Serif Group

Welcome Home

By: > September 14th, 2017

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” — Raymond Lindquist

Serif Group Office Moves from Walton Avenue

photo by Shaun Ring

Our shared studio space with Shaun Ring Photography on Walton is no more. Moving our office wasn’t something we had planned, nor was it really on the radar. But sometimes it’s the unexpected that turns out to have been the best plan after all. Sure, the studio in Warehouse Block on Walton was amazing and incredibly cool, but this new space is coming together. It feels just right, feels like home.

Because it is. Our office is now located in the Hartland neighborhood off Tates Creek Road, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. There was a bit of an uneasy feeling to leave behind the space that we had been so comfortable in for the past five years. It was more than concrete flooring, exposed beams, and swiveling barn doors. The space was dreamy and airy. Make no mistake clients, strangers, and friends felt the energy when they walked in.

The new office was put together by our friend, Wendy, and is 100% Serif Group. A business that started out of a home 17 years ago has circled back to a new home. You’ll find us older, wiser, yet just as comfortable and even more courageous than ever. If we haven’t seen you in awhile, you’re welcome to come by for a chat and a snack. Or we can meet you at our other favorite work space — any local venue that has wifi.

Oh, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention how the tables turned in our relationship with Shaun Ring. We got to be his real estate client as he helped us buy our new home and sell our old home in record time. The process couldn’t have gone more smoothly. 

Media isn’t changing, it has already changed

By: > August 11th, 2008

Rolling Stone cover

Rolling Stone Magazine just annouced that they are reducing the size of its magazine to better accommodate newsstands. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that people aren’t reading magazines like they used to or the fact that postage and printing prices are on the rise.

If you look across the landcape of the old media (TV, radio, newspapers) they all have had trouble gaining traction with modern technology. Broadcast TV has had to deal with declining eyeballs since the 80s when cable has diluted its stranglehold on TV advertising. With the introduction of the Tivo and other DVRs, networks aren’t sure what to do. Local TV is also scrambling.

Local radio have to deal with iPods and satellite radio and the Herald-Leader, who used to be the only print game in town, is scrambling to catch up to groups such as Smiley Pete with niche products like Skirt and web portals covering every niche possible.

If you haven’t already, upgrade your company web site. Let customers create a dialog with you. Communicate to them with a mutli-channel strategy including a mix of the old media and a healthy dose of the new media.

Image IS everything

By: > August 15th, 2008

A New York Times blogger (Errol Morris) just wrote an interesting article on images and the power they have. In his article/blog he interviews Hany Farid, a Dartmouth professor who is an expert on digital photography and said this about the Iranian missile photo (without Godzilla) published almost everywhere on July 10th.

“Oh look, this picture? It’s a fake. This picture? It’s a fake.” But you know what people remember? They don’t remember, “It’s a fake.” They remember the picture. And there are psychology studies, when you tell people that information is incorrect, they forget that it is incorrect. They only remember the misinformation. They forget the tag associated with it.

I remember when my youngest son was a few months over 2. He didn’t even know his alphabet yet, but he knew when he saw a McDonald’s logo. He even would watch American Idol with us and while driving through Atlanta one time we passed a Ford production plant and he screamed: “Hey Mommy and Daddy, American Idol!” It took us a minute to figure out what he was talking about, but after was saw him pointing to the Ford logo, we realized he associated Ford with American Idol.

Now if we all had the advertising budgets of Ford and McDonald’s we might not have a problem. One of my favorite marketing authors is Harry Beckwith and in his book Selling the Invisible, he articulates how smaller business or even independent professionals can take advantage of this same principle:

Prospects do not buy how good you are at what you do. They buy how good you are at who you are. People deal with you because the feel comfortable with you. Convey that you are “positively good.” It is better to say too little than too much. Watch what you show – lobby, clothes, business card, etc. Make sure people see who you are. Make the invisible visible. There is no correlation between the orangeness of an orange and its flavour. Growers pick oranges when they are green. They never get any riper or juicier. The oranges are coloured artificially. Seeing is believing, so check your peel. 

Have you checked your peel? If not, redo your web site, get a new brochure or maybe update your logo. Your image communicates a lot more than you think.

Social: Southern Style

By: > August 20th, 2009

Today I am headed to SocialSouth, a social media conference in Birmingham, AL, and I am excited to learn a thing or two while I’m there:

  • How can a national brand’s social strategy translate to regional/local businesses?
  • How can traditional agencies make the transition to the social space?
  • Is Twitter here for the long-term? What’s their revenue model?
  • How can an employee of a business keep up with all of the latest in the social space but still be a productive asset. -OR- How can a business outsource their social strategy and implementation while also being authentic?

Follow me on Twitter for updates at the conference and let me know if there are any questions you want me to investigate while gathering with other leaders in social media.

Social in Lexington

Are you in the Central Kentucky area? Join me and Whitney Pannell at the Women Leading Kentucky September luncheon leading a discussion: Internet, Twitter, Facebook & More: A Waste of Time or Useful Business Tool?