Morawski & Company Business Development for a Left Brain World Through Social Media

Nobody told me I was a 501(c)3 Business

Commercial photography is supposedly a for profit endeavor. And on a good day it is. Alas, there have always been far too many days when I've suspected that there might not be as much profit in the words, FOR PROFIT, as I would like.  A 501(c)3 company, on the other hand, is a NOT FOR PROFIT Corporation.  Charities are a perfect example. The last time I looked at my tax form the box for charity was not checked.

I received an email from an experienced advertising professional recently. She is an Art Buyer at a major agency here in town and was sourcing photos for a project. The agency is developing a poster for their client to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of a major customer of the client.  They are going to need a ton of photographs. Perhaps, they’ll need as many as 100, if they want one for each year. You get my drift. It’s big.

This was a lengthy, 6 paragraph email, that talked about all the effort being put into the project. Intimating how the agency was putting the “full court press” on to complete the project successfully. Then someone had an idea! Let’s reach out to the local photographic community. They were positive that the studios and photographers all had hundreds of available photographs in their archives.

Buried in the 3rd paragraph was the last sentence which concluded with, “and unfortunately will not be able to pay any usage to the photographer.” No usage fee? RUT-ROW! No research fee? Huh? No credit line? You can’t be serious? Say it isn’t so Joe, err…Josephine.

Unfortunately she was serious. Of course, if I had a long-standing relationship with this client I might think differently. Or, if I had a long standing relationship with the buyer that could also affect my opinion. But I don’t and neither do any of my photographers. As it is, I’m just embarrassed for her.

Now, I think it’s time to go make the doughnuts.

Cheers,

Mike
Chief Instigation Officer

Step away from that job.

 
Usually the folks in the Ad biz say let's make junk food look healthy. This time it's let's make carrots look like Doritos. This is going to be a great case study that will play out this year. And if you are the competitor to Bolthouse farms, would you participate in sharing the campaign expenses (like the Dairy Producers Assoc. etc.)? On one hand if it flops they haven't spent a nickel. And if it is successfull, they'll get a lot of the benefit and still not spent a nickel. Seems to me the Bolthouse CEO will have an uphill battle to convince them to share the expense.

Inc Magazine asks the question, Would you know when to step away? Buried deep in this interview with Ron Gonen, the founder of Recyclebank, a clean-tech company that provides coupon incentives and rewards for recycling and profits from cities putting less in landfills, is a gem on knowing when to leave your company in other hands. Gonen tells the Wall Street Journal:

"I had this night where I was 35 and it was midnight. I was the last person in the office, and I'd been the first person in the office. I'd bought an apartment the year before. There was no furniture in the apartment. I had been doing this for six years, and I realized I could easily turn around five years from now and still be in the office and my apartment would still be unfurnished. I had gotten to a point where I was starting to lose perspective."

Finally, are you still puzzled by Final Cut Pro wookie? Afraid to ask questions? Looking for help other than in the tutorials on Apple's web site? Relax. CreativeLive has a class on it tonight. Check out their FREE Course: Introduction to Final Cut for DSLR Video. It's tonight and I'm pretty sure class starts at 3PM west coast.

Cheers
Mike Morawski
Chief Instigation Officer

Weekend Stuff- Zite, Space, Wallaby and 50 Greatest

I'm trying out a new iPad app called Zite. Anybody else out there tried it? Let me know if you like it. Still think you can't shoot videos? Saw this on altpick the other day. Check out Space by Kristofer Dan-Bergman. I'm a bit confused though. The article treated it as if it were new but the posting date on Vimeo said it was a year ago. Oh well, doesn't matter. It's very fun, shot with stills and then edited to music. Might be a touch long but then that's just my opinion. 

Lots of people make a big deal out of Flash not being able to be played on the iPhone and iPad. They rally at how unfair it is for Apple to deny Adobe access to the platform. Doh! Of course they won't allow access and maybe not ever. The animosity between these two companies goes waaaay back. At least 10-12 years when Flash and QuickTime vied for web dominance as the rich media platform du jour. Adobe won and Apple is making them suffer now. Wallaby is an experimental technology from Adobe that converts Flash files into HTML5 code. Is there hope that I can watch Hulu on my iPad?

It's too early to watch March Madness. I don't know if they will still have the Doral Open on TV as most of it seemed to blow away in the storms the other day.

 

So if you want to watch something really fun checkout The 50 Greatest Opening Title Sequences of All Time. It gives credit to the finest opening credits ever made in film.

Have a great weekend

Cheers
Mike Morawski
VP of GO

Be a Thanksgiving Economic Indicator

Thanksgiving. It's a great time of year filled with so many fond memories. But, when you're sitting around the table and the conversation eventually drifts to business, it is very easy to slide into a game of one-upmanship...or rather downmanship. "Well, if you think your business is bad you should hear what happened to Uncle Jim's job and company". Etc., Etc. You get the drift.

My firend, Charlie Wollborg loves Thanksgiving. He posted this video on how we can each be a Thanksgiving Economic Indicator. Watch.

IT"S THANKSGIVING! Have a great day. Remember the glass is half full and legends are not made when times are good. If that was the case, anybody could be a legend.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Mike Morawski

Chief Turkey Carver