This year, I’m thankful for all of the alternatives to Twitter.
Leaving the office for Thanksgiving break. And I will be thankful on Monday that I left myself a detailed to-do list of everything I need to knock out next week so I can hit the ground running.
Years ago, I had a professor who discouraged the use of “non-profit” and preferred “not-for-profit.” Her logic was that the goal of a not-for-profit organization was the mission, not the profits. But that didn’t mean there weren’t profits. Most large non-profits are, indeed, profitable.
I’ve been involved in many non-profits over the years. And many of the boards I’ve been a part of try to run the non-profit like a for-profit businesses. The tension between fulfilling the mission and keeping the lights on is real, and the only background most of us have is rooted in business.
I watched the most insane high school football playoff game last night. The final score was 68-53. The running back on the losing team was essentially unstoppable and had eight touchdowns and 306 yards rushing. My nephew’s team just kept scoring, though. On to the next round of the playoffs.
Completed: All Souls Lost by Dan Moren 📚 Fun paranormal detective story with side of tech. Great work, @dmoren@zeppelin.flights. I hope to see more of these characters.
We’ve reached the point in the fall in South Carolina when it’s cold in the morning and warm in the afternoon… which also means that my son leaves his jacket at school in the afternoon, and doesn’t have it when he needs it the next morning. 🤦♂️
South Carolina Women’s Basketball starts the season by dropping 100 and 114 on Top 25 competition. They lost their entire starting lineup to graduation last year including the WNBA Rookie of the Year… and somehow got better offensively?
Over a decade ago, some Petsmart employee typed my name into their system as “Bub.” So every time I go to check out, the well-trained cashier enthusiastically greets me by name: “Welcome back, Bub!” And I start laughing.
(They’ve offered to change it, but I won’t let them.)
I think one of the reasons I’m skeptical about generative AI is that every other thing the VC-obsessed tech world has been hyped about for the last decade or so has been underwhelming.
South Carolina’s new look women’s basketball team looks ready to pick up where the last team left off.
Social media was misnamed. We should have called it “comment media.” People are more interested in sharing their take than building relationships.
Took today off to work on some classwork and recover from the chaos over the past couple of weeks.
I watched tonight’s Apple event and followed commentary on Threads and Micro.Blog (where I follow some Mastodon users). No Twitter, and you know what… I didn’t miss it. Live events were the last place that I felt like I needed to log into Twitter for extra info. Guess I’m over that.
I’m reading some PR readings for class and the acronyms keep tripping me up. To me, CSR is “customer service representative,” not “corporate social responsibility.” Likewise, I read CSA as “community-supported agriculture” and not “corporate social advocacy.”
The leaves in our backyard are starting to fall.
I’ve never really been into crosswords, but I’m enjoying the Apple News+ puzzles. I’ve pretty much added it to my daily routine each morning.
Ryan’s last two lacrosse games for this season were earlier today. He’s been a goalie for a year-and-a-half now and he’s gotten pretty good, expecially since he’s just 11. It takes a special mentality to stand in there, shot after shot. If you notice in the image above, the ball is in the right side of the image flying toward him. Don’t worry, he saved that one.
I wasn’t sure he was going to play this season. He had a rough experience this summer, playing up two age levels against elite travel competition and it was a disaster. His confidence was obliterated and his body took a beating. His coaches admitted they were worried he was done after the experience. He put his stick in the corner when we got home from the last tournament and it stayed there, untouched, until about a week before the fall rec season. With the sign up deadline approaching, we talked and he decided to try again and see if he could get back in the groove. He really does enjoy playing and especially being part of a team. The result: He went 9-1 on the season and continued to get better and learn his position.
I don’t know how long he’ll keep playing. He’s looking forward to trying out for the JV team in a little over a year, so that’s his next goal. But however long he decides to stick with it, I’m immensely proud of his determination and resilience.
Social media is history — just ask the kids!
The kids have moved on from the “social media” as we know it. They have their own platforms and their own behaviors.
If you ever think we know how the world works, read an article on quantum physics (Apple News+) and revel in how little we know about the building blocks of our universe.
Barnes & Noble Undergoes a Back-to-Basics Redesign - The New York Times:
Mr. Daunt has demonstrated that consistency doesn’t rank very high on his priority list. New York City has nine Barnes & Noble stores featuring four different logos above the front doors.
I went to the UCDA conference this weekend. (University and College Designers Association.) I drove to Atlanta on Friday night, attended sessions Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Returned to Columbia Monday night. I may be creatively recharged, but I’m straight up exhausted.
Saw lots of electric cars on my trip to Atlanta this weekend including a Lucid Air. First time I’ve ever seen one. It looked really impressive.
At my son’s lacrosse game today and a family’s dog came onto the field and attacked one of the players when the play came close to the sideline. The kid had to go to the ER and get stitches.
I know people love to take their dogs everywhere, but maybe they shouldn’t…
Milestone: My first published research paper is now online
I’ve reached a big milestone in my academic career: my first published research paper.
Brand new: How visual context shapes initial response to logos and corporate visual identity systems has bene published in the Journal of Product and Brand Management. It’s available now online and will eventually be assigned to an issue. If you have access to journal articles through a university or public library, you can access the article.
If you can’t access the article, here’s the abstract:
When a new logo is released, it does not have an established meaning in the mind of the viewer. As logos have become more highly scrutinized by consumers and critics, it has become more important to understand viewers’ initial response to logos. While other studies have researched the impact of aesthetic choices on viewer reaction to logos, this study aims to understand the effect of the surrounding visual identity system when a new logo is introduced. This study combines a content analysis of 335 posts on the logo review website Brand New with the voting data from their polls to understand how visual context correlates with a viewer’s initial response. Increased amounts of visual context correlate to an improved response from viewers. Different types of context that can be presented – from logo variations and environmental examples to videos and animation – have varied effects.
Basically, my study finds that people respond better to new logos when they are shown more examples of the logo in use. This is one of those things that seems intuitive to designers, but hasn’t been researched or quantified. Because I’m a designer, most people are surprised that my research includes a fair amount of statistical analysis, but I’ve really taken to the quantitive side of things. This paper has been in review for over a year, working it’s way through the revision process.
It’s fitting that this is my first paper to be published. When I started grad school, I didn’t really know anything about scholarly research. In the spring of 2019 — my second semester as a grad student — I took a content analysis class with Carol Pardun. I was the only master’s level student in a class full of Ph.D. students. I felt so overwhelmed by the pressure to come up with an idea and learn methods and theories on the fly. The paper I wrote for that class was the first version of this paper. It was accepted to the AEJMC Conference that August and I presented in Toronto — my first academic conference presentation. I loved the concept for the study and got great feedback, but I was still learning and felt like I could improve it. I scrapped everything, started over with a larger sample and better methodology. After Dr. Pardun retired, I started working with Tara Mortensen on the next evolution of this work, which turned into my thesis. And that thesis eventually became this paper.
Thanks go out to so many people who’ve help me along the way:
- Dr. Pardun for supporting my bizarre little project, especially in the early days when the project was taking shape.
- All of the Ph.D. students in that content analysis class who helped me figure things out and took me under their wing.
- Dr. Mortensen for taking over as my thesis director and helping guide me through the publication process.
- Kevin Hull and Van Kornegay for serving on my committee and providing helpful feedback.
- Robert McKeever and Jacob Long for giving me an appropriate foundation for analyzing data.
- Editor Cleopatra Veloutsou who guided me through the process with the Journal of Product and Brand Management.
- All of the reviewers and discussants at the conference level for AEJMC and in the peer review process whose feedback legitimately made this paper better.
And of course, this couldn’t have happened without the rest of Team Wertz. Liz and the kids have been so supportive and patient while I have embarked on this grad school journey. (And occasionally, Norah and Jill even joined me at Starbucks when I had to write.) I simply could not have done it without them.
I’ve still got a few years left until I finish my classwork and dissertation, but I’m exceptionally proud of this milestone and excited to see where my research goes next.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.