Ramon's Blog: Evolve or Die

I'm trying to live!

Rapper Big Pun said it best, “I just lost a hundred pounds, I’m trying to live!” and we all know that in the end, he lost the battle of the bulge.  After many failed attempts to lose the weight,  Pun suffered a fatal heart attack accompanied with respiratory failure in a hotel in White Plains, New York on February 7, 2000.  Known to often perform while sitting in a chair, gasping for air in between verses, and wiping the sweat off his brow with a towel, Pun had battled weight all his life. A few weeks ago, I remember scoffing at the TV news reporter’s scary headline teaser: “Why your office job can kill you.” I’m a bit jaded when it comes to knee-jerk news headlines and I assumed it was just another scare tactic and pretty much ignored the story. Later that evening I caught a blurb about it on CNN and the story actually focused around people (just like me) who sit all day in office chairs and don’t get any exercise.  That is the real killer, the lack of exercise and I’ll be the first to admit that in this crazy busy world, exercise often is the first thing that gets cut out of our schedules when we get ‘too busy’.  A very good friend and colleague of mine never has time to exercise and has put on a considerable amount of weight over the last couple of years. So much in fact that he is now on medication for his blood pressure. I always try and invite him out for a bike ride or hike, but his response is that he is too busy. He too, sits all day and leads a relatively sedentary lifestyle like most of us do these days. (Reminds me of the future as depicted in Wall-E). He’s got a beautiful family and I always remind him, what good is wealth, if you don’t have health!? In his defense, he has started taking long walks recently, but it has not been consistent. Consistent, sustainable, healthy lifestyle changes are the answer for long term health - especially for us of the seated variety.

 

RIP Patrice O'Neal - 1969-2011

Having recently celebrated my 41^st birthday, I was inspired to post about the importance of exercise. Just a few days ago, the very funny comedian and Charlie Sheen roaster, Patrice O’Neil died at 41 from complications of a stroke, after battling diabetes. He too was overweight. That hit very close to home because we are the same age.

 A few weeks ago Rapper/Actor Heavy D (real name: Dwight Arrington Myers) died at 44 after experiencing breathing problems and collapsing.  That one hit me hard because he was one of my favorite rappers. Today I found out on my Facebook newsfeed that 4-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Chester McGlockton died at 42, though his cause of death has not been disclosed. The fact that he was overweight and only 42 made me concerned with my own mortality and got me motivated to jump on my elliptical machine with a new fervor, coming off a 4-day post-Thanksgiving exercise hiatus. I love to eat, come from a family full of folks who are ‘short for their weight’, and I also have a sweet tooth. The fact that I sit all day doesn’t help. The reality is that I have no choice but to exercise – if in fact, I’m trying to live!

Pixel-pusher, desk-surfer, whatever you want to call me, I am sitting in an office chair for 8-12 hours a day, sometimes longer. You know that when you get out of your chair, you are probably driving (sitting down), or eating with the family (sitting down) or watching TV on the couch (sitting down).  Because I’m not a morning person, nor am I a night person, there is a small window of opportunity where I can actually get motivated to workout and that’s usually in the morning.  As the saying goes, if I don’t (exercise in the morning) I won’t (exercise at all).  I’m blessed to have married a very physically fit wife who eats right and loves the outdoors. If it weren’t for her, I’m not sure how much I’d weigh. By contrast, she is on her feet all day, dealing with her students as a schoolteacher. Me, I’m sitting down, though as any creative will tell you, thinking creatively all day, developing concepts and designing does get your brain tired, but until you can count the calories you burn thinking, exercise is the only way to keep the pounds off and keep your heart healthy. Say it again – I’m trying to live!

So what are some things you can do to stay fit/healthy if you have a “desk-job”?

Here is a chart of some exercises you can do while sitting down in the office:

 Here are a few tips:

• Join a gym. Meet your wife/partner there to motivate each other & spend time together.

• Get up and take a few walks during the day

• Look for opportunities to stand

• Take the stairs, not the elevator

• Write down EXERCISE on your “To Do” list everyday – make it a priority

• Something is better than nothing – a 15 minute walk is better than no walk

• Build up your workouts: start with 10 minute and move up to 60 minute workouts

• Track your fitness and weight on your smartphone with these apps:

            • RunKeeper

            • Lose It

            • Map My Run

• Mix it up: Try walking, running, elliptical machine, biking, swimming, etc.

 I find that the daily exercise has some additional benefits as well. You will feel better about yourself and that will give you an all around better attitude all day. I find myself getting into a ‘funk’ when I don’t exercise regularly and you know that it will lead you to poor diet choices as well. From a creative perspective, I often use time on the elliptical to solve design problems in my head or generate new layout concepts. Amazing what you can think of when you have blood flow, circulation and endorphins running through your system!

After each work out, I enter the data into my iPhone’s fitness app and it gets shared on Facebook and Twitter. Doing so holds me ‘accountable’ – I definitely feel like its time to get back on track whenever I go on a hiatus for more than a couple of days because I feel like I haven’t posted in awhile. Additionally, you may be encouraging or reminding someone else to exercise when they see your posts. I know that it motivates me to see some of my friends’ social media posts about their exercise routine.

 Dying in your 40s is way too young. Being on any type of cholesterol or blood pressure medication at 40 is also way too young too (unless its hereditary). If its’ related to or caused by your poor diet and/or lack of exercise, then its something that you can change. We may live a sedentary lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean that we should turn that into a death sentence. Like Dr. Kate Roth, a family medicine physician said in Andrew Dougman’s article for GoUpstate.com,

 “We can invest the time now to exercise and eat healthier or we can pay the price later by paying for managing our chronic diseases.”

-Dr. Kate Roth, a family medicine physician

I’m trying to live!

 

 

Links/Resources:

Chester McGlockton

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7298805/four-time-pro-bowl-dt-chester-mcglockton-dies-42

 

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45322786/ns/today-entertainment/t/heavy-ds-cause-death-may-be-unknown-weeks/#.TtafSZjfb0c

 

Patrice O’Neal

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/news/article_1677978.php/Patrice-O-Neal-dies-at-age-41

 

Big Pun

http://www.famousdead.com/big-pun/

 

Workers who sit all day need a health wakeup call

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20111101/ARTICLES/111011001

 

Exercise at Work

http://exercise.about.com/cs/fittingitin/a/officeexercise.htm

 

Workplace Exercises: How to burn calories at work

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/office-exercise/SM00115

 

Professional Dedication

One of the benefits of having your own business or being your own boss is that you can make your own hours. So, on Thanksgiving Eve, you should be closing shop early right? Or maybe even taking the whole day off? Well, not if one of your retainer paying clients has  an opportunity to pitch a national corporation on a potential multi-year integrated marketing program you don’t. While most homes are baking mac & cheese and corn bread, our team is still in the office and we won’t leave until we get it right.

We promised the client this morning that we’d turnaround a high-tech Keynote presentation on steroids complete with animation and an audio track by end of day, and we like to keep our promises. It’s how we keep our clients.

Here's the opening screen shot:

Additionally, we don’t view this as just another project, we see the big picture. If this particular client wins this business, it will mean more work for our agency. There’s an incentive! The reality is that we could’ve made excuses and not delivered and would most likely have not really hurt the long term relationship we’ve established with this client at all. Our existence does not hinge upon whether or not this presentation gets completed tonight or not.  But it does mean something. It means that we can be counted on and that we are dependable. Our client checked-in with a us a few minutes ago, just as we were downloading the stock audio file for the presentation. We had just reviewed the deck a few times, and I was making some final edits and tweaks. We were not just ‘still in the office’, but we were in the home stretch, ‘sweating the details’ so that we can deliver something that we’ll be proud of. The client couldn’t stop expressing his appreciation during the call, so much in fact that he went on to say that we were the most professional and dedicated firm that he has ever worked with. It was such a good call that he inspired this blog post.

Make sure that you foster a culture of professional dedication and take pride in your work. Always look at the big picture and take ownership in your clients businesses because if they do well, so will you. Yes, we are working very late tonight, and it is Thanksgiving Eve, but just think how much better that turkey and pumpkin pie will taste tomorrow when you know you just made another client very happy.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

The Pitch Deck

Let me start by saying that I began working on Pitch Decks many moons ago and grew to have a strong disdain for PowerPoint. Over the years, it has moved out of the stone-age with respect to its limited tool bar and typography settings and to PowerPoint's defense, it has expanded its effects and design options. I’ve had countless argum.. er, I mean 'debates' with those clients who wanted a great looking presentation, but wanted to be able to ‘edit and tweak’ it themselves. They wanted something that looked great, but that they could modify. They wanted that elusive fat-free, calorie-free cheeseburger. That diet sugar free milkshake.

The truth is that although Apple has had Keynote, their very cool and improved version of PowerPoint, out on the market for some time now, the reality still remains that Microsoft owns the market share in the presentation space. It is still the go-to program when it comes to giving a pitch or making a sales presentation. It is what it is, and I’ve gotten to learn to love it. It’s called Acceptance, and it was a tough pill to swallow. I've learned to maximize its limited page layout and typographic tools to create some clean, professional and effective presentations. That said, I’m here to share some tips that I’ve learned over the years that will help you create a more visually pleasing and effective PowerPoint presentation.

A good chunk of my design business involves ‘cleaning up’ or ‘Jay-ifying’ (in reference to my old boss, Jay Walker who often required me to modify up to 80+ versions of the same pitch deck prior to his presentations) pitch decks for clients who are looking for VC money or are pitching a new startup or product.  Though the pitch decks I created for Jay were most often built in Quark (he used to modify them himself at home, a very hands-on type of Chairman), I’m here to discuss how I make the dreaded PowerPoint deck look better. The reason I built decks in Quark for Jay were because he was a fan of the spiral-bound printed copy that he gave out as leave-behinds. Since PowerPoint is meant to be viewed on-screen, its designed at a screen resolution of 72dpi which looks crappy (pixelated) when printed. With Quark, I was assuring Jay a crisp printed copy, and also guaranteed the capability of exporting to PDF and displaying on a screen or projected to a wall with no problem.

Only a select few clients have or need a full version of Quark (which has all but been replaced by Adobe InDesign, different blog), while Powerpoint is on practically every (PC) machine. So, how do we make a Powerpoint sing? Second disclaimer: these tips won’t go into embedding videos, car-tire screeching sound effects or wipe-away slide transitions. These tips won’t cover how to write clever marketing copy either. Those topics will be covered in another blog.  Drumroll……

 

The Top 5 Ways to make your PowerPoint Pitch Decks and Sales Presentations look Presentable and more Professional:

 1. People Don’t Read.

• Keep your copy short and don’t put too much copy on each slide.
• Use key ‘takeaways’  ie. Bulleted statistics and impressive stats
• Don’t give away the store.  See rule #1: People Don’t Read.

 

2. Make a nice Title/Cover Page that includes your logo and the date.

• This should be a full color cover and should set the tone
• Elements used on the Cover Page should flow into the inside
• Be Consistent

 

Sample Pitch Deck Cover: After

 

 

Sample Pitch Deck Cover: Before

 

 

 

3. Design a header and footer for each slide that matches the Cover Page.

• Avoid using the default PowerPoint template themes
• Extend your brand to the pitch deck (logo on every page)

Sample Pitch Deck Inside Page: After

 

Sample Pitch Deck Inside Page: Before

4. Pick one (1) font that will be used consistently throughout your deck.

• This means a plain face (body copy) and a bold face (headline)
• Select a consistent point size for body copy and for headlines.

 

5.  Visuals:  Illustrate each slide with some graphic that goes with the copy, ie.:

• Stock Photos of people/lifestyle images (iStockPhotos.com is a great resource)
• Bar/Pie Charts & Graphs
• Custom Illustrations
• Logos

 

Need more help with your Pitch Deck or have questions? Contact me at ramon@peraltadesign.com

 

A Google+ Party Invite

My wife and I have worked very hard over the years to earn a reputation for being late to family events. I’m not going to throw her under the bus on my blog, but the reality is that she has her own way of dealing with time and usually waits too long to start the process of getting ready. (The good news is that she doesn’t read my blog!) 

Nowadays we make sure we are bringing something important, like a main dish, or a salad, or even host events at our home so that we have no choice BUT to be on time. No one likes a very early guest (even family), but the ones who arrive just before the party is scheduled to start are usually put to work. As a side benefit, they may actually start picking at the appetizers as they are putting them out, or become familiar with the party layout, locking in the best seating, securing the couch or the best bar stool; in general they get the lay of the land. Though these are benefits for being early, most people still prefer to say they are fashionably late, which is usually an excuse for not giving themselves enough time to get ready or factor in travel time. We know that if you’re too late, there may not be any food left, or you may not have a seat, or worse yet, you may miss out on the cake.

There’s a new ‘party’ going on in social media and its sure to make a huge impact on social marketing for small businesses. Consider this your formal invitation to Google+ Brand Pages. They have just rolled out their business focused “Brand Pages” and it’s a good idea to head on over before you can’t find a seat, or someone has your same business name, etc.. Sure, there’s hardly anyone in there now, and there are plenty of empty tables, but you never know, this place could fill up fast.

I suggest you arrive early to this party. This morning, I received my invitation, which was actually Duct Tape Marketing's latest blog, and I went over and set up my Peralta Design Google+ page – a very basic one – just to have a presence on Google+. Think of it as another entry port to my website, it allows more of my content to be searchable, and hopefully that will translate into more business. This is what my Google+ Brand Page currently looks like:

 

 

 

You may be wondering why you should be on Google+ at all – and the reality is that most people don’t even have their personal Google+ pages set up.  The main reason I recommend you have your business up on Google+ is simple: It’s GOOGLE. They are the master search engine and just by simply creating a Google+ page, you will come up first in a Google search. Makes sense doesn’t it?

 As a business owner, entrepreneur, individual looking for a job (which is still about 30 million people in this country alone), you should realize the importance of social media marketing.

 As John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing points out, ‘There isn’t anything spectacularly different about the [Google+] brand pages, but many businesses are jumping in and building a profile.’

 Here are some general bullets by Phil Mershon that may get your attention as to why you should market yourself and/or your business on social media:

 •  There are now more than 800 million active Facebook users, with over 200 million added in 2011.

 •  Nearly 23% of online time is spent on social networks.

•  Experian estimates that 91% of online American adults (approx. 129 million) access some form of social media each month.

•  44% of SMB (small-to-mid-size business) decision-makers use social media.

Do you need more proof that you need to have a presence on social media? Click here for 22 more reasons:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-promising-social-media-stats-for-small-businesses/

 

So, now you're like "OK I get it, now how do I go about setting up a Brand Page for my business on Google+?"

It was surprisingly easy. First thing you can do is click the link to my page:

https://plus.google.com/106947186706647923634/posts

 Then, under my logo on the left hand side, you will see a button: “Create a Google+ page”

 Once you click that you will come to a page that looks like this:

 

 

Next thing you do is select whether your business is a “Local Business or Place (barber shop, hotel, etc.)”, a “Product or Brand” (Nike, 5-Hour Energy), a “Company, Institution or Organization (most of you with small businesses will end up here) or “Arts, Entertainment or Sports”. I placed my design company under “Company, Institution or Organization”

Once you do that, you’ll be able to name your business (whatever you like) and upload a profile pic. In my case, my logo.

 At this point it becomes pretty easy to edit. You can add photos and “About Us” information. I went ahead and pulled copy and photos directly from my Facebook Peralta Design page. Don’t think of this as anything brand new, but rather as a consistent extension of your other social media profile pages. Use the same descriptors and language as you do on your other sites, or you’ll run the risk of potentially hurting your brand awareness by causing confusion.

Next: get your own BADGE (We don't need no stinkin' badges) Yes you do.

It will only take a few minutes to set up your profile and it will be to your advantage to get your ‘product placement’ before anyone else does. Google+ has great sharing functions and they have a very cool “Badge” feature which automatically generates the code for you for an icon which you can use on your own website to promote your Google+ Brand page. The badge is actually pretty cool (and I quickly added it to my website) Here's what they look like:

 

 

 

As Phil Mershon, from the Social Media Examiner states:

Don’t use the excuses of having a limited budget or a small fan base to prevent you from broadening and deepening your social efforts.

 Keep in mind that Google+ currently only has about 40 million users signed up while Facebook has over 700 million. But that shouldn’t keep you from coming to the party. Instead, it should encourage you to arrive early, get settled and get a good seat. Just the fact that this is GOOGLE and they dominate the social search and SEO space makes this an RSVP ASAP ‘event’.

See you there and don’t be late!

 

 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Here is a link that Google+ launched today – that’s basically a video

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57321504-93/google-launches-guide-to-using-google-pages/

 

Here are some other important links about why you and/or your business should be on Google+

http://socialmediatoday.com/george-guildford/384963/why-google-pages-will-have-huge-impact-way-brands-approach-social-media-sear

 

Mashable’s simpler tutorial on setting up a Google+ Page:

http://mashable.com/2011/11/08/how-to-google-plus-brand-page/#335932-Pick-a-Category

 

Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch Posting on Google+ Brand Pages
http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2011/11/09/google-plus-rolls-out-brand-pages/

 

10 Tips and Tricks for Better Google+ Brand Pages 

http://mashable.com/2011/11/09/google-plus-brand-pages-tips/