Microsoft looks to have another Europe-sized antitrust headache on its hands. Norwegian browser maker Opera has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows and by not complying with W3C web standards when it comes to how IE renders pages.
“We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera, in a statement. “In addition to promoting the free choice of individual consumers, we are a champion of open Web standards and cross-platform innovation. We cannot rest until we’ve brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide.”
Posted by Ryan, filed under Design Blog. Date: December 14, 2007, 1:56 pm | No Comments »
What do you hate most about freelancing? I expect right up there will be either sales or not having enough work. Cold-calling, pitching, struggling to pay bills, worrying if you are doing the right sort of promotion, freelancers have enough stress without all this sales stuff.
You can tell when you are doing well with your freelance business, instead of chasing new work, clients come to you. The most successful have to reject work, it seems they are beating customers off with a stick.
How do you achieve that dream scenario?
In brief:
- Potential clients need to know you
- You need a hook
- Leads are only half the equation; you need to close
When you start out you have the greatest challenge. Getting your name known and building a profile should be high on your agenda but this needs to be combined with creating a compelling hook.
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Instead of making pictures of fonts, the actual font files can be linked to and retrieved from the web. This way, designers can use TrueType fonts without having to freeze the text as background images.
Today i browsed my way through a short brochure for an investment company that provides 401k, etc…, for the company i am freelancing. The brochure is a 25.5 x 11 3 fold to a finished size of 8.5 x 11. As i was browsing, i flipped it over to the back was kind of astonished that they put their logo in the very top left. Not in the top left third but .5 inches in from left and top. I may be astonished easily, but the more i think about it, the more i have never thought about doing it. I guess i am used to seeing the “bottom-centered” or “bottom-left and bottom-right-centered” corporate identity positioning on brochures. This brochure back is 8.5 x 11 with tons of space and yet the logo is in the top left. What gave me the “hmm” factor or “wow” factor; was when i flipped to the back, i noticed their logo first.
The other day, I took a break from teaching yoga and writing copy and stopped into the local pizza place to grab a slice (yes, even yoga-guys eat pizza). While I still own a studio just a few blocks away, I moved out of the neighborhood more than two years earlier and it had been nearly that long since my last visit.
So, I poked my head in and, from behind the counter, the owner looks at me and says, “one slice, not too hot, right?” Blown away. This guy remembers my pizza preferences two years after my last visit!
Instantly, I remembered why this place was my thrice a week haunt. Sure, they made great pizza. But, they also invested in learning and remembering my order preferences. And, that not only made me feel good about them, it made my life just the slightest bit easier. What does this have to do with freelancing and marketing? Everything.
I didn’t just buy the pizza.
For more than a decade, Seth Godin has been preaching the marriage of marketing and product development, because they are really just two points along the same continuum. Hopelessly intertwined. The best marketers are the ones who build the product around the marketing and the marketing right into the product, so they become one.
When I dropped into Sacco’s Pizza, I wasn’t just buying the pizza, I was buying the entire experience. And that included the slice, the ego boost of knowing these guys had committed what I liked to memory and ease of not having to say what I wanted. Then, the topper was when one of the guys asked how my daughter was. Man, these pizza-pushers are really good.
Starbucks is built largely on the same realization. People who buy Starbucks coffee aren’t just buying the drink, they could do that anywhere else for half the price. They’re buying the entire experience.
The drink, the overly-courteous sales-associate, the barista who remembers to put just right amount of foam on top, the quick turn-around, the jazz vocals in the background. They’re all part of the equation. They help draw people in and sell them, but rather than being add-on marketing, they are woven into the fabric of the very product being delivered. Starbucks does not sell coffee, they sell the Starbucks coffee experience.
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