Here at Hammock we’re always looking for ways to improve a magazine’s workflow, and we’re keen to use the latest technologies toward that goal. As part of that emphasis, we’ve moved most of our clients to virtual proofing of design and ad pages, an approval process that’s a big improvement over the traditional proof approval process. It’s not only a faster, more convenient and money-saving practice to look at pages on a screen, but the quality of digital proofs has become just as good as that of hard, analog proofs.

Razorfish releases their 2009 Digital Outlook Report

With their annual report, Razorfish, the “agency for marketing, experience and enterprise design” shares their perspective on the year ahead in digital media. At 160 pages, along with their trend predictions for the year, the report is packed with information on how digital ad spending was allocated for Razorfish clients in 2008. Here are some of my favorite highlights from the report:

• Social advertising will grow up.
  Display advertising in the broader Web, too, will become more social, as linking display advertising to forms of social marketing — like blogger outreach, social credits, engagement programs and widgets that let you mix in your own content— become more important. However, there are no guarantees that this will be completely figured out within the course of the year.
• Social influence research will become more important than social measurement.
  Do you want to know how? By focusing on meaning rather than measurement. To think in terms of social as a channel that should be measured like TV, print, radio or digital is missing the point. Instead, the greatest value in social for marketers will be in the real-time insights it provides. Razorfish calls this Social Influence Research and it is going to drive marketing campaigns, product development and customer service programs. There will be an evolution from measuring sentiment to understanding opinion and synchronizing it with the Net Promoter scores. Why? Because marketers care about opinion much more than they do about sentiment.
• Emerging media will not kill advertising but change it forever.
  The digitization of media has empowered people with complete control over their media consumption; they are able to watch, read or listen to whatever they want whenever they want, and that typically includes advertising. Efforts to force attention to ads without providing value will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes, challenging traditional ad models.

  Digital is impacting more than what you might typically describe as “media” — it has created entirely new channels and continues to radically blur the line between the real and the virtual worlds. New, immersive experiences leveraging incredible human-computer interaction models have leaped from the pages of science fiction novels and become reality. Taken together, these trends are NOT killing advertising. They are simply changing its role. According to the report, advertising is now less about reach and less about changing attitudes but about more engaging experiences, which leverage new digital capabilities to deliver value to the audiences that interact with them. It’s about marketer making themselves useful, plain and simple.

We like to stay on the leading edge of the curve when it comes to technology, social media, publishing, business and so much more. So when dates are announced for SXSWi each year, we don’t pencil it into our calendar–we write it in huge letters in permanent marker!

An exclusive interview with Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.) headlines the March-April issue of the Marine Corps League’s magazine Semper Fi, which we publish for the League. Gen. Zinni, who many believe was a strong candidate to command the Corps before he retired in 2001, is widely respected for speaking his mind even when his opinions run contrary to those of Marine and White House doctrine.

Most of us are in a constant and fierce battle–with our email. The daily grind leaves us weary and frustrated. No need to fret though because help is here! Read these quick email tips from the New York Times. They’re super simple and will get you on the path to an organized in-box in a matter of hours!

Soon (though not soon enough), winter weather will start to disappear and spring will be ushered in by budding plants and flowers and, for the green thumbs among us, the first hints of a garden. We thought it appropriate to kick off American Spirit‘s March/April issue with a feature on growing a heritage garden. Maureen Taylor investigates the significance of Colonial-era flower gardens and provides steps to help amateur gardeners create a modern version of an 18th-century garden in their own backyard.

Not long ago, my office phone rang. As I reached to answer it, I looked at the caller-ID screen to see if it named the caller. It read, “Hugh OBrian.” As I picked up the receiver and said hello, my brain went into overdrive trying to process that tantalizingly familiar name. It was still churning when a rich baritone on the other end said, “This is Hugh O’Brian. You may remember me …”

It was the voice that did it, that supplied the missing link and snapped me back across nearly 50 years to my folks’ black-and-white console TV, and evenings spent enjoying the still-novel form of home entertainment.

Westerns were very popular, and like most every 9-year-old boy, I was fascinated with the tales of very good people vs. very bad ones. One of the most popular shows was “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp,” and Hugh O’Brian had been the Dodge City marshall himself.

Resplendent in a satin vest, black hat and immaculate white shirt and tie, his Earp embodied the essence of a tough, yet compassionate lawman trying to clean up a lawless land. He even packed a special 6-shooter, a long-barreled beauty called The Buntline Special, which in those early days of merchandising a popular show was available in various toy forms, including a plastic model kit that I labored over.

The series ran 7 years, from 1955-61; years later, when Kevin Costner and then Val Kilmer played Earp, I was indignant at their tarnished hero portrayals.

So why was Marshall Earp – sorry, Hugh O’Brian – calling me?

Turns out he was a Marine, and something of a legend in the Corps. As his bio puts it “O’ Brian enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17. He became the youngest drill instructor in the Corps’ history, and during his four year service won a coveted Fleet appointment to The Naval Academy. After passing the entrance exams, he declined the appointment, intending to enroll at Yale to study law.” Instead of law, he wound up in acting, and enjoyed a long and productive career.

Imbued with the Marine’s ethos of service and helping others, in 1958 he founded the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) foundation, a non-profit organization that helps “inspire and develop our global community of youth and volunteers to a life dedicated to leadership, service and innovation.” Semper Fi, the magazine we produce for the Marine Corps League, had never had an article about HOBY and he thought we might be interested.

After I finished babbling – reverting to the 9-year-old dispatching bad guys with his black plastic Buntline Special, like Ralphie with his Red Ryder Rifle in Christmas Story – I assured him we would be. And will do so very soon – what, you think I’d mislead Marshal Earp?