Walldren’s World

Will Eisner, for whom the industry’s “Eisner Awards” are named, imparts his wisdom on how “comics” work as a cross-medium of words and art to educate and entertain.

Providing great examples of his main points through his own and others’ work, this book really hammers home the key points of storytelling. The editors of this edition did a great job cleaning up and presenting the examples making it a quick and easy-to-digest read.

I felt the last fifth of the book seemed padded, but it was definitely worth the read – and the purchase. I intend to come back to this book again and again as I work on my own storytelling and illustrations.

Yet another idea of mine for a children’s story: St. Abominable’s Home for Abandoned Snowmen. Of course, this was inspired by Bill Watterson’s indefatigable Calvin & Hobbes. What happened to all those childhood snowmen in the permanent winter of remembered youth? They must go somewhere.

St Abominable's Home for Abandoned Snowmen

SM Trends published an article of mine this week, Are You Paying More Attention to Paid Search in 2010?, in which I discuss the importance of this vital part of any advertising portfolio. Whether you’re a rookie to Search and want to understand what makes Search Marketing different from Radio, TV, and Print – or a seasoned veteran – please give my article a read and let me know what other topics about which you’d be interested in reading more.

We Wear the Mask

By Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Published this week in Search Marketing Trends Issue #147 is my most recent article: a review of “Nudge’ and its applicability to the wonderful world of marketing.

In their recent book, University of Chicago professors Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein argue that humans’ decisions are not made freely.  We (and our customers) are captives of circumstance. The context in which one makes a decision always shapes one’s choices.  Why do we choose the paths we do?  Is there a Wizard or Witch of Oz behind the curtain manipulating the fabric of the universe to lead our customers down the Yellow Brick Road to our Thank You pages?  Yes—and no.

To read the full article, please follow this link.

Thanks for reading!

You can read me in this week’s edition of Search Marketing Trends where I discuss Google’s new “Do More with Less” section and its useful (and mostly free) tools for those of you interested in web marketing and metrics.

Let me know what you think of the article. 

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Google’s Search Based Keyword Tool which is a great tool to examine your keyword strategies – be they organic or paid.

If you have any topics of interest you’d recommend I tackle, leave me a comment!