"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ..."

Y'know, lately my mantra has been the above line from Shakespeare's Henry V.  It seems like every time I turn around, I'm digging in my heels, setting my stance, and giving one more hefty push forward on something or other.  Whether I'm developing a new project or fleshing out an existing one, every morning I'm waking up, getting my first cup of coffee, dusting myself off, and diving right back into the trenches.  If you're looking for an example, you don't need to look any further than this year's Comic-Con.

Say what you mean and mean what you say ...

Let me start off this post by saying that I don't ever expect everyone out there who reads my stuff to agree with everything I have to say.  I know, I know ... big shock, right?  Seriously though, I'll be the first person to tell you that when it comes to editorial or review articles, they're simply one person's opinion of a given subject at a given time.  In my time as a writer, I've had people criticize my reviews because they thought I gave something too low OR to high of a score.  And hey, I'm okay with that.  A lot of times, I'll even try to engage people and let them know that what I try to do is to express my thoughts on the subject, explain my praise and/or criticism, and that I try to look at things through the eyes of the audience ... though it's going to be filtered through my own experiences.

All that being said, I stand by what I say and I value my reputation as a writer.  What's been pissing me off lately, though, is what seems to be a trend of writers willing to compromise their integrity for the sake of simply ruffling a few feathers and cashing in on the almighty traffic of hits.  Let me explain ...

The perks and pitfalls of PR

Every once in a while when I'm going through the grind of my daily routine, I stumble across something that makes me stop and say "What the hell?"  Last night, I happened across one of those things. I saw an article over at TechCrunch which, on the surface, looked like it was calling out a PR rep for some sort of unprofessional behavior.  The problem is, once you get past the headline, you realize that the article was dripping with overly sarcastic venom spewing forth about something that, to be perfectly frank, seemed to me like just a PR rep doing his job.  Instead of calling out some PR rep for being unprofessional, the folks over at TechCrunch ended up coming across as the ones lacking in tact and professionalism.

Which brings me to the subject of this post ...

Connecting with the audience (or "Where marketing gets it wrong.")

Take a look around and one thing is easy to see ... everyone's got something to sell.  Companies everywhere are all vying for a piece of that consumer pie, but they're all so focused on what they think is the finish line, they lose sight of fact that real commercial success is a marathon, not a sprint.

In my role as a pop culture writer, I've seen companies come and go.  I've seen great projects fly so far under the radar, they may as well have been tunneling underground.  I've also seen projects backed with a huge media blitz collapse under the weight of their own hype. So how can projects fail so spectacularly but in two totally different ways?  Believe it or not, they've got one thing in common ... they've forgotten all about the human element.