The problem is timeless and universal: you think you know what someone else wants, deliver that whatever-it-is, and then find yourself mystified by the fact that the recipient isn’t thrilled by your offering. It happens with birthday presents, it happens on dates, and it happens when branding your business. Birthday presents and dates are one thing, but if there’s one place you really need to hit the target, it’s branding. How can you make sure you’re not missing the mark?

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Q: What do landing the perfect job, finding your ideal mate, and winning friends all have in common?

A: They all require you to know how to market yourself.

Yes, it’s the reason people sweat interviews (and first dates), spend hours drafting cover letters, and even pay others to assemble their résumés — we don’t always know the best way to sell ourselves. Marketing yourself is an essential skill to get where you want to go, but the process is often easier said than done.

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I was twenty when the overwhelming urge to head to the Southwest struck. I was a junior in college, living on a tiny island off the coast of Maine, and I was hungry to explore the alien landscape of slickrock and sandstone, to see arches and mesas and unimaginable rock formations with my own eyes. The canyons were calling to me, so in the spring of 1998, I took a Greyhound bus from Maine to Utah.

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Welp, here we are at the end of 2014 with a brand new year peeking out over the horizon. If you’re like us, you’re thinking about your business adventures from the past 12 months and planning on how to make 2015 blow 2014 right out of the water.

Here are a few tips that can help:

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One of the most internationally ubiquitous weapons, the Russian AK-47, has undergone a little makeover. The assault rifle was developed in the 1940s in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov, who died almost exactly one year ago. Prior to his death, the weapons engineer wrote of his “spiritual pain” in wondering if the AK-47 has done more harm than good. Although Kalashnikov’s intentions to invent a weapon of defense may have been noble, it’s impossible to determine if the weapon has wrought more destruction than it has ever defended, given the AK-47’s uncontrolled global distribution.

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Branding Experts: No High Fructose Corn Syrup ’til You Right Your Creepy Courses!

With October 31^st around the corner, it’s the perfect time to discuss a subject that’s near and dear to my heart: What happened to the apostrophe that used to live in Hallowe’en? And how long has it been missing?

For years, I thought I’d never find that charming throwback to Ye Olde Worlde punctuation, but then I’ll be darned if it didn’t turn up the other day gratuitously tacked on to the title of the Lands’ End catalog. At least, I think that’s the same one. Or maybe the Lands’ End bonus apostrophe is the rogue migrant that’s missing from Maurices clothing chain store, and has nothing to do with Hallowe’en at all. 

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