The market is packed with last minute shoppers pushing overloaded carts, my son is lazing around in his pajamas watching TV, and the phone and email have gone silent.

That means Thanksgiving is almost here.

Have a wonderful and relaxing holiday everyone. I’m off to bake apple pie.

My latest Visual Thesaurus article, “Finding Time to Read: Tips for Time Deprived Professionals“ is now live.

I had fun writing this article — especially since I got to ask some equally time deprived colleagues, including Bob Bly, Mac McIntosh, and Lyn Chamberlin, when they find time to read.

Mac passed along a humorous bit – according to him Alan Greenspan reads while in the bathtub!

Other tips include reading while waiting for a doctor’s appointment or in the school carpool line, getting up early, reading while traveling, and listening to audio books and podcasts while driving, cleaning house, walking the dog, or exercising.

When do you find time to read?

Despite having to sift through 3,000 spam emails and piles of junk direct mail, it’s good to be home.

The one thing I love about vacation is that once you start to relax and enjoy it, you realize how very necessary time off really is.

When I take time off, I purposely do not bring a pen or paper. I don’t let myself write anything, except perhaps my name on charge card receipts — for the entire time.

This forces me to stop thinking about work: if I can’t write about it, I don’t need to think about it.

I’m then able to fully relax — and enjoy blissful hours poolside reading and spending time with my family. More important, I come home feeling re-energized.

(The photograph isn’t the a photo of where I vacationed, but it’s close enough. From my hotel room, I could see the pool, palm trees, and lots of gorgeous blue sky. I had a wonderful vacation. I can’t wait for the next one.)

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article about how people are finding it harder and harder to take the traditional week or more off in August.

I’m happy to report I am taking a week plus off starting August 17, and I will NOT be checking email or voice mail. In fact, I won’t be near a computer!

I have to admit that I feel somewhat nervous about taking more than a week off — and according to the WSJ article, I’m not the only one who feels this way. Many people find it so hard to take time off, they now do long weekends — with the BlackBerry — instead.

However, work/life balance is something I’ve been working on for the last eight months, and as we all know, downtime is important — especially for copywriters. So I’m taking it, with the intent of coming back totally recharged and ready for action.

On another note, if you need some good vacation reading, do check out The President’s Secret IMs by Danielle Crittenden. She does a superb job of capturing the voices of Bush, Clinton, Condi, et al — all written in IM jargon. Hilarious! I laughed so much, I had tears streaming down my face.

So TTFN — and I’ll catch up with you all later in the month.

I finally joined LinkedIn — the social networking site for professionals. I resisted for a long time. I have a good solid network with whom I keep in touch on a regular basis. Plus I have a Website and a blog, and I do make an effort to network face-to-face.

I really could not see the advantage of being “linked in” on LinkedIn. But a couple of people convinced me I should do it, so I did.

After I filled out my profile and accepted months (hell, years) old invitations to join other people’s networks, I felt like a part of my marketing soul had been split off — similar to Voldemort’s Horcruxes in the Harry Potter books.

I can now see the advantage of LinkedIn, but why do I need to maintain yet *another* online presence?

Are you part of LinkedIn? I’ve asked this question before, but what does LinkedIn do for your business or your career? So far, no one has given me a definitive answer.

8/13 Update: Maura Welch, who writes the Boston Globe’s Business Filter blog, has a link to a BuisnessWeek article titled, “Confessions of a LinkedIn Dropout.” The writer, Jeff Pulver, talks about why he left LinkedIn and now uses Facebook. He states exactly why I have problems with LinkedIn — it’s non-viral. Once you go viral, there’s no going back.

The Harry Potter marketing machine is heating up with the July 21 release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) and July 13 movie release of Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix (Book 5): 

Warner Brothers recently opened its Dumbledore’s Army site. You can catch The Order of The Phoenix movie trailer here as well.

Scholastic is sponsoring a Knight Bus tour as well as holding a weekly contest plus tons of online activities.

And many bookstores will hold a party the evening the book is released at 12:01 AM. (My son and I attended the Borders party for Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Fun!)

In the April 23 issue of DM News, Rachel Coun, brand manager for Scholastic, reports that they will market the book to all ages — kids and adults.

This is a smart move.

Many of my friends read Harry Potter — in fact, I know of a NY law firm where the partners discuss HP!

Yet other adults laugh and think HP is just for kids.

Do you read Harry Potter? If so, when did you start and why?

I started reading HP after the third book came out. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I was instantly hooked two pages into the first book!

Hat tip to The Leaky Cauldron — the source for all things HP.
 

My client, Steven Haines, President of Sequent Learning Networks, posted an article on his site last year titled, “Guerilla Product Management: 17 Golden Rules for Achieving Success on the Job.”

I recently found it while doing research for their newsletter I now write. You can find the entire article here, but you’ll have to submit your email address for it.

Although Steven’s advice is geared toward product managers, anyone can read it and learn from it. So, because I don’t make New Year’s resolutions (who wants to give up mocha almond fudge ice-cream in order to lose a few pounds anyway?), I thought I’d post a few of his “golden rules” here — but edited for B2B marcom types who want to write better copy.

Rule 5 — Do research — all the time. The world is your lab. Make time to sit in the call center and listen to how orders and complaints are handled. Watch customers use your products. Read industry publications. Look at one competitor’s Website every week to see what they’re doing. Understanding your market is one of the most important skill sets you can cultivate.

Rule 7 — Get a thick skin. When you get negative feedback on your copy, instead of getting defensive, ask what idea the person is trying to communicate and why the copy isn’t working.

Rule 9 — Show your enthusiasm all day long — for your job and for your products. I live by David Ogilvy’s creed: “There are no boring products, only boring writers.”

Rule 12 — Take a hike. Get out of your office. Go to the gym. Write a poem. Paint a picture. Do yoga. As writers, we need serious downtime in order to recharge. Make the time to unwind, no matter how busy you are.

Rule 17 — Build a community. Whether you work for a company or on your own, build a community of people who support you, challenge you, and feed you new ideas. We like to think writing is done in isolation, but it’s not. Without new ideas — and the people to share them with – writers and marketers are dead meat.

 

Happy New Year, everyone!