I just finished reading Tina Fey’s (of SNL and “30 Rock” fame) quick-read called Bossypants. It seems Ms. Fey and I share the same sense of humor, so I found it laugh-out-loud funny…and prompted me to ask what else Fixation is reading this summer.

Well the Fixation Book Club sets the bar a bit higher than I did; here’s a partial list of what they’re grabbing out of a beach bag, off a coffee table, or huddled with under the dim light of a bedside lamp:

Megan Campbell is investigating the dark side of polygamy in Under the Banner of Heaven, A Story of Violent Faith, by Jon Krakauer.

John Frantz recommends Buried Prey by John Sanford. Says the senior designer: “on the surface, it’s just a pulp detective novel. But this Pulitzer-winning writer can develop characters, plots and dialogue that are off the charts.”

New mom, Elizabeth Ellen, must be feeling romantic because she keeps My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro, compiled love stories edited by Jeffrey Eugenides (author of Middlesex) at her bedside.

Carly Chomer has a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin under her arm.

Account Manager Alexis de la Rosa warns not to read Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink edited by David Remnick on an empty stomach. “If you love food, this an eclectic collection of essays and a fun read. The only problem is I get hungry after I read it.”

Senior Art Director Randy Guseman offered up a long list of summer reads, prompting one to wonder if he’s doing much else BUT reading. At the top of his list: Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, British pulp fiction by Sue Townsend.

Finance manager Julia Westfall is reading Mind Gym, a book for athletes on how to train mentally as well as physically. “But it’s also applicable to how we live our lives in general, and learning to visualize success in order to reach your highest achievement level.”

Kim Axtell says she’s keeping it light this summer on the beach with The Kingdom and The Jungle (by Clive Cussler), Hell’s Corner (by David Balducci), The Inner Circle (by Brad Meltzer)

Military history buff Sean Brown is reading One Bullet Away (Lt. Nate Fick).

Creative Director (and beer connoisseur?) Mike Gallagher is enjoying Beer, A Genuine Collection of Cans, a photo history of 60 years of beer cans from all over the world.

Kevin Nestor is reading 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Aron Ralston’s true story, made famous last year by James Franco in the Academy Award nominated film).

Leo Salazar said he saved countless reading hours by watching 127 Hours on DVD.

Oleg Burdo is relishing Driver, “about the guy who set the record for the fastest drive between LA and NY by turning his BMW into a European police cruiser.”

Sharyn Collinson says she is so busy that she’s barely managing to stay current with People and Us Weekly.

And copywriter Lori Kurtyka is reading Your 4-year-old: Wild and Wonderful (when she’s not chasing her wild and wonderful 4-year-old around the ’hood).

So tell us…what are YOU reading this summer?

Timely, clear & relevant information is what your members want and being able to provide it to them shows your value as an association. But with websites, e-mail, social networks and all of the other channels the web now has, what’s the best way to reach who with what info? Unfortunately, there is no one right answer because everyone uses the web their own way. But there are some tips you can follow to be as effective as possible. Why just 9? See tip #1.

1. Be aware of information overload. Be sure what you are providing is helpful and necessary, and don’t overwhelm your members.
   
   
2. Make your website a timely information resource, not just brochure-ware. Build an RSS, blog roll, or Twitter feed into your homepage, so the relevant industry news of the day is always right there.
   
   
3. Regular e-newsletters, with short, relevant topics that link to more in-depth information let you deliver information to those not actively seeking it. Plus, it’s a great way to keep your e-mail list/CRM scrubbed.
   
   
4. Make sure your website is designed for mobile screens. Big graphics, wide horizontal navigations and the like don’t allow convenient communication with mobile users. Be sure to have a mobile friendly or mobile site.
   
   
5. If you’re going to have a Twitter account, tweet regularly. Twitter users want to know what’s happening, daily. Product trends, governmental regulations, and trade show happenings are just a few of the things you can tweet about.
   
   
6. If you have a blog, be sure to post at least three to five times a week to keep your audience engaged. The posts can—and should—be more informal and personal than your main website. Entries should encourage discussion through comments.
   
   
7. Re-tweet and use hash (#) tags.
   
   
8. If you have a Facebook page, the more people who’ve friended you, the better. Host a contest that exchanges trade show sponsorship points for friend acceptances. Whichever company drives the most friends gets a free sponsorship. Post regularly with all sorts of information.
   
   
9. Keep Facebook and Twitter separate. Do not repost the same info to both as they each serve different audiences. Facebook is to people who have opted in by “liking” you. Twitter is mostly public and can be searched or followed by anyone with hash (#) tags.

On this eve of Thanksgiving 2010, marketing guru Seth Godin gave me this list to ponder of REASONS WHY WE WORK:

1. For the money
2. To be challenged
3. For the pleasure/calling of doing the work
4. For the impact it makes on the world
5. For the reputation you build in the community
6. To solve interesting problems
7. To be part of a group and to experience the mission
8. To be appreciated

Godin challenges us to consider how really important #1 is when what really ignites the passion in our souls are #2-8. Which brings me to more reasons why I’m thankful. (Of course family and friends, good health, pets I adore and a really nice little life...are all things for which I am ever grateful.) But I own this small company—Fixation Marketing—and I know how fortunate I am to have it and share it with a dedicated and caring staff. We are continually challenged to learn more and do better work. We solve interesting problems each day. I’d like to think we’ve built a nice reputation in the community. It is a priority for the company to give back to the community and we do so through our volunteer and pro bono work. We appreciate our clients and we love to be appreciated. And for all that, I am happy to come to work every morning. And I know that’s a gift. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

The recession is slowly ebbing. How do I know this? Because in the past few weeks, two of our favorite clients announced they are moving to new jobs and a long-time employee of Fixation shared his decision to follow his heart and move to the Big Apple. The news was stunning as I realized how long it’s been since I’ve heard much about anyone leaving jobs (of their own volition).

Like most people, I’m not crazy about change. When things shake up in a client’s organization, for example, it can, at least for awhile, make things a little shaky for the marketing firm. And, on a personal note, I really hate losing touch with someone I care about and is beloved by our clients. But at times like this, I try to embrace change for all the good that it can bring: new opportunities, new perspectives, new energy, new relationships. I recognize that an organization can become stagnant with no staff turnover, and movement, from time to time, is a positive thing. But breaking up is hard to do, even if it’s healthy for all of us in the end.

Fixation proudly continues with our sponsorship of Sam Lippman's Large Show Roundtable (LSR). The latest event was held in St. Louis and included cocktails with the Budweiser Clydesdales. As promised, we're sharing the second installment of our 10 for '10 marketing tips (distributed as a handout to the St. Louis LSR participants).

We've offered some sound advice and tactics in response to the anxiety-producing trend of prospective attendees waiting to register until only a few weeks out from the event. Fear not! End-of-campaign strategies can boost both exhibit and attendance numbers in the final weeks before your show.

This week as we were brainstorming ideas for IAAPA Asian Attractions Expo 2011's creative look and tagline, we were pleased to see CEO Charlie Bray and the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions receive some well-deserved recognition for having established a truly global presence.

As Charlie points out, many associations are "International" in name only. When it comes to branding their tradeshows, they haven't really decided whether they will be a U.S. tradeshow with some international attendance, or an international tradeshow that happens to take place in the U.S.-and be able to back up the claim. A few years ago, IAAPA told us they wanted to be unequivocally the latter. It has been our challenge to help them strategize and enact a series of tactics to boost their international attendance without breaking the bank on international marketing.

The first step-as always!-has to be researching and targeting the right mailing lists. Another thing IAAPA gets right, and that's tantamount to going global, is a good relationship with a good translation company. They use the same team of translators year after year so those folks are very familiar with the industry's terminology and with the IAAPA Attractions Expo. A separate challenge is deciding what to translate. In recent years, focusing on digital initiatives (like targeted emails to unique international communities and a digital conference brochure that is web accessible) has really helped expand IAAPA's reach. Last year's show, in fact, saw record international attendance.

Congratulations, IAAPA!

From time to time, business owners are asked to throw their proverbial hat into the ring for various graphic design awards, Best Places to Work lists, Smart CEO honors and the like. So, it was no big deal when earlier this year we received a Top Agency nomination from BtoB, the magazine for marketing strategists, and were asked to complete a survey. All in a day’s work; answer their questions and move on.

Imagine our surprise a few weeks ago when we learned that Fixation had been named to BtoB’s (www.btobonline.com) 150 Leading Agencies list in their March 2010 issue. This particular honor stands out because a) it’s a national recognition that finds us listed among some of the nation’s biggest and best “name brand” agencies; and b) the questions took into consideration not just our personality or number of employees, but some deeper questions about year-over-year growth and how we were helping our clients deal with a fragile economy.

Look, we know this business is not all about awards. But as a small agency, we rarely get consideration in the rarefied company of the “big boys” like BBDO and Ogilvy & Mather North America. Let’s hear it for the little guy! And let me take this opportunity to first thank a great small-and-smart staff here at Fixation who work hard and produce terrific stuff that is sometimes unheralded. Second, let me honor our clients—many of them long-standing—who hire us to provide creative strategy, design and interactive marketing solutions that help keep them successful and help keep us on top of our game.

Congratulations to all. I’m so proud of this company.

Fixation Marketing was a sponsor of Sam Lippman's Large Show Roundtable (LSR) in Anaheim, California on January 22, 2010. Not content just slapping our name on this industry-leading executive forum and sitting on the sidelines, we produced an informative value-added leave behind for all LSR participants called 10 for '10-10 marketing tips to enhance their 2010 events. Now, we'd like to share it with you! This first installment focuses on fresh ideas to attract returning and new attendees and exhibitors, from direct mail database management to utilizing Smartphones effectively.

Stay tuned for the next 10 for '10, which will offer tips on how to boost registration numbers eight weeks out from the big event!

If you know me well, then you probably know that both my parents passed away in 2009. For years leading up to their rather sudden passing, my brothers and I tried without success to get them to embrace the age of technology and get a computer. They wouldn't. We wanted them to send and receive email. They wouldn't. But here's something I learned as I recently sorted through their things: my old-fashioned, tech-resistent parents still wrote letters. And because they wrote letters, they received letters back. I read things about my parents after their deaths that I would never have known if they had communicated, like the rest of us, through email. Don't get me wrong; I love email as much as the next girl. But there is something fleeting about it that was all the more apparent as I read letters from friends and family to my parents. Fixation's holiday gift this year is a set of custom-designed greeting cards we're calling "Not The Usual Holidays Holiday Cards." They're greetings for holidays that were never elevated to celebrated card-giving occasions. Our hope is to prompt one-to-one communication at times this year when no one particularly expects it. Like Groundhog Day or Arbor Day for example. Write a note, throw on a stamp and surprise someone. We promise that no one will hit "delete."

Happy New Year!

In these long, hot days of mid-summer, holiday gifts for clients may be the last thing on your mind. At Fixation, we think it’s an ideal time to be thinking about the holidays. Why? Because in July, time is on our side. By November, the rush will be on and the time for creative thinking is past. (And if you’re like us, schedules can really heat up in the fourth quarter.)

In July, we have the leisure to think about our criteria for a year-end gift: something that says “thanks” for your business; something that stays out of the circular file and sticks around past New Year’s Day; something that is useful, helpful, appreciated, showcases our creativity and reflects our brand. Last year’s seasonal notecards were a big hit internally among the staff and with recipients. It’s currently our mid-summer’s resolution to come up with a worthy follow up gift to close out 2009.

So while it may feel a tad early to be thinking about holly, handmade ornaments or Hanukkah…summer is the perfect time to bag an idea for a holiday thank you gift that shows your clients how much you appreciate them all year ‘round.