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Associate Editor

Mike's Blog

By Michael Cornnell

About Michael

Michael Cornnell is Associate Editor for Promo Marketing Magazine.

 

Not So Technically Speaking

Dale Denham
The High Cost of a Low Training Budget
May 16, 2013

If you train your staff, there's a risk they'll leave; if you don't, there's a risk they'll stay.
...



Jeff's Rant

Jeff Solomon, MAS
Why...?
May 16, 2013

Why... be connected? I've often talked about my love of trade shows and the value of business relationships, which are...



Promotional Fashionista

Colleen McKenna
How to Celebrate National Bike Month
May 15, 2013

May is National Bike Month. Here are five bike-friendly products and apparel to purvey for the next two weeks....



Be Dazzled

Elise Hacking Carr
The Amazing Fashion: 3 Gatsby-inspired Looks
May 14, 2013

The Great Gatsby finally opened over the weekend. Does the unbridled glamour of 1920s-inspired fashion translate to the promotional products...



Selling Smarter

Rosalie Marcus
Help! My Customers Know the Codes
May 14, 2013

A promotional products distributor recently wrote me and asked how to handle clients that have figured out the industry's pricing...



Beyond Words

Rebecca Kollmann, MAS+
A Blog of a Different Color
May 13, 2013

When we communicate with others—through a presentation, through graphics or through text in an article—the use of color can truly...



Embellished

Kyle Richardson
Call For Sources: Michigan Suppliers and Distributors
May 10, 2013

Do you work in Michigan, or do you sell into the restaurant industry? I want to hear from you....



Kiwi's Coaching Corner

Paul  Kiewiet
Think Like Your Client
May 9, 2013

Getting out of the commodity game requires hard work, thoughtful work and requires learning new skills and work habits. You...



Be Bold, Be Different, Be Memorable

Rick Greene, MAS
The Fearsome Green Profit Margin
May 7, 2013

Or "Detective Fiction, Sales and the Art of Listening."...



The Hot Button

Mary Ellen Nichols, MAS
Have You Cleaned Out Your Teenager's Gym Bag Lately?
May 1, 2013

Performance clothing has changed over the past 10 years: silkier, stretchier, more mesh, even less stinky in some cases. So...



Big Picture Promo

Matt Kaspari, CAS
The Shift to Empowerment Marketing
Apr 25, 2013

Empowering is the act of giving away your power to those around you so you can elevate the group as...



Friday Sales-thought of the Week!

Dale Limes, MAS
Reverse Engineer Your Sales Success
Mar 18, 2013

Steven Covey reminds us that when setting goals ... "Start with the end in mind." That is to visualize the...



Editor's Notes

Nichole Stella
The Perfect Match
Mar 5, 2013

The Super Bowl has also become the Ad Bowl, where brands duke it out to see who has the funniest,...



Compliance Chat

D E Fenton
When a Picture Says a Thousand Words: Bangladesh
Nov 30, 2012

It takes a single negative image to undo even the most successful campaigns in the eyes of your customers—and many...



My Two Cents

Rick Brenner
CPSC General Counsel Clarifies Distributor Responsibilities for Children's Apparel
Oct 8, 2012

There aren't many distributors who would describe themselves as manufacturers. But under CPSIA, the majority of promotional products distributors—at least...



The Sales Challenge

Bill Farquharson
Think and Succeed
May 29, 2012

What would happen if you woke up in the morning and your first thought was, "I am never going to...



Creating More Purposeful Sales Conversations

Lisa Leitch, CSP, MAS
Under 100 Days to Achieve 2011 Goals
Oct 20, 2011

It's hard to believe, but there are fewer than 100 days left to achieve 2011 goals! Are you on track...



Industry Voices

Guest Contributor
In a Recession, Dress Up To Cheer Up
Jan 20, 2010

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with Executive Apparel's president and its director of product development in Orlando, Florida....



How to Not Send 8,000 Misspelled Bags to Missouri State University

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Last Friday's newsletter ran one of our biggest stories ever, "Missouri State University Misspells Name on Over 8,000 Promotional Bags." Either you guys are really into schadenfreude, majorly concerned with proofreading, or maybe just HUGE Missouri State fans (obviously the most likely answer. Go Crazy Beavers! Or whatever their mascot is! I don't really follow college sports! Because they're so boring! Unlike exclamation points, which are the best!!! See?!?!?!)

Anywho, the story brought in a huge amount of traffic for us. And while I don't have much to say about schadenfreude ("It's great" pretty much covers it,) or college sports (see above), I can talk a little about proofreading (it's partly how I make my living after all.) So, if you're worried about ending up like the poor souls who let a relatively big typo slip by their eyes, indulge and absorb yourself of my proofreading advice below.

1. For the Love of God and Kittens, Use Spell Check On Every Single Thing You Write
Your computer's spell check is not perfect, but that doesn't matter. Spell check is where your proofreading starts on every bit of copy you write. It doesn't matter if you're working in a word processor or not. Take the text you write, copy and paste it into Word or TextEdit or whatever, then look for the red squiggly lines. If there are red squiggly lines, either you or your computer is dumb. Figure out which of you it is, then make the necessary corrections. Green squiggly lines also aren't good, so you should look at correcting those as well.

I can't tell you the amount of third-party copy I look at every day that obviously hasn't been spell-checked. It's horrendous because it takes roughly two clicks to spell-check something, and it's a really efficient and painless way to remove 9/10 of the errors from your piece. I'm not sure why more people don't do it, other than arrogance and gross sloth, but I think we can agree, those aren't palatable excuses. ("Sorry Mr. Client, I didn't proof that thing because I didn't feel like it, and also who cares?") So please, just spell-check every single line of copy you write. It takes like 4 seconds and you'll be surprised by the number of errors you catch.

2. Proofread in Pairs—Or Triplicate
Before a piece goes out, have two-to-three people proofread the copy. Even the strongest proofreader is fallible, so having extra eyes on something is an easy way to reduce your chances of an error slipping past. People get tired, careless or accidently miss stupid little mistakes all the time, but it's not usually the same error, hence the value of multiple proofers.

3. Keep a Hawk's Eye Over Art Changes
If I had to guess how the Missouri State Bag error happened, I'd say someone called for a font or text change last-minute, and no one bothered to check the new version. If my experience in the magazine business is any indication, this is how 4,000 percent of errors make it to print. It's so easy to trust your art person to make a small change without error, but it's also a preposterously easy way to get slammed with typos. Copy and pasting the wrong text, using an old file, or simply careless typing, there are so many ways an art change can go wrong, it's critical that you closely proofread after each one.

I'm not saying art people are careless or otherwise prone to error, I just mean that at the ends of projects, where people are getting tired and rushed, that's where mistakes start happening. So it's not an art-person thing, it's a deadline-stress/fatigue thing. It's just human error, there's a chance for it in everything we do, which is why every art change should be thoroughly proofed, even the simplest, smallest change.

That's it for this week guys! Thanks for reading and see you all next week!

Like my blog? Why not follow PM on Twitter or Facebook (or just me on RSS or LinkedIn) so you never miss a post? Thanks!

Monday Mike Fact: Saw Skyfall over the weekend. It was awful, a weird mix of The Dark Knight and Home Alone. I'm sure that sounds awesome, but in actuality it was terrible, boring and embarrassing. A man is eaten by a CGI komodo dragon in a busy casino, and no one reacts, screams or even says "hey, uh, did that security guy just get eaten? Maybe we should tell someone? Like a manager or a doctor or something?" Nope! Just keep playing craps and let James Bond happily walk out with a huge briefcase of money! Makes perfect sense, and by perfect sense, I mean I should have rented Wreck-it Ralph.
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COMMENTS

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Most Recent Comments:
Jerry Duke - Posted on February 19, 2013
What I don't understand is how could they have gotten half the order right and the other half wrong. Looks like someone caught the error and fixed it., but why didn't they stop right there and fix the entire order? This order doesn't pass the smell test.
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Archived Comments:
Jerry Duke - Posted on February 19, 2013
What I don't understand is how could they have gotten half the order right and the other half wrong. Looks like someone caught the error and fixed it., but why didn't they stop right there and fix the entire order? This order doesn't pass the smell test.