Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

I’m a member of the most dangerous motorcycle gang in Chicago

07.21.2011 by David Murray // 18 Comments

We're dangerous not because we are drug-crazed or angry or reckless. We're dangerous because we are the most awkward motorcycle gang in the world, and we are liable to do just about anything.

We agree on a few things. We're not big on Harleys; we're Triumph and BMW guys. And we all call each other, "Ace."

Actually, that's about it.

Some of us like to ride back roads, others like to take highways.

One of us is super punctual, one of us is pathologically late and everybody else is in between.

Some of us navigate by the sun, others need to know exactly where we are at all times.

We've got at least one Republican, but we don't talk about it because we don't like to fight.

There's one dame, but we don't treat her any different, because we wouldn't know where to begin.

Our professions range from writer to hotelier to small-company CEO to mortgage broker to restaurant manager to truck driver to one guy who nobody has any idea what he does even though he's tried to tell us many times.

We have no leader. The dame would probably be the leader if she had her own bike, but she doesn't. So whoever has the strongest opinion on a given issue gets his way. (That may sound like a Democratic System, but it's more like a Rotating Dictatorship.)

We don't even know what to call ourselves. Some of us call us "The Hard Cases," others call us "The Boys from Falconhead Manor."

Whowever we are, we're leaving this morning for a weekend ramble that it's taken us more than half a year to plan. We'll make about 700 miles roundtrip, from Chicago to Cleveland, then to some motorcycle races in a muddy field in the middle of Ohio.

Unless somebody suddenly feels strongly that we should do something else instead.

Wish us luck.

Wish Ohio luck.

Maybe I'll write something about it, if I make it back.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Falconhead Manor, Mid-Ohio Vintage Motorcycle Days, motorcycle gang, The Hard Cases

The world is not about advertising. (Or even communication.)

07.20.2011 by David Murray // 2 Comments

In the first of a regular series of columns I'm writing for the marketing website McMurry.com, I talk about what my dad knew about communication: "The world is not about advertising," he insisted on telling advertising people. "The world is about people."

Categories // Uncategorized

Have you made a good video since last September? If not, why not?

07.20.2011 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

A modern communicator has to know how to create video communication—or at the very least, how to oversee it from strategy through production.

If you've made a video you're proud of, there's one perfect place to send it—to the 2011 Strategic Video Awards, of which I just happen to be program chairman, leading a great group of judges.

SVA_web_banner

We evaluate video communication the way you do: Not by how slick it looks or how sophisticated it sounds, but by how it works, to serve the organization's strategy.

The Call for Entries is out. The entry deadline is Oct. 14. Entering is super simple, and you can do it online.

Git 'r done.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Strategic Video Awards

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