Keep it Simple...writing suggestions for Marketing

Keep it Simple ... Similes, metaphors, and analogies
And what makes ideas simple? Similes, metaphors, and analogies.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines them this way:

simile: a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as (as in cheeks like roses).


metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money).

analogy: 1. inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others. 2. a resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike.

Friendship Ambassadors Training Program

Friendship Industries’ Employees have the opportunity AND the responsibility to serve as our best ambassadors, community representatives and spokespersons. Our Employees are our most precious and largest investment – they are truly our Mission AND our Human Resources.

Friendship Ambassadors Training will serve as the first step in genuinely cultivating the necessary environment that is conducive for team-building, company growth, development, communication and stability. Click on the link for all of the modules.

All Staff and Employees should be well-versed in our Mission, our History, our Fund-raising efforts and needs, our Commercial capabilities and our Sales & Marketing strategies in order to convey the messages both inside and outside of Friendship. Friendship Employees are our best, most valuable asset and our best prospecting and networking resource.

Who is in a better position to help convey a positive message than our Employees? It is up to us to dispel the myths and reinforce the realities of Friendship’s quality, skills and abilities, not disabilities.

FRIENDSHIP AMBASSADORS PRESENTATIONS by MODULES

By each of the Three Departments that make up Friendship:

DEVELOPMENT ’s presentation would be mission-based and focus on the growth, expansion and fund-raising aspects of Friendship; in addition a “History of Friendship” presentation would focus on how and why there is a Friendship Industries

SALES & MARKETING ’s presentation would be commercially-based and focus on the marketable aspects of Friendship’s work; in addition the “Commercial Future of Friendship” would focus on what we see on Friendship’s horizons

HUMAN RESOURCES ’s presentation would be Rehab-based and focus on the competitive employment, extended employment and assessment aspects of Friendship, including supported employment outcomes; additionally the “Employment Future of Friendship” would focus on where we see the company progressing

“The greatest source of competitive advantage is not really COST or QUALITY, but CREATIVITY.”

While we have not yet started our own Idea Activation Program, I suggest the book Ideas Are Free ! I recommend it to everyone!

Blogs I recommend...stay tuned for Updates!

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, blogs are hot. Two Pew surveys conducted in early 2005 showed that 16% of adults in the US (approx. 32 million people) are blog readers, a 58% increase from 2004. Most interesting is that 6% of US adults have created a blog. That's 11 million people, or about one out of every 17 Americans.

Church of the Customer

Duct Tape Marketing

Both have great podcasts, too!

Debbie Weil's Blog - WordBiz

ASAE's Online Resources: Case Studies, Models and Samples, Whitepapers, Ideas and Recommendations

I highly recommend these great resources:

http://www.centeronline.org/knowledge/

Welcome to the Knowledge Resource section. Here you'll find association case studies, models and samples, articles and whitepapers, book reviews, the Ten Cool Ideas collection and expert recommendations covering all aspects of association management. Additional resources are available onsite at the Results Direct Knowledge Center located at The Center for Association Leadership.

International Bird Flu Summit in Washington DC, February 2006

Companies offer wares to guard against spread of bird flu

Friendship Industries has launched into PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) Kitting and is part of the global emergency prep for the Avian Influenza (aka Bird Flu or AI) Pandemic. Luckily, one of our small business partners and emergency equipment distributor, Safeware Inc., invited me to join them in exhibiting at the Bird Flu Summit. Click on the link above for an article published by Reuters based on an interview I did at the Summit, or read on for an excerpt:

L to R: Me (in my "Intelligent + Medical" look), Safeware's Safety Expert-Chandler Martin, Safeware's President-Ed Simons, and DuPont's Global Industrial Segment Mgr-Andy Peralla

27 Feb 2006 22:36:28 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Worried that a courier might deliver avian flu along with that book you ordered to pass the time while you wait out the pandemic? Melissa Blankenship, director of sales and marketing for Friendship Industries Inc., has just the product for you. "You could easily wear these while using a keyboard," she said, demonstrating a thin, blue flexible glove. "And if the UPS (United Parcel Service) man comes, for instance, you can put this on for outside protection," she says, holding out a slightly thicker glove.

Companies are gearing up to help protect health care workers and the public in case of a bird flu pandemic, offering portable isolation units, packs with gloves, masks and suits and sanitizing systems. They demonstrated their wares on Monday at the Bird Flu Summit organized by meeting specialist New-Fields.

H5N1 avian influenza has moved steadily across Europe in recent weeks and into parts of Africa, after moving out of southeast Asia for the first time last year. It has killed or forced the slaughter of more than 200 million birds and is beginning to damage the poultry industry in some countries.

It does not yet easily infect people but it has sickened 173, by official World Health Organization count, and killed 93 of them. Experts fear it could change into a strain that easily passes from person to person, causing a pandemic. Public health specialists predict that, if it did, it could infect up to a third of the population in the space of a few weeks, wreck economies, force schools and businesses to close and overwhelm hospitals.

But simple hygiene measures and a little protective equipment could go a long way to guarding against infection, and distributors of these products report a steep rise in interest in recent weeks.

Blankenship said factories in southeast Asia are being re-fitted. "The companies that are making shirts for Wal-Mart, we need them to convert to making personal protective gear," Blankenship said. Her company is checking out potential factories in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.