Dear Constant Irritant:

I’d really enjoy it if you would stop being a whiny, sniveling irritant. You see, if you avoid this, then you have more time to accomplish your goals. When you are being whiny and snivelingly irritating, you’re being counterproductive when it comes to accomplishing your goals without needing others to back you up. I’m sure you can understand why I find that to be “constantly irritating,” my Constant Irritant.

For you see, I have my own goals to accomplish, and whenever I have to stop because you’re causing me irritation by worrying about things about which you shouldn’t have any concern, not only can’t I accomplish my goals, I lose time… of which I think you can agree, there is far too little as it is.

So, in closing, please stop being irritating. Life would be much simpler for us all, and you’d be a happier person if you just focused on your purpose and not on creating drama needlessly. (Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that you might not even be aware that you’re creating needless drama, but I’m pretty sure you know exactly what you’re doing.)

I appreciate your attention.

–Marc

… I don’t want to hear anyone complain when my radio station starts playing non-stop Christmas music around Thanksgiving…. I don’t want to get the annual series of abusive emails from listeners…. because:

KROGER Supermarkets have already started playing Christmas music! Target has Halloween decorations up AND Christmas cards, decorations and more surrounding the Halloween area…. Oh.. and rumors have it that some Hallmark Stores have been playing Christmas music since July.

So, in November, when you think about emailing or calling your favorite radio station to abuse the DJ for doing his job and playing non-stop Christmas music, remember that WE don’t do this in September… or July… and remember that the person at the other end of the phone or email is a person.

I just spent a week doing live broadcasts from the Great Frederick Fair.  I had lots of fun people-watching throughout the week, enjoying fair food, trying to get my on-site producer to go get yardsticks for me, suffering the smell of chickens and wondering at the variety of things which could be deep-fried…. and here are some things I observed:

1) There are far too many people who are dentally challenged.  I think the worst was an entire family of people who had some sort of tooth issue.  Seriously… we’re talking mother, father, grandparents and 5 kids!  Some were missing many teeth… some just had unusually configured teeth.  Either way it was kinda scary.

2) There were far too many mullets for the year 2009.  Just sayin’. Including an entire family of mullets…(and not the same as the family mentioned above, although the mullets were well-represented there too.)

3) We had a great spot for our booths this year, along one of the main walking paths through the fairgrounds and we were surrounded by some really great local vendors.  The big drawback was being located across from the Rabbit and Poultry building.  On the couple of humid days we experienced, the smell was UNBEARABLE.

4) I think the food and the smell of the food was by far my favorite thing at the fair and the wonder and variety of fair food never ceases to amaze me.  I had so much good stuff, from hot dogs and cheeseburgers, to BBQ Pit Roast Beef, for lunch and dinner.  Plus french fries, onion rings, and the like… and that only touches the tip of the deep-fried iceberg…

5) …which may be the ONLY thing you can’t get deep-fried at the Great Frederick Fair… have you ever noticed the sheer number of deep-fried food items?  Funnel cakes, elephant ears, of course… those are the standards… but then there are Oreos, Twinkies, pickles… all of which I’ve known about… but the new one for me was the DEEP-FRIED CORN ON THE COB!  None of it is good for you, so it’s a good thing that calories don’t count for the Fair is like Christmas… it’s a holiday.

In case you didn’t make it out, here’s a little audio and picture of what you missed on Friday, which is traditionally “Kid’s Day” at the Great Frederick Fair:

All things considered, it is such a definitive part of life in Frederick County and while it was a week of hard work, that at times was painfully tedious, I look forward to next year!

I think the IDEA of New Year’s Resolutions is a great one. Most of the time these are motivated by the best of intentions… losing weight, eating healthier, traveling more, whatever… but most of us, myself included, tend to “forget” those resolutions before the calendar flips to February.  Since you probably shared those resolutions with your spouse, significant other, your mother and your friends, you know SOMEONE is going to razz you about your failure… I have the solution, one inspired by a post at Holidash*… make sure you include a disclaimer or qualifier so you can claim that you never made it a certainty that you would lose weight, or even take steps to do it… here’s an example:

I LOVE doughnuts… when someone brings in doughnuts, whether their those silly “donettes” you can buy in the grocery store or the ones that come from that big donut shop down the street… I… CAN’T… RESIST!  So suppose I want to make a resolution to curtail my doughnut intake in 2009, but I want to give myself an out when I eventually fail?   Here’s the solution…. instead of saying “I resolve to eat fewer donuts in 2009″ say something like “This is the year I’m going to think about eating fewer doughnuts!”  See…. the “This is the year” part completely distracts the “I’m going to think about” part… nice, right?  The key is to say it with some panache’ and enthusiasm! Or how about “I resolve to not eat any more donuts in 2009….*MUMBLE AS YOU WALK AWAY*”  The mumbled part can be “than I did in 2008″ or *this week” or “right now”  (that last one is handy if you’re caught with doughnut in hand…)

So there you have it.   I’m going to make a bold resolution for 2009:

I RESOLVE TO EAT MORE OR LESS DONUTS IN 2009 THAN I DID OR DID NOT EAT IN 2008!  (That about covers it… right?)

Happy Monday!

(NOTE: I originally published this on my page at KEY 103 …)

I was reading an interesting article by Roy H. Williams, author of “The Wizard Of Ads” about messaging (meaning advertising from his point of view, content creation, promotions and the like from a programming point of view.) This article got me thinking about how to communicate our messages to our audience more effectively.  It occurred to me there are three things which are necessary for a message to be received by it’s intended target.

Three simple things determine if our message is effectively received… it’s not how funny the message is… or how loud we can make the message… or how many times we deliver the message… or a clever title or name. (We all know that a message delivered is not necessarily a message received.)

The zaps and zings and bleeps and bloops make no difference… indeed sometimes those things can distract from the message and its impact.

What are these “three simple things?”

RELEVANCE

If our message is irrelevant to our listeners, they won’t care… odds are they won’t even notice we tried.

Messages filled with things irrelevant to the core of the message are ignored. The audience doesn’t care. They don’t have time for irrelevant messages.

CLARITY

Clarity is key! If the message isn’t clear, listeners won’t understand what our message is trying to say.

Cleverness and creativity can all too often get in the way of the message. Loading the promo or ad or whatever with cleverness for the sake of cleverness goes nowhere and wins us nothing but self-satisfaction in our own cleverness. Not every message needs to be ultra-creative or extremely clever. Sometimes it’s okay to let the message be the message.

When our messages aren’t clear, listeners tune it out and we end up with a wasted message. When we waste a message, we don’t respect our place in the listener’s over-communicated world and we become just another source of “noise” in their lives.

PERSPECTIVE

When we write our messages, are we writing them from the cultural and lifestyle perspective of our target audience? If we don’t we’re not going to reach them effectively.

If we don’t understand our audience in all things we do, how do we expect to have our messages connect with them?

(Inspired by an article from “The Wizard Of Ads” Roy H. Williams)

You might not know the name, but you definitely know the voice…

He’s one of the most heard, best known voices in the world.  A phenomenal talent lost.  A sad day for those of us who were inspired by him and his skills!

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of an old TV/ pop-culture junkie, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find this list of great, really classic TV commercials and promos from the 80s!  Click here for more from MentalFloss Blog!