Please visit me there. It’s just so much easier to blog that way.

Meanwhile, once I have some breathing room I’ll update WordPress and integrate my Posterous posts with the Wordslinger blog.

Or you can always be my friend on Facebook.

There’s a lot going on in this sweet little finishing touch from Vimeo, which appears at the bottom of a video when you haven’t logged in to their site.

“Conversation” and “your voice” entreat you to join, “five seconds” says it’s quick and worth your time.

A very well-written example of how brand voice should be applied to user interface copy.

I’ve been busy. Hence this blog’s extended nap. I feel bad about this but there are good reasons. What I did with my past year:

- Rebranded a major dot-com consumer service, with special attention to brand voice in the user interface and every customer touch point (think log ins, error messages and privacy policies).
- Developed messaging and copy for a relationship-management service now in public beta.
- Repositioned a global health and wellness holding company, writing new elevator statements and a brand book.
- Launched a line of specialty beverages targeted at women, including product line naming and copy.
- Positioned and created the brand voice for a new dental analytics company.
- Repositioned a mid-sized law firm (website launch coming soon).
- Refreshed the brand voice and website copy for a top structural engineering firm (Snoozer? No way, these people are some of the smartest and most creative I’ve had the pleasure to work with).

And right now I’m in the thick of three adventures:

- Naming, positioning and launching Seattle’s first blow-dry bar.
- Writing the introduction for a leading design firm’s monograph.
- Naming, brand strategy, brand voice and rollout of a national preschool (with social media a core part of the marketing experience).

I also:

- Started ballet lessons again after 15 years, even performing on stage. (I was a ballerina in Britt 1.0)
- Grew a vegetable garden, with lots of help from my husband and daughter.
- Continue to raise a highly spirited six year old, and eek out the time to volunteer in her class.
- Managed to read almost all of my New Yorkers.

Whew. So go easy on yourself, girl!

Thanks to John Rousseau for sharing this post on the value of Twitter.

I’m twittering @wordslinging, using it for precisely the reason Geoff Manaugh at BLDG BLOG discusses: note taking. I never thought of it that way. Makes me appreciate it more as a tool.

I was surprised to receive this email from Anthropologie:

Why this elicited a positive response:

- I sometimes like Anthropologie products.
- I care about eating local produce.
- It made me think of Anthropologie in a new way.

Why this works as break-through marketing:

- They’re collaborating with local superstars on key themes customers care about (they get their audience’s motivations).
- The design of the email is pleasing to the eye and on brand.

This treatment also implies that Anthropologie is a sustainably minded company. I know that they manufacture their products under dubious worker conditions, but it’s a cunning way to make me feel more comfortable about buying from them as I try to be intentional about where my money goes.

John Cook at TechFlash writes about various web sites that allow you to search inside of Obama’s speech for words and phrases. He covers Delve Networks, Microsoft and CNN’s Photosynth, and ReadWriteWeb’s use of Wordle’s cloud tags of current and past speeches.

When developing tone and brand personalities, Wordle is a useful tool to help visualize and prioritize words.

Ah, finally.

Thank you President Obama. Thank you Elizabeth Alexander.

The following is a transcript of the inaugural poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander, as provided by CQ transcriptions. (from The New York Times)

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

As the nation watches Iowa today, businesses should watch the conversation. Caucusing is social networking. While the forum is not online today, precinct groups will interact much like consumer groups do when they converse online about a product or service. Like members of a social network, caucus-goers will be influenced by voices that look and sound like they do (not like pollsters or advertisers).

Increasingly, consumers are nominating (buying) products and services this way. As B.L. Ochman predicts, “social networks will be the key driver of brand success as consumers increasingly trust each other’s opinions and distrust advertising and corporate crap.” Today’s caucusing will provide a big clue for how best to participate in social networks. Namely, business must learn to speak to its customers with a citizen voice.

What does that mean? Adopt a company voice that sounds natural, honest, real and human, and give up the industry (party) line. Communicate with your customers like you’re one of them, a citizen of their network. The Cluetrain Manifesto says that the best way to do that is to “empower real human beings to speak on [your] behalf.” Much like the Iowa caucus will today.

Announced on NPR today, the Lake Superior State University 2008 List of Banished Words is out. The words and phrases on the list are well-worn or overused. Some of them are real groaners:

• Perfect Storm
• Back in the day
• Sweet (you got that report done, sweet)
• It is what it is
• Pop (that color really makes it pop)

Others reflect what’s trickled down from current national and international political affairs:

• Post 9/11
• Surge
• Emotional (the scene was emotional)
• Waterboarding

(We’ve worn out the word waterboarding? That’s not good.)

Webinar is also on the list, which seems harsh to me. I think that word has bandwidth. Maybe bandwidth should take its place. What words do you think should get the boot?

voluptuous magnificence
sumptuous
chandelier
gilded
giblets
poultry stuffing
a pendant bunch of grapes
a dash
a fifth
a coffee spoon
crème brûlée

May the language of feasting entertain you this Thanksgiving.