts will still draw wandering eyeballs. And [...]
Picking the Perfect Personal Project
Posted: November 1st, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] As a lifelong sufferer of Shiny Object Syndrome, I’ve generally chosen my non-work pursuits based on whatever glittery thing grabbed me. While it’s fun yielding to serendipity now and then, bigger projects requiring lots of my precious time/energy/attention tend to work out best when they’re rooted in some deeper longing and aligned [...]
The Magic Happens Between the Notecards
Posted: October 26th, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] While I get that the “sh*tty first draft,” as Anne Lamott calls it, is a necessary step on one’s way to beautiful, polished prose, the perfectionist in me still balks at throwing a bunch of words on a page with the faith that I’ll be able to sort them out later. What’s [...]
Pushing the Boulder up the Hill
Posted: October 13th, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] “There are no short cuts to any place worth going.” –Beverly Sills One of the gifts of the internet can also be one of its curses. Every minute of every day, we’re exposed to amazing achievements–all of which, because of context, seem to have sprung fully formed, like Venus on the half-shell. [...]
Fall’s Hottest Look? A Marketing Makeover!
Posted: August 22nd, 2011
Photo by Shawn G. Henry. Photoshopping (R) by Donna Barger [by Colleen Wainwright] While I always treat myself to a few new “Back to School”-style supplies to ring in the change of season–a fresh box of Sharpies and maybe an iPhone 5, both in black, please–mostly I’m viewing this particular fall as an opportunity to [...]
Belly Up to the Bookmarks Bar
Posted: August 16th, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] There are dozens of useful Internet sites I visit daily (and yes, I realize this means I spend too much time online), but to know the ones I find most valuable, I need look no further than the bookmarks bar itself. Because it’s on that precious, narrow landing-strip of browser space that [...]
Rebooting Your Brain on the Fly
Posted: August 10th, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] When you solve problems for a living–i.e., when you’re a creative–it’s dangerously easy to let the well run dry, especially since it seems like we have fewer and fewer opportunities to take the down time we need to stay juicy. While my absolute favorite way ever to unsnarl a knot in my [...]
Whisper (three) Sweet Nerd Things in my Ear
Posted: July 19th, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] I’m not sure how I got anything done before computers, but I’m sure it involved a lot of sweat, confusion, and long walks to school five miles each way in the snow. Now that I’m a full-on digital junkie, here are three of my go-to resources for making life easier at the [...]
Summer reading for the type-A personality
Posted: June 28th, 2011
As an overachiever who doesn’t do well with heat, I like my summer reading breezy, but not mindless (I reserve that for air travel.) For me, that means stuff that I can dip into easily a bit at a time and still learn from — think “bathroom reading”, only useful. The Personal MBA (by Josh [...]
You Talk to Your Grandmother with that Mouth?
Posted: May 20th, 2011
[by Colleen Wainwright] Some people steadfastly refuse to mix the personal and the professional. I admire their internal fortitude (not to mention their talent for establishing firm boundaries) but I think they’re missing out. First, because the inclusion of personal work in a professional portfolio can fill in the gaps when you’re starting out or [...]
