For me, nothing says “I refuse to put any effort or expense whatsoever into this” quite like an e-Christmas / e-Holiday card does.

I’ve received quite a few e-cards this year.

Some are well done and you can tell the sender/sending organization actually put a fair amount of time and effort into creating something clever and memorable, like this one from McMillan, an advertising and design agency here in Ottawa – I don’t mind those as much.  In fact, I liked McMillan’s so much I forwarded it to a few people.

However, others have (pardon the expression) been STRAIGHT SHITE!  And worse, a lot of them have been very similar: a winter scene with the ‘cutting-edge animation’ of falling snow and some generic, unoriginal greeting.

Christmas / Holiday cards is a contact with your customers, partners and suppliers, and like all contact with those parties, its an opportunity to build the relationship, so it should be done right.

Now, I’m in favour of electronic versus paper when in comes to most things, but I’m sure I’m not the only person that likes to put received Christmas cards up on the window sill in my office or on my fireplace mantle at home.

Further, at Thornley Fallis & 76design a lot of what we do is electronic communication, but I still think its important to send our clients, partners, suppliers and other contacts an actual card that they keep longer than the time it takes to open and delete an email.

We usually start work on original concepts in October, we then have them printed, pull together about 1000 addresses/labels, and get them out late November/early December.  Over the years, I think we’ve come up with some pretty good cards that reflect the ‘personality’ of our firm. Last year our card included a line of perforated gift labels.  With concept development, design, printing, envelope stuffing, labelling, postage, etc. it’s more costly and time consuming than an e-card, but I think it’s worth it.

Of course, not every organization can design a card in house, but firms (like our design studio) are available for hire. If you can’t do it in-house, hire a firm or freelancer to help you do it right.  It won’t cost that much and will enhance this contact with your customers, partners and suppliers.

Prominent Canadian military and defence reporter, David Pugliese, who writes for the Ottawa Citizen, has his articles published in other CanWest Global newspapers and is also the Canadian correspondent for Defense News has started a blog called Defence Watch on Canada.com.

David’s first post was on December 10th and to date he’s posted 11 times, more than once a day. Given I have a few defence industry clients at Thornley Fallis, I’ve subscribed to and will be following David’s blog intently.

I thought this was a pretty good CSR / marketing initiative by Banana Republic.  Bring in a gently used sweater that they will donate to Goodwill and receive 30% off a new one. I brought in a sweater that I hadn’t worn for a while last week and picked up a new one.

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a couple of weeks.  Jack Aubry beat me to it in today’s Ottawa Citizen.

I live at Somerset and Kent, one block West of the intersection of Bank and Somerset, and BTW pay the inflated municipal property taxes that come with a downtown home.  The now 60–day closure of Bank Street from Cooper to Maclaren, and Somerset Street from O’Connor to Kent has been a real pain in the ass for area residents who would normally drive through this intersection several times a day.  Not to mention the lost revenues for the businesses on those blocks, which Mr. Aubry discusses in his article.

The closure is made worse by two relatively new traffic installations on Cooper and Maclaren streets.  A no straight across O’Connor Street when travelling East on Cooper (an Eastbound one-way) and a no straight across O’Connor Street when travelling West on Maclaren (a Westbound one-way).  These two streets and no straights are indicated with red arrows and Xs on the map below.

Now someone almost died when the building that formerly housed the Duke of Somerset Pub, Lockmaster Tavern and Somerset Hotel partially collapsed during construction on October 19, 2007, so it was important for the City of Ottawa to secure the area and make sure there were no further life-threatening incidents.  But its now been two months and the streets remain closed. 

Also, they’ve had at least one police car and officer, sometimes more, stationed there 24–hours a day for this entire period.  How much is that costing?!?!  Maybe the pending property tax increase would be lower without this expense?

Finally, to the point of this post…

As someone that lives one block from the street closure, I’ve received absolutely no direct communication from the City of Ottawa letting me (and my Centretown neighbours) know what’s going on.  How difficult would have it have been for the City to mail-drop a letter or two to Centretown residents?  There’s also no information posted about it on the City’s website. When are organizations going to learn that simply keeping people informed goes a long way towards lowering frustration and dissatisfaction with service?  And it shows people that you are on top of the situation and care about the impact and people being affected.

I travel a bit, sometimes more for my volunteer activities than for my work (sorry, kids!)

A recent trip left me with a great impression of Detroit, and I never even left the airport.  Indeed, the last time I travelled to Detroit in 2003, I did not really think much of the airport, or of the city. 

This time, however, I was impressed with the quality of the airport facility itself and with some of the little touches they have that indicated to me that the airport authority is thinking about marketing the city frequently.

Airports are the welcome mat to your community, and that’s why they are such a key piece of infrastructure.  People who don’t travel often may not appreciate it, but airports have an impact on investment decisions, on future partnerships, and on a whole host of intangibles that you would not sense from looking solely at the airport — itself — as a business.

Detroit’s welcome mat is now very impressive — bright, airy, modern and spacious, with a look and feel of a city on the move.  Kudos to the designers, etc., although there’s probably been cost overruns, and other challenges, as there always are on these types of projects.

To be honest, however, the thing that stuck with me was the number of languages the airport used to broadcast the kinds of general announcements airports always announce — you know, the “the Detroit airport is pleased to offer a non-smoking environment” ones.  They announced these in six languages, and that told me Detroit thinks of itself as a city of the world.

So why does that matter?  It matters because that’s where the world is going — major urban centres that will thrive are the ones that can welcome diverse cultures and welcome the business they bring.  Airports are hubs of economic and social activity, and they must demonstrate a recognition of their role as a network hub for a world in motion.

In short, I think Detroit gets it, and for all of the city’s challenges in recent times, the airport – at least — told me the city was headed in the right direction.  Indeed, it made me want to come back and visit, and when was the last time you said that about an airport?