Who can remember the “Olden Days” when you couldn’t look up the Prime Minister of Tuvalu? (To save you the time, it’s Apisai Ielemia.) You now have access to a world of facts and opinions. It is so easy to get lost in a sea of information and contradictory rhetoric. The question today is how to acquire relevant information without having to sift through mountains of irrelevant content.

In steps the blogger.

The blogger serves as an information gatherer and micromanager. You can look for the smaller subjects you are interested in on a daily, granular basis. You don’t have to wait for a news giant to get around to the stories you are interested in. If you are interested in keeping up with technology you can check blogs like:

http://www.macrumors.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
http://www.arstechnica.com/

If your thing is keeping up with the latest in the Marketing/Advertising world:

http://www.brandfreak.com
http://www.adweek.com
http://www.brandweek.com

Or for a leap into the deep end of the weirdo pool:

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com
http://www.freakingnews.com/Celebrities-Upside-Down-Pictures–2433.asp
http://www.cowabduction.com/
http://www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

The point is that whatever you are interested in is there for you. There are so many options, like bookmarking, RSS feeds and search engine home page bookmarking, that you can get your information fix when you are ready for it — without having to wait for the 5:30 news.

It is sometimes tough not to get flooded by information. With a little research, blogging can function as a release valve that allows us to pre-filter the information we need. By publishing (ahem) relevant content, bloggers allow us to save time and free our days a little so we can do what we do best.

Welcome back for another episode of Side Stitch! Here we follow a young design pair from initial campus crush to the Request for Proposal (RFP), seeing all the adorableness and designer in-jokes in between.

I started concepting the story after I thought of the RFP/marriage kicker. I tried to think of a bunch of design-related situations in which to put the couple. The challenge wasn’t to try and squeeze in as much design references as possible (that was the easy part), but to illustrate two people falling in love in a very finite number of panels. So we see them working together to ace their design final, the initial inquiry to a first date, bonding over the industry’s beloved design annuals, starting their own design studio, painting a house, adopting their own pet and, finally, proposing marriage.

I put a lot of heart into this comic, so I hope it shows, haha. Please feel free to link this comic to your designer friends. Or account execs. Or, really, anyone who might get that RFP joke, haha.

Thanks!
-burt

Note: To view at a larger size, please click on the image and make the browser window as large as you can.

As a lifelong Louisiana resident, I have this unfortunate tendency to gaze right through the inherently amazing. Festivals come and go while Cajun and Zydeco music echoes through my neighborhood on a near daily basis. I’m not immune to it all. Heck, I’m a great dancer. It’s just that I just don’t stop to consider its role in my community all that often.

The truth is ours is a culture worth celebrating — because ours is a culture of celebration. In any other region, our routines would be considered anything but routine. And I’m thankful for every passing reminder of that.

Take, for example, the latest documentary from locals Conni Castille and Allison Bohl. You can view the trailer below.

King Crawfish - Official Trailer from Allison Bohl on Vimeo.

From the film’s official release: In King Crawfish the Cajun spirit gets poured out on a communal table, even as the wild harvest is diminishing. At the [Breaux Bridge Crawfish] Festival, everything Cajuns value takes to the stage — their language, their music, their food, their dance, and their crawfish. Thousands of pounds of crawfish get served up at the festival, much of it coming from their natural habitat, the Atchafalaya Basin. But, as the film traces the crustacean from festival to Basin, it finds fishermen fighting to retain their way of life in one small fishing community.

Produced by UL Lafayette’s Cinematic Arts Workshop, King Crawfish marks Castille and Bohl’s third Acadiana-centric documentary released since 2007. Previous, well-received offerings included the award-winning I Always Do My Collars First and Raised on Rice & Gravy. Each painted an endearing portrait of the people, places and practices that we all could stand to stop, if only for a moment, to simply admire.

King Crawfish, with a special introduction by National Geographic Explorer Jon Bowermaster, will debut 7 p.m. Thursday, June 24, at the Bayou Bijou Theater in the UL Lafayette Student Union, 600 McKinley St. Admission is free. For more information, call (337) 277-5292, or e-mail connicastille@gmail.com. Check this space for updates to future showings.

You probably know where this blog is going. And it’s not about branding or marketing. Yes, I’m talking about the man-made disaster in the Gulf. My brief history is to give you my perspective. The oil and gas industry is the driving force of Louisiana’s economy. It is important and without it thousands of families and businesses, including BBR, would take the hit. On the other hand, the Gulf bounty also serves to fulfill the livelihoods and adventurous sides of hundreds — fishermen, oystermen and tourism. And I would be remiss not to mention the fragile ecosystem.

So it’s hard for me to take the position of pro-this and anti-that when my entire life has been greatly impacted by both industries. I am appreciative and thankful for both. (I will state, however, that I am pro-contingency plan!)

This blog is to give you an avenue to help.

I have reached the point where I cannot watch the news. I cannot click on another link to view a suffering, oil-drenched pelican. Water-cooler discussions infuriate me. So when I got a call from Gulf Aid Acadiana co-founder Valerie Gonsoulin asking me to attend a planning meeting, I readily obliged. I just needed to help any way that I could.

Gulf Aid Acadiana, is a community response to the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling catastrophe. Founded by friends Valerie Gonsoulin, Todd Mouton and Zachary Richard for their Louisiana friends, Gulf Aid Acadiana’s mission is to assist fisherman and their families and to help rebuild the ecosystem in the future. The fisherman live on meager earnings — and the catastrophe we face stands to ruin their lives. Gulf Aid Acadiana was founded to help them survive.

Zachary so eloquently stated the purpose of Gulf Aid Acadiana in a June 2 blog post on his website: “We hope to contribute to the restoration of the coast by raising funds and raising consciousness. I am not sure how we will achieve our goals. No one has any experience with anything of this nature. We are obliged to create this project out of nothing except our sincere desire to help the people of Louisiana overcome the tremendous hardship which they face and to restore the wetlands and the communities which depend upon them.”

Gulf Aid Acadiana’s purpose is not political — they simply want to help. I invite you to do the same by visiting gulfaidacadiana.org and making a donation. The BP disaster is pretty much out of our hands. But the ability to help those most directly affected lies right at our fingertips.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

While I do not always stop and relish career accomplishments, my kids know that “mom likes to make memories.” I strongly believe that it is important to create memories, because in the end, memories are the only thing we take with us through life and the most important thing that we leave behind when we die. So I try to plan vacations, family events and celebrations with those I love to create traditions and memories that will hopefully last long after I am gone.

Cathi, Sara and I have been building this business together since 1997. I have come to love them as sisters. I love their children and they love mine. Together we have six daughters and one son (mine, Jacob, who is grown and living in South Africa). The year we began BBR Creative, my daughter Jamie, began kindergarten. I think about how far she’s come, how much she’s learned and grown since that time. It’s miraculous to watch a little person grow into a mature, thoughtful, intelligent, independent young woman. Last Friday, Jamie graduated from high school. She is my youngest child and will soon be leaving for LSU. A milestone in her life as well as mine.

Above: Jamie Hebert happy with her gift of pearls.

Sara, Cathi and I began a tradition three years ago, when Sara’s oldest daughter, Rebecca graduated from high school. BBR honors the graduate with the gift of a piece of jewelry and invite all of the daughters to come together for a special dinner to celebrate. Rebecca graduated in 2008 and is studying nursing at UL, Lauren graduated in 2009 and is studying English at UL and Jamie is planning to attend LSU in the fall and is majoring in Public Relations. Sara’s teenage daughter, Catherine is on the debate team and keeps us laughing with her witty quips. Cathi’s youngest Annabelle creates art during dinner and forgets to eat and beautiful Lily is athletic, an honor student, demure and lovely – the epitome of a young lady. During these dinners, we laugh and toast and talk about hopes, dreams, plans and futures. The younger girls look up to the older girls and admire them. The older girls like the attention and special treatment. And we all feel good together – like we are part of a sisterhood or sorority. We relish in our womanhood — no matter our age. We share our love and celebrate life.

Above: Rebecca Ashy and Jamie Hebert

Above: Lily, Annabelle and Cathi Pavy

Above: Sara, Lauren and Catherine Ashy

The theme of celebration and tradition will be continuing well into next week, when we celebrate BBR’s 13th birthday with another group of people we love – our staff! We are closing the office early and all going to Karla Meche’s house for a pool party. We are going to put aside our deadlines for one afternoon and unwind, relax, play some pool volleyball and have fun together.

In keeping with the nature of our business, we’re busy creating….only this time it’s memories.

BBR has officially launched its online store! And we can think of no better way to kick things off than with a cool giveaway. That’s right! BBR is giving you a chance to win something FREE. All you have to do is check out our store, then leave a comment on this blog telling us what you liked best. That’s pretty much it!

If you want to up your chances at winning, there are a few ways to earn bonus entries — just be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry:

• Facebook “like” us — or remind us that you already like us.

• Tweet about #BBR and link to our online store. You can do this daily!

• And finally, if you really love us, blog about us and link to our giveaway

This giveaway will end on Friday, June 18, 2010.  Winner will be selected via random.org.

BBR store, BBR Facebook and BBR Twitter.

Here are a few examples of items in our store:

Before we begin, here are a few facts about Facebook:

• More than 400 million active users

• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

• Average user has 130 friends

• People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook

• There are over 160 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups and events)

• Average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events

• Average user creates 70 pieces of content each month

• More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

• Women age 55 and up are the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.

[Source: Facebook]

Wow. That’s what I think when I read those statistics. Facebook is the perfect new medium to add to a media buyer’s repertoire. It allows the advertiser to narrow down its target audience geographically, by gender, age and even interest.

What does this mean to the advertiser? It eliminates uncertainty with regard to your advertising dollars by allowing you total control of who and where your message is being received and for what time frame. You set the parameters, you set the run dates, you even set the daily budget you would like to spend and decide if you want that budget to be determined by impressions or click-throughs.

Facebook provides you with a detailed reporting of how your ads are progressing, which means you can keep track of your success. It also allows you to change your parameters during your run if you notice that you are not receiving as many impressions or click-throughs as you would deem appropriate. How does this happen?

Here are some of the things you need to be aware of — if you narrow the field down too small with likes and dislikes in your selection of your target audience, you could end up with too small of an audience. Fortunately, Facebook gives you the estimated reach on the right side of the screen as they relate to your selections. So you can know upfront how large your target audience is before beginning your campaign. Be aware of this in order to be more successful in your marketing efforts.

There are many advantages to advertising with Facebook, but the one downfall I have encountered is that the ad layouts are all identical without the option to place a creative ad that corresponds with a business’ other marketing efforts. There are no options; it is a 25-character headline, a small photo and then a 135-character body copy. Hopefully, Facebook will address this issue soon and then the marketing option of Facebook will be limitless.

It is hard to ignore the unprecedented oil spill affecting our coast at this moment. Whether you tune into the mainstream media or log onto a social media website like Facebook, it is not that uncommon to see or hear Louisianans expressing their — ahem — “distaste” for the public face of this disaster: British Petroleum.

What I, or you, feel about BP in particular (or the oil and gas industry in general) is not of any importance to this non-soapbox blog post. I have instead compiled a few opinions stated by PR professionals, media outlets and others on BP’s and others’ reactions to the spill. Notice the days these posts were made; over the semester, BP’s grade has sunk.

1) “BP, Toyota flunk damage control” - A fair assessment by Allison Linn of msnbc.com

2) A YouTube video of TJ Walker giving BP an F-

3) Patrick Kinney talks to NPR about the lost “Golden Hours” of the response

4) An interesting warning and Twitter Tracker of BP before and after the spill by Kathy Gill in the Moderate Voice Blog.

5) “Obama’s Katrina?” - Business Week article by Julianna Goldman

6) Finally, an article about how what marketers create today… might bite you later

If you want to know how I have graded BP, e-mail me. After all, a good PR professional likes to keep some of the news embargoed for later!