I loved being a college student. In those days, there was no Internet, and by extension no Google. So as an English major, I spent hours in the library and checked out enough books that carrying them from dorm to class and back to the library, and repeating this semester after semester had the added benefit of providing arm exercises! But I digress. Today’s students depend heavily on information gleaned through the web.  Instead of books, most carry laptops. Information is instantaneous and as I am discovering so is the urge to pilfer, copy, and violate copyrights.

Professors now have software to help them weed out the offenders. And in the business world, this is becoming a serious problem for companies that are on the leading edge of innovation, and who like Dynamic Digital Advertising showcase a lot of their work. Anyone can put up a website and call himself or herself a web master, but to make the site viable when that person has few skills, tempts the wannabe to troll and see “what’s out there” and then copy/paste images and content and pretend like it is theirs. Appalling, and Paul, who monitors our site for such thievery, finds that trollers come from as far as the Middle East and as close as Maryland. 

At DDA, we work to give the clients who select us, the best design be it for a trifold brochure or a trade show graphic. If the new client comes to us for a website, that company has the complete assurance that we start with a blank slate and build from there. The proof is in the looking. Check out our portfolio, where numerous samples of websites, trade show graphics, medical illustrations, video presentations for anything from a medical device to jewelry bolster my claim. If you study our website carefully, you’ll see we fit the classic Aristotle observation, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”  

It’s been said before. Ugh.

Funny, how when trying to write a post about not using cliches in writing, the only opener I can come up with is, well a cliche.

But it happens. As a writer, I try to steer clear from those well-worn phrases, the ones that have been around the block a few times. Dang, did it again.

Every time I embark on a writing project, regardless of the medium — video script, website content, brochure, and so on — I really try to go about it from a fresh perspective, look at it from an angle that, possibly, others haven’t before.

It’s easy to churn out canned phrases and wording, to repeat what has been said before, but to do that would be doing our clients a disservice. Myself and the other writers here at DDA, really work hard to create engaging copy that attracts attention and will draw the reader in.

With clients from so many different industries and as a full-service company with projects from programming to graphic design, we need to switch it up a lot, writing to physicians one day writing to the buyers of alloy plate products the next. And naturally it’s tempting to plop down whatever trite phrases, or overused cliches may relate to that particular field. But we don’t.

As professional writers, we know what good writing is, and it’s not a cliche.  Now that you can take to the bank. Dang it.

Since we work a four day, forty-hour week at Dynamic Digital Advertising, Fridays can prove very interesting. New clients express concern that their needs or questions will not be met or answered because they can’t reach a human. When they find out that not only are the project coordinators answering emails on Friday, there is someone at the office to field calls (usually David or I) and when necessary emergencies occur from (”my email can send but not receive” to” I’m getting an error screen” to something more drastic like “my site is down”), someone knowledgeable will contact them within the hour and resolve the issue.

Everyone who works here, writers developing content for a website, support staff doing build out for a website, animators doing Flash, programmers and their everlasting code design, strive to make the relationship between us and our clients a WIN-WIN. Not easy to do for a full-service advertising agency, because there are so many layers to our projects, and because everything we do is custom not borrowed or lifted from some other source. For example, our taglines in postcards and brochures are tailor made for the specific product, the architecture of all our website work is carefully thought out to be user friendly, technically sophisticated and Google minded. I could go on, but you get the point.  

And also on Friday, when I answer the phone, I often get a surprised response from an old client that I am physically in the office. At the same time, that person is delighted to know the request won’t be shuffled off to Monday. In other words, our regulars don’t call on Friday unless it is something that cannot wait. And to them, I say thank you for your thoughtfulness! On Fridays, I also often get a request to come work for DDA from a supplier or a telemarketer or a delivery person. Flattering really, but when time has become as precious as it is today, I know we are blessed to have three-day weekends. Let’s not ever take it for granted by doing our best to tie up loose ends before the close of business on Thursdays.