For the past couple of months, McIsaac and I have been working on rekindling past relationships, introducing ourselves in the hopes of making some new ones, as well as working to burrow deeper within the organizations with whom we're already working. It's a simple strategy, really. And yet with the state of this economy and what seems to be a collective inhale among marketers during a period of elongated crises—subprime mortgages, climate change, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran(?), the coming election race between two presumed candidates—we have, understandably, tweaked our approach a bit.
On at least one occasion in this publication, McIsaac has referred to our considerable opinion. Anyone who has sat down with us for a drink certainly recognizes that there is no shortage (of opinion) from either of us. Fact is, while our comments at very least entertain us, we're just working it out to see what sticks. The form that our utterances take varies, of course, depending on audience; whether during a new business meeting or a quip from the stage at Jimmy Mak's. But as with an initial logo sketch, we're simply testing the boundaries of what might work. During a recent e-mail exchange with the esteemed English designer Mike Dempsey, regarding the Web as the ideal platform for expressing opinion, he replied, "I have realised that I have over forty years of stuff in my head to upload." And while we're a few years, and a considerable number of quality projects behind the pace of Mr. Dempsey, that's basically been our recent sentiment as well. Share what you see, share what you know (or what you want to know), and see what happens.
The social networks are certainly gaining traction for our little efforts, at least among the folks we know. Basically, it's doing what we've always done in one form or another. Writing, talking, and a fair amount of doing. Before the Weblog, our writing most often took the shape of a proposal, or one of my 3,000 word e-mail missives. For Pinch, now it's about Bespoke, mixed in with a bit of Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and a hint of Facebook. We drop the occasional Spam and continue to work on filling out the holes in the Pinch site. Results have been as billed; work at it and good things will come. They have. Our rankings for the term "pinch" (note lowercase and general reference, sans "A Design Office") consistently rank in Google's top eight listing (front page), and our position swells when we actively publish. Previously, you wouldn't have found us on the first 50 pages unless you typed Pinch. A Design Office., and that was a snipe hunt.
Last week, I sat in on a roundtable discussion at Office PDX. The subject was focused on a related topic; "how" to get ink (or pixels) for one's design firm or project, as well as "what" the process is and "who" the decision makers are. Panelists included Shanon Lyon of HOW Magazine; Randy Gragg of Portland Spaces magazine; Marjorie Skinner of The Portland Mercury; Lisa Radon of Ultra; and Mike Merrill of Urban Honking. The premise, I thought, was interesting and everyone was certainly agreeable. Perhaps too much so. After all, promoting our efforts is exactly what we have been working on. Upon conclusion, I came away with three useful (and somewhat foreseeable) bits: (1) Pitch your idea and make sure I (knowing panelist) think it's awesome; (2) Don't make me (knowing panelist) work too hard; (3) Keep trying, I (knowing panelist) might get back to you. Following the discussion I turned to my friend, Anthony Georgis, the very talented local shooter, and asked whether he found any of this particularly valuable. Without hesitation, Tony replied, "it's all valuable" and quickly cornered one of the panelists. I assumed he was pitching, that sly fox.
Turns out that McLuhan's light bulb concept was at least partly correct; the medium is the message. The biggest challenge for us remains one of continuing to cut through the clutter. We're humbled that it seems to be working. That we're working.