When Senior Editor Lena Anthony isn’t training for a marathon or picking up “most photogenic” honors from a host of different places, you can find her at her desk plugging away on the next MyBusiness magazine. I caught up with her this afternoon for a few minutes of her time. And a Clif bar.
What do you reach for when you need an afternoon pick-me-up?
I always pack a Clif Z-Bar for the afternoon. The packaging says it’s made for kids, but I’m pretty sure they meant kids and Lena. I’d seriously jump off a cliff if Clif stopped making them. Get it?
Do you doodle while on the phone or in meetings?
I don’t doodle on the phone but I often find myself jazzing up the letters at the top of a meeting agenda. In a weird way, I think it keeps me focused.
What communications medium helps you the most during the day?
E-mail, e-mail, e-mail, did I mention e-mail? It also creates an organized paper trail for those times when I’m drawing a complete blank on something, which leads me to the next question…
How do you refocus if you’re having trouble concentrating or getting the creativity flowing?
Knocking out a mindless task helps me refocus. So does refilling my water glass. Or telling Jamie a knock-knock joke. I’ve also figured out that some days just aren’t meant for creativity, and that’s OK. And then some days it’s like, “Whoa, brain, where are these awesome headlines coming from?!”
What is the last thing you do before leaving the office each evening?
I don’t have an end-of-day ritual, although I guess it should be “turn off my computer.” I read somewhere that would save gobs of money and energy. It would probably also give my computer fan a rest.
With so many outdoor buffs at Hammock, it’s easy to catch spring fever around here. Now that the sun is shining and the weather is warm, we’re all fighting the temptation to spend every waking minute outside (I write as I gaze wistfully out my office window). As soon as it’s quitting time, many of us head straight for the trails, lake, garden, etc.; in fact, some of us are even taking up new outdoor hobbies. So, what can you find us doing?
Graphic Designer Lynne Boyer is often one of the first Hammock team members in the office each morning. On a typical day in the office, she stays busy designing and collaborating with writers and editors, but I stole a moment of her time today to find out exactly what keeps her going each day.
What is the fist thing you do when you get to the office each morning?
Check e-mail and read the CNN headlines.
Which meal fuels you better for the day, breakfast or lunch?
Definitely lunch. Just taking a few minutes away from the office to fuel up and clear my head goes a lot further than a bowl of cereal.
What communications medium helps you the most during the day?
IM. So often I just need a quick answer from an editor. I get faster answers with instant messaging than via e-mail, and it doesn’t clog up my or my co-workers’ inboxes.
What’s your favorite non-electric tool you use for work?
The Pantone color swatch book and my “reporter’s notebook” with many random facts and numbers.
What is your favorite on-the-job responsibility?
Feature design is the most challenging and fun part of being a designer at Hammock. It’s more free-form than working on recurring sections (departments) which follow a specific structure each issue. Type, photography and color are open for interpretation. It’s a great feeling when you can get all three to work together and complement the writer’s words, hopefully crafting a clear and visually interesting message.
Thanks, Lynne. IM me later!
With exactly 33 days until the Country Music Half Marathon and a long run of only seven miles under my belt, I need to start focusing on things other than how in the world I’m going to perform on April 25. That’s why I got super excited when a course change was announced last week.
Let’s just say there will be a portion of the race where I’ll be two-stepping, instead of running. That’s right, this year we’re going down Lower Broadway, past all the honky tonks!
Anyone who’s driven down Lower Broad in the daylight knows that the honky tonks blast music all hours of the day, so I can only imagine what they’ll do when 45,000 people run, walk or two-step down the street.
Race organizers say in addition to making the course more interesting and scenic, the change will help alleviate some of the congestion on the course up ahead. And I think it will probably bring out more spectators, as well.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Are you wearing your green? Many of us here at Hammock are. While we may not all have Irish ancestors in our family tree, we love any excuse to get together with friends and family and indulge in good food, drink and stories—which is exactly how many of us like to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Though we tend to associate the day with green beer, pub crawls and corned beef and cabbage rather than the 5th-century Christian missionary for whom it is named, the holiday has a long and rich tradition in America.
With less than seven weeks to go until the Country Music Half Marathon that Jamie, John and I are running (and probably walking for at least a few minutes), it’s the perfect time to reflect on what motivates us to take that next step on a training run or finish our early-morning walks (and by our, I mean Kerri Davis’). For most of us, it’s music. Here’s what’s on our iPods:
Great, now I want a piña colada.
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?
Four Tips for Making Content Work Online
Some may think that writing is writing. But truth be told, writing for the web is different from writing for a children’s book or for a magazine. Research shows that web readers want fast and easy information, in a format that is easy to digest. Here are a few things we keep in mind when we write specifically for online audiences for our clients or ourselves:
As a group, we’re big movie buffs here at Hammock. We often end our Monday morning staff meeting with our latest reviews of which movies we saw over the weekend. Our own Jamie Roberts in the last year has even seen AFI’s list top 100 films. Most of don’t have quite that depth of background in film history under our belts, but we still like to share our picks for Oscar. When I asked my co-workers who they’ll be rooting for on Sunday night, this is what they shared:
Organizations like yours are likely extraordinary at a couple of things: providing a service, manufacturing a product, building advocacy or creating value in any number of ways. Is publishing and managing media one of those things that you do better than anyone else?
It’s not just a matter of identifying your core competency. It’s a matter of cost.
Here are five ways working with a custom media company will save you money: