Prompted by an outcry over the use of Papyrus for the subtitles in the movie AVATAR, this article from last week’s BBC News Magazine online relates the passions—pro and con—that were provoked. Various other heinous examples of crimes against typography are included.

In 2009, the Swedish retail giant IKEA changed its signature typeface from Futura to Verdana—a font that had been created by Microsoft specifically for screen display.

As in other cases, widespread outrage ensued, with bloggers and tweeters madly weighing in:

“On Aug. 26, Romanian design consultant Marius Ursache started an online petition to get Ikea to change its mind. That night, Verdana was already a trending topic on Twitter, drawing more tweets than even Ted Kennedy.”

It must be noted that some opinionators were more sympathetic.

While typography has a rich history that goes back to the earliest written forms, new typefaces are always arriving on the market, making it tempting for designers to stray from the classic choices. And, sometimes, with good reason. Depending on the target audience and the branding message, it may be perfectly reasonable to select one of the very latest typefaces, especially if it can be effective across a wide variety of corporate needs—website, business cards, magazine and billboard advertising, price tags, serial number labels, Hi My Name Is badges, exterior and interior signage … the list goes on.

I found some great Best and Worst lists. Here’s one that I particularly like because it includes my favorite two Worst examples—#2 and #3, where companies invested in a logo redesign when what they really needed was an overhaul in corporate practices.

If your scroll wheel (or your two-finger touchpad action) is in good shape and you have an extra half hour, check out these collections from Smashing Magazine, an online resource for web design.

• 80 gorgeous typefaces for professional design, in no particular order, based upon suggestions from designers and web developers all over the world (scroll past the well known fonts at the top of the list to see more unusual examples later in the list)
• 60 effective typefaces for corporate design, offering a much quirkier selection than the first list
• 30 new typefaces for corporate design—just what it says: new typefaces

I saved the best for last, but this one isn’t strictly typography. If you have read this far, you may be interested in two visually engaging articles on Writing Systems And Calligraphy Of The World. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here. My bet is, you’ve never seen such an array of writing samples from so many historical language roots and from virtually every corner of the world.

Calligraphy from illuminated Armenian Gospel manuscript

(Bonus points if you noticed which typeface I used in the numbers in my thumbnail illustration at the top.)

Nevertheless, using email well is a critical skill for any independent consultant wanting to grow their business. Here are six rules to follow without exception:

RULE ONE: The subject line is king

In medieval society, the king was everything: all wise and all powerful. That’s the role the subject line plays in all of your outgoing email. Like a headline in a newspaper article, it must be short–6-8 words–and it must be compelling.

As you know from using email yourself, if you don’t know the sender, you read the subject line. If that doesn’t grab you, the email is trashed. According to a 2007 study by Juniper Research, 35% of all email users open messages because of what’s contained in the subject line.

Here’s an example of a good and a bad subject line:

BAD SUBJECT LINE: Advertising deadlines for our eighth annual summer shopping guide are fast approaching

GOOD SUBJECT LINE: Reach 1000’s of women with your unique summer shopping tips

Apart from being way too long, the first subject line is sender-centered instead of recipient-centered. I’m sure the sender thinks that mentioning the fact that their summer shopping guide is in its eighth year will be inspiring, but the recipient of this email doesn’t care about that. And I am also sure the sender thinks that mentioning approaching deadlines creates scarcity (Which everyone knows, sells. Right?), but, again, the recipient doesn’t care about your approaching deadline. Really!

What does the recipient care about?

The recipient, along with every other business leader right now, cares about building their business. In other words, they care about their products and services and the audience they need to reach to sell them. You must show from the very start of your email that you are a serious business person as well. Work on your subject line until you’ve achieved that objective.

RULE TWO: The first sentence is queen

Still royalty, the queen in medieval society was also powerful, just not as much as the king. After your subject line, your first sentence is critical in using email effectively. Once opened, you’ve got five seconds to keep the momentum going. That’s all, five seconds. This rule, like rule one, is about being recipient-centered and not sender-centered based on your understanding of the prospect’s business needs.

Again, here are two examples:

BAD FIRST SENTENCE: Yes, it’s that time of year again! Our eighth annual summer shopping guide is here!! This award-winning, 100-page glossy-printed publication is packed with fun and amazing ideas for every thing you’ll need this summer!!!

GOOD FIRST SENTENCE: I noticed that your company just released a line of learning puzzles for school-aged children. Congratulations. This is just the sort of unique family item moms are looking for this summer as an alternative to video games and re-runs on TV.

What rule one and rule two mean for you is: outgoing email must not be sent generically from a distribution list (otherwise know as spam). Every email must be customized to your prospect as a result of basic research regarding their products, target audience, and business cycles. This will result in fewer email sent, but significantly increased response rates. That’s the point, right?

RULE THREE: Keep the body short

Okay, now it’s time to talk about yourself. But do it carefully, and do it briefly. Avoid all the self-congratulating terms (like amazing, award-wining, cutting-edge, blah, blah, blah) that litter email communication today. And please, please, please lose the exclamation marks. Keep it real and keep it short, 150 words or less.

You should, however, talk about actual business results. Just don’t do it in a self-congratulatory way. State the facts and use recognized business terms like increased sales, reduced down time, improved productivity, etc… Also, use actual numbers and actual names (if possible).

Here’s how I would do this for the summer shopping guide we’ve been discussing:

Every year we print a shopping guide to help crazy busy mom get the stuff their family needs for the summer. This is a high-quality publication that’s distributed directly to professional women from an opt-in subscription list. One of our clients, Thinker Toys, LLC , experienced a 45% increase in retail sales last summer from this publication alone. What would a 45% increase in sales do for you?

RULE FOUR: End with a call to action

Outgoing email is, of course, one step in the larger sales process. Know what the next step is and state it. Then follow-up that step without exception. For most of us this means not mentioning price in any way, even a great, limited time sale price. For most of us email is a way of opening up a relationship and expanding the know, like, and trust quotient. Jumping right to price and product destroys that possibility.

Here’s how I would close the email we’ve been working on:

I’m sending you a copy of last year’s summer shopping guide and placed sticky notes on the pages I thought you’d find interesting. I’ll be calling you next week to discuss this year’s publication. If you’d like to speak to me before then, my direct number is …

RULE FIVE: Keep the signature simple

Lose the fancy signature line with colorful graphics and handwritten autograph. Not only is that distracting, but you’ll get sent straight to junk mail by a spam filter. List your name, position, company, and basic information in straight type (add color if you must). Again, this is not the place to throw in a self-serving tag like, “The World’s Leader in ….” Drop it. Your signature should be limited to three lines, four lines max.

RULE SIX: Do not send attachments

Like the signature rule, following the attachment rule will keep you from the junk mail folder. It’s tempting because we love our colorful graphics and beautiful documents, but don’t do it. It’s also considered rude to send something that will use up precious hard drive space without being asked to do so. If you must provide a sample of your work, do it through an HTML link that the recipient can follow.

BONUS: 35 words to avoid being sent to spam filter purgatory

Purgatory, how’s that for another medieval concept? Here are 35 words NEVER to use in your email because they have been deemed as being associated with spam according to Josiane Chriqui Feigon in her terrific book Smart Selling on the Phone and Online:

free
specials
market
no obligation
gift
bonus
offer
bargain
click
limited time
marketing
advertising
deal
discount
ads
sales
pleasure
sell
pricing
lowest prices
shopping
guarantee
clearance
package
renewal
final days
finance
just released
performance

That was until this week when Google opened up GVoice to everyone. With it ready for wide release, I thought I’d dust off my account and see if Google could sell me on it this time.

I think it has. Last summer, I saw potential at home where my wife and I had recently dropped our landline. Making use of GVoice’s call forwarding to multiple lines, we could still offer a single phone number with family voicemail while only carrying our cell phones. While that may have it’s uses, it wasn’t enough for me to adopt the service.

But for the solopreneur, the features become more rich. I’m not a proponent of acting bigger than you are. On the other hand, I think we can agree there’s no harm in a little more professionalism. Like shaving. Daily. Or giving your business a dedicated line, as opposed your cell phone. GVoice gives you the ability to truly control your business telephone communication. It’s a (mostly) clean break. You can use the messaging to speak directly to your business audience, not them AND your friends, family, or the guy picking up the free couch you put on Craiglist.

So now your customers, prospects, vendors, and contractors have their own number. And your business voicemail sounds all professional and stuff. But it gets better. In GVoice, you can assign callers to groups. If you want all your regular clients to have their own message, or ring to a certain phone, do it. Even make it a more personal experience by addressing the specific company or individual in the recording.

The feature list rolls on. Rather read your messages? Google transcribes them (though this feature still needs some work in the accuracy department). Annoying sales calls? Mark them as Spam and never see them again. Then, try saving some money on texts and use GVoice to send them.

There’s much more to be found if you sign up. And it’s free. For the solopreneur, I think it offers great value by managing your business line as it’s own entity and giving your customers a better experience in the process.

Will you use Google Voice for your business? How?

I went online and did searches for this (widely reported) problem and fixes. Evidently the problem is not with the OS itself, but with fonts that are broken or duplicated. It’s not clear why they are suddenly causing problems in the new release, but the remedy is to fix the fonts, not ditch the upgrade. Fixes that worked for me:

1. Run Apple’s built-in Font Book. Under Collection, click on All Fonts, then select all the fonts in your library:

   
   

   

   
   

   Now go to the File menu and choose Validate Fonts. Do what needs doing to remove duplicates and broken fonts.

   
   

   This may have been sufficient to fix the problem, but being OCD — and having hundreds of fonts from myriad sources, all managed by FontExplorer Pro — I did three more steps that were recommended by folks out there on the Internets:

   
   

2. Ran FontDoctor over the system fonts; all okay. Then I ran it over my entire font collection and threw out a bunch of junk so that I won’t be introducing more broken fonts into my active font folders.
   
   
3. Cleared the Firefox cache. (Firefox -> Preferences -> Advanced)
   
   
4. Closed all running applications, then used the Terminal to type in the magic incantation to clear the system font cache:  sudo atsutil databases -remove
   
   
5. Immediately restarted my Mac.

   
   

All problems cleared up and my fonts are all fresh and shiny clean.

For more information on this problem, see these Apple support forum threads: “10.6.4 Totally Destroys Your Fonts” and “Fonts got f***ed up after I updated to 10.6.4.” See also this quick overview on Mac font issues, and this awesomely detailed online manual on font management in Mac OS X.

As you move through your day negotiating with clients, paying bills, or planning next week’s goals, take a moment to (figuratively) look up at the sky. What kinds of forces can you see headed your way (economic, social, personal) that can provide you with information to help make your later Now better?

Now let’s look at incentives for knowledge workers. The research shows they won’t produce more work simply because you’ve offered a bonus for exceeding quota. And you can’t underpay people: that’s a de-motivator. You have to pay them fairly. After that, you can bring other, much more effective motivational tools into play.

This RSA Animate adaptation of a Dan Pink talk illustrates the studies and the results in a very entertaining way. Think “chalk-talk” video, but without the snoring.

If you need to motivate someone in your life, whether it’s your workers, your children*, or your customers, you’ll be interested in these findings.

What are some non-traditional methods you’ve found useful in motivating people?

* Yes, I do consider children knowledge workers. They are working on accumulating knowledge every day in every way.

Let’s take a look at the power of the @.

For the average Facebook user, there are two places that get your attention. Of course, first is the Wall. It’s where you most often land. But if you as a business aren’t there on the first page of “Most Recent” or “Top News” updates, will your fans ever see you?

This is where the second attention-getter comes in. If not the Wall, your Facebook fans are checking their notifications. And for good reason. It’s the place where all the important stuff gets aggregated, like who’s talking about them or conversations they have commented on. Bottom line: it’s the stuff that gets the clicks.

That’s what makes tagging so powerful. Frank Fan’s Wall might well be full of Farmville updates (he just can’t bring himself to block anything), but he’ll always see his notifications. Like a thoughtful gift, be there with content you shared just for him.

It only takes two simple steps to harness the power of tags:

1.  Make as many fans your Page friends in your personal account as possible (required to tag anyone).

Keep in mind – you’ll need to be comfortable with fans seeing your personal updates. However, I believe the benefits outweigh the risks.

2. Create a new post.

Did you remember to take a picture last time a fan was in the store? Upload and tag it. Did you find a blog that would you think Frank Fan would love? Post it and @  so he’s sure to read it.

That’s it. Not too complicated.  But the beauty of tagging happens not when they click on the notification – it’s when they undoubtedly comment on the post. Now it becomes an entry for all their community to see and a sure-fire conversation starter (read lots and lots of comments).

The success of this rightly hinges on a deep understanding of your fans as individuals. What do they like and dislike? What are their passions? Would you even recognize them if they walked in your door? If it’s not personal and relative, it’s spam.  And you’ll be ignored or worse disliked. But done well and your community will adore you.

So tag it up. And have fun making fans feel special. What ways will use it?

The answer is simple – give them a reason.

But the reasons can be a bit of a hangup. What are some motivators, some incentives for people to engage? Great question. Here are eight essential keys to building a thriving Facebook community:

1. Ask for feedback.

It’s a fact of humanity that people love sharing opinions. Present the opportunity to do so on your fan page and you will get responses. It could be fun (like a Coke vs Pepsi type faceoff) or fact-finding (looking for your next flavor of cupcake). You can mix up the content, but the point is the same. Get people interacting with your page by starting the conversation.

2. Respond to feedback.

Now that you have fans posting on your wall, what do you do? Respond. This accomplishes a couple important things. First, it validates for the fan the time they took to comment. They know someone is listening and cares. Second, others see that you are listening and care.  And third, you keep the conversation going.

3. Include an abundance of pictures, videos, and blog posts.

These bring the experience of your business. And experiences make for more loyal customers. So take a video in the warehouse, interview employees, customers, the office cat. Pictures of the last charity event staff participated in. And if you have a blog, integrate it by posting it as a link to your wall and putting the Facebook “Like” button on your blog.

4. Be conversational, real, fun, and interesting.

That is, be you. Or more specifically, be the part of you that is also the brand. Remember, this isn’t a direct mailer or a radio spot. No one way messages here. Instead, you are sitting around a virtual kitchen table with people. Talk to them with that in mind and you’ll win business without the sales pitch.

5. Tag, tag, tag. And you’re it.

This deserves it’s own post but suffice to say, if you can figure out a way to tag someone in a picture, a update, or a video do it. Go out of your way to find or create content that you can link to specific fans. It’s a powerful feature, and terribly underutilized by businesses.

Disclaimer: to tag someone, he/she must be a friend in your personal account.

6. Specific calls to action connecting the social to the local.

Your business has online communities as well as offline ones. To start integrating the two, create ways to connect social to local and vice-versa. And make the calls-to-action specific. For instance, “Bring in a Facebook friend for 20% your next order.” Have a “Find us on Facebook” sign in your window. Have an iPad tethered to the counter with a sign “Want to share your experience on Facebook (or Yelp or Twitter)?” The more points your customers can interact with your brand, the more it’s awareness builds.

7. Find the higher cause your customer is fanatical about.

Consumers connect with brands in social media that are serving the interests of the community. So it’s not just about your product, but about the cause or values to which your fans aspire . Like how shoes fit into a healthy, handmade, eco-conscious lifestyle. Tell that story first and make your product an irresistible character in it.

8. Reward your fans.

Everyone likes a prize. Even if it’s just being the first to know. So try sharing with your fans the inside scoop, have a giveaway, or hold a special gathering for them. Use them as a beta testers and advisors for new ideas. Go unexepected and design a T-shirt just for them. These are the remarkable customer experiences that get your brand talked about.

So are you prepared to start building community? Do you have a story using one of these keys? Or have I missed one?

In my paper I wrote about how the outcome of any negotiation hinges on both leverage and power. To become a successful negotiator one must first understand the similarities between leverage and power as well as how their roles differ in the negotiation process. This involves learning how confidence affects the amount of leverage and power each party brings to the negotiating table.

I’ll spare you a copy/paste of the entire paper, but thought I’d share a few thoughts on something called a BATNA—what it is, and how having one will give you confidence (and power) when negotiating.

I have to admit, before enrolling in the course I had never heard of the term BATNA, or Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement. But the concept is simple: it’s whatever you’ve got in your back pocket if the negotiation goes south. A BATNA is your Plan B.

Whether you’re shopping for a new car or a new job, knowing your best alternative to taking the deal is critical for walking away happy. Why? Because having a plan B gives you the confidence to say “no thanks” if you need to. When you know you’ve got another good option (or two), there won’t be feelings of desperation or settling for less. Sometimes walking away happy means leaving the deal on the table.

And while finding your BATNA is important, don’t stop there. Do what you can to find your opponent’s, too. Remember this: whoever has the best BATNA has the most leverage in the negotiation. So do some detective work. Ask questions. If the other party is being stingy with information it could be a sign that their BATNA is weak. Or, if you have a good poker face, they may just think you have a stronger alternative to the deal. Either way, the advantage is yours.

And if not, well, there’s always plan B. Or at least there should be.