Everywhere around the world, people are busily getting ready for the end of year festivities. Me included. I managed to write my annual letter and get photos of the young Snavlings printed. The fun is addressing and mailing the letters. My holiday letter list was on my PDA, but when I got a new one, I forgot to copy the file over. The file is on my backup drive, but I can't access it right now (long techie story). That means going through my addresses to recreate the list. I'm sure you have your own stories of what is making you crazy. Remember what's important, and that's enjoying this wonderful time of the year with friends and family.

I got an email from my publisher (read: boss behind the newsletter) saying he would like to publish one issue between November and December. It surprised me as I had planned to do one in November and December. He was actually ensuring at least one issue went out rather than none, but I decided to stick with my publishing schedule. Otherwise I'll get lazy as explained in this month's Marketing Strategies.

The Feature is a lesson on the importance of simplicity in our messages. A company I worked for in the past had a fancy mission statement that the bigwigs put together after locking themselves up for two days. They printed it on cards for us. No matter how many times we glanced at the card, it was not memorable. It read like something a professor wrote. I also would like to hear your experiences.

Drop me a line anytime at meryl@internetviz.com or leave feedback here. If you complete the short survey, I'll put your name in a drawing for a Pair of Garmin Rino 100 MP3 GPS.

Happy Holidays—Part I (there's still December)!

Enjoy the issue! 

Best,
Meryl K. Evans
Editor, eNJ