I just got back from a long road trip. This was my favorite sign. Zoom in and look what’s under “to work”: a small version of the message in braille.

The visual sign is situated between the sinks and the hand dryers. The small braille type is about waist level.

I’d love to meet this sign’s designer and learn more about what (s)he and the clients were thinking, or smoking, when they designed this puppy.

I’m often asked to create a wireframe for a site before I design it because the Account Group thinks it a clever in-process sales tactic (that also reduces risk).

It made me wonder: do others have the same problem with wireframes that I do? I Goggled “web wireframes” to find out. I wondered how others approach this banal but seemingly important to others task. I found a multitude of wireframe design approaches that look and smell an awful lot like post-design-rationalization, or bull-shit for short.

The image of all those wireframes reminded me of a chat I had with one of my mentors, Hugh Dow, about 30 years ago. I had seen one of my colleagues craft an enormous deck to sell a modest $2,000,000 media plan. I felt like I’d missed a few steps because I was selling much larger plans with very “slim” decks. Hugh assured me that I was on the right track: “if you can sell it in on one page, do it. But if you’ve got a client that needs to “see all your work” – show that too.”

I’ve never forgotten that valuable lesson:

• Do all the work to ensure you know what you’re doing and keep it close at hand so that you can explain yourself if and when needed with-out any hesitation.
• Only show what’s needed to make the sale.
• Sell the benefits and excitement of sharing a great story. Don’t bore them with your stupid process.

So as to wireframes. Stupid idea, except for VERY complex sites. Likewise, it’s good to do a mock-up of key pages for a big catalog, but not for a roll-fold brochure or a banner ad.

This is a self promotion piece I put out towards the end of 2008. My thinking was that forward looking businesses would want to take advantage of the post recession growth.

It didn’t happen. They all agreed with near-sighted Chicken Little: the sky was falling, and the end was in sight.

Likewise many who claim to know of what they speak are holding their breath, wondering and predicting what Greece will do tomorrow, next week, next month.

In my lifetime Germany went from ruin and rubble to economic powerhouse. My parents lost everything in the war through no fault of their own and started over.

It didn't take days, weeks, months or years. It took decades.

That’s what might happen in Greece, Spain and other markets as well. Too much good fortune was squandered for too long by too many and now it’s time to pay the piper. Perhaps this is how economies learn to "grow up".

“Tough times never last, But tough people do.”

Here I am working on yet another web-refresh. The last time the blog was updated was the summer of 2012.

My recommendation is clear: “use it or remove it.” In most cases I advise small businesses NOT to blog because of the time commitment blogging takes. I’ve been at it for about seven years now. Some posts are longer, shorter or better than others. I do it for me and a few others that like my thought trains. I keep most posts short because “short” is the new black. And I wonder where we’ll go from here.

When I got into advertising 35 years ago, computers and Xcel didn’t exist. I wrote long hand and worked out ad related math problems with a calculator. My mentor could do the math in his head as fast as me and my peers could do it with a calculator. Then he showed us some “short-cuts”.

Those I trained considered my “short-cuts” the long way of doing things. Then came computers, spreadsheets, world processors, etc. which enabled even shorter and faster communications.

Today’s (new) media have whittled communications down to a cluster of “characters”.

What will communications look like in 5 – 10 years?

How will advertising have evolved?

When I was growing up my experience with the local storekeepers defined my ongoing relationships with them. Basically the nicer they were to me the more loyal I became. They conditioned me to like them with random acts of kindness.

Their behaviour eliminated any cognitive dissonance: they surprized and delighted me. So I got more than I expected. Then went back for more.

The plethora of fake performance certificates – including fake university certificates are a stark reminder of a phenomenon I’ve been talking about since I designed my 1^st commercial website: cognitive dissonance.

The cost of designing, launching and promoting a high quality website has dropped dramatically, making the virtual world as neat, clean and functional as the intergalactic starships that populate science fiction stories.

But what happens when you take the conversation “off-line” and meet the person or the brand face to face? All too often it’s a disappointing experience for one fundamental reason:

To get your attention, people and brands make promises that they cannot keep in the long run. Introductory offers are a great (simple) example.

Getting your attention is not the same as engaging you intellectually or emotionally. So all too often this is the point where cognitive dissonance kicks in.

You’re not like what you said you’d be like.

Your brand ambassadors and your guarantee is far more restrictive than your online presence.

Your brand promised me a lifetime of wonderful times, but my positive experience ended within months. And so it goes.

The solution is pretty simple: don’t promise more than you can consistently deliver over the long haul.

Q.     But Frank . . . if I promise “less” to reduce cognitive dissonance any my greedy competitors keep promising the moon + stars, how can I compete?

A.     Call me. For a fee I’ll assess your brand and tell you.

Enjoy your day + your journey!