A few weeks ago, Twitter announced it was redesigning the way we’d interact on its website, making it easier to use and allowing us to get “more out of Twitter in a lot less time.” (Check out Mashable’s play-by-play piece for more detail on the actual roll out).

Slowly, our staff has been granted access to the new format as it progressively rolls out to the more than 160 million Twitter users (I feel honored, Twitter, really, I do). Having had access to the redesigned look for a week or so now, I’ve found the new layout seems really familiar to some of the desktop and web-based applications that many of us in the office already use to monitor the social media space for our clients (CoTweet, HootSuite, TweetDeck, Seesmic, etc.). Side note rant: Can anyone tell me why these application developers are against having spaces in their application names? Yeesh, show the space bar some love!

Through the new design, which features a preview window on the right of the newsfeed, viewers can access additional information without leaving the current page (a huge bonus for those of us with a bit of a short attention span) among other functionality improvements. You can view more detailed information on a person’s profile, view a video or photo, or see a conversation between two users side by side.

Twitter's new preview pane allows users to see additional content without navigating away from Twitter.com

So, was this Twitter’s way of capturing back some of the audience that’s using been using these third-party applications? Absolutely (see San Diego’s own Jennifer VanGrove explore that theory in her Mashable post earlier this month)!

But the real kicker is the expanded content opportunities. Twitter has partnered with 18 separate content-providing sites – including Etsy, Flickr, Plixi, TwitPic, Twitvid,  Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube to name a few – that will allow this content to be viewed within the new preview pane without leaving Twitter.com, similar to the functions in most desktop and web-based interfaces.

Some of the best news? Unlike the recent Facebook overhaul, my initial exploration (post if you see differently) found the customized Twitter backgrounds we’ve created for our clients maintain their integrity within the new design.

While facilitating a crisis media training session for a relatively large national brand, one of the participants quipped, “But I don’t even care about social media. I’d rather just deal with real people.”

So would most of us.  I long for the day when people less than a half-dozen steps away would get off their arses and have a conversation versus send a stream of e-mail notes. But I digress, and I was one of those curmudgeon print reporters 20 years ago (albeit a cub) who thought hell would freeze over before people would opt for reading their news on a computer monitor.

Every organization should realize social media’s impact on dissemination and consumption of information, news and entertainment. Market power is shifting from organizations and brands, consumer and trade, to the consumer largely because of technology. Social media continues to grow as a consumer tool for decision-making, and it still seems many organizations and brands either struggle with, or refuse to accept, how or why they need to know how to engage in the Internet-connected, Tweeting, Facebooking, photo- and video-uploading stakeholder-engaged world. The seemingly few who are connected, Tweeting, Facebooking, et al. and inviting engagement from stakeholders recognize these connections are good for their organizations, brands and their business.  They “get it” that engagement is critical, whereas hordes of others in social media just see this as another platform to push out marketing messages a la Web 1.0

This consumer-driven engagement brings peer-to-peer endorsements and criticisms on organizations, brands, products, services and issues to an extraordinarily higher level than ever experienced. Word, not too long ago, spread gradually – days, weeks, maybe even months.  Today, with the Internet and all its social media outlets, we’re talking a matter of hours and even minutes, and not just with the families on your block.  Consumers can reach entire communities locally and globally.

That alone has a profound impact on how we manage crisis situations.  Social media is becoming the preferred platform on which an organization’s crisis unfolds and where control of the matter at hand is won or lost.  And that preference is coming from all corners except the organizations facing the crisis.

A prime example is the “United Breaks Guitars” fiasco.  The airline refused to take responsibility for breaking Dave Carroll’s guitar, and after nearly a year of getting nowhere, Carroll released his now famous video about United on the Internet, exposing the airline’s poor customer service. The video gained more than 500,000 views within a week, and mainstream media, including CNN, NPR, CBS, USA Today, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other traditional outlets globally, picked up the story, some citing “digital revenge.” Experts far and wide said United waited too long, finally proclaiming on Twitter, “This has struck a chord w/us and we’ve contacted him directly to make it right.” Too little too late? Many say, “absolutely.”

Ditto for Domino’s.  The pizza HQ waited 24 hours before posting a response on YouTube, where two workers – clearly anticipating their Culinary Institute of America acceptance letters – literally picked at some new ideas for ingredients.

There’s also Nestle, when consumers got a sweet tooth for revenge over the company’s interactions with consumers and Greenpeace supporters on Nestle’s Facebook page.  When you insult someone online, be prepared for the mob mentality – and to never win.

And there’s British Petroleum.  Where do we begin?  How about just looking at the hijacking of its brand on Twitter (see @BPGlobalPR).  Yes, it can happen to you and most know it’s a fake, but the lesson is realizing the risk of losing control of your brand.

This is all what digital trends expert Steve Rubel says clearly about what we’re facing: “An entire generation is growing up that will never dial a 1-800 number to reach customer care.”

We are dealing with real people, about 227.7 million of them in the U.S.; just not on the phone or in person – they’re on your desktop, laptop, mobile phone, iPad and soon to the next tech gadget coming down the pipeline, except for Kin.

Are you ready?

My 14^th go-round at SXSW consisted of many firsts – my first year attending as an Austin resident, my first year as an Interactive participant and my first year organizing the first annual San Diego Hoe-Down for the San Diego Music Foundation.

Attending both SXSW Interactive and Music required a 10-day commitment to learning, networking, eating, drinking and rocking – with very little sleep in between said activities.  Interactive was bigger than ever with more than 15,000 attendees – at least 600 were technology media – jammed into overcrowded hotel conference rooms for five days, discussing everything from mobile apps and geo-location marketing to brand influence and customer service.  Despite a few less than spectacular panels and speakers, and a lack of electrical outlets to recharge drained laptops and mobile devices, SXSW Interactive provided a fertile forum for discussion and brand building – both personal and professional.

A couple of key takeaways:

1. Mobile marketing (apps, SMS texting programs and WAP sites) is the new inroad for brand engagement, stimulating a recurring debate among panelists around brands building their own mobile apps vs. sponsoring or marketing through pre-existing apps and mobile platforms.  Much like social media two years ago, mobile marketing has been infected with bright shiny object syndrome. Regardless, strategy must drive the decision to incorporate mobile into your brand marketing plans – does it support your brand goals and objectives?  Do you have a follow-up strategy in place?  How are you measuring success? The importance of understanding your customers – and their needs – before jumping into mobile is a fairly obvious yet often overlooked first step.  Are you providing value, education and relevance to your consumers?  Brands are perceived by what consumers are saying about them, so their mobile apps should be more about functionality, convenience and user experience than brand imagery and entertainment – built in location-based sensitivity designed to change consumer behavior should always be in the strategic conversation.

1. Location is key, but privacy policy is king – lots of talk about geo-targeted social media marketing with location-based platforms Foursquare and GoWalla at the center of numerous panel discussions.  A humorous contribution from one panelist entertained the idea of joining Foursquare so he could check-in at “I don’t care where your eating,” located at the corner of “Who gives a sh*t” and “TMI.” Both Foursquare and GoWalla kept the privacy-control debate alive and kicking during panel discussions – positives and negatives associated with the increasing trend of telling people exactly where you are at any given time.  Foursquare also received high praise among conference attendees for incentivizing consumer behavior through points and prizes – in addition to connecting friends through location sharing.

In spite of the tragic news of Alex Chilton’s passing just days before a scheduled Big Star performance at SXSW Music, some festival highlights included:

1. Lenny Kaye
2. Alejandro Escovedo
3. Chuck Prophet
4. Whitey Morgan & the 78’s
5. The Waco Brothers
6. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
7. Band of Horses (in a church)
8. Vivian Girls
9. Ivan Julian
10. Dengue Fever
11. Deadstring Brothers
12. Sondre Lerche

I’m tired, my ears hurt and I need to do a Master Cleanse, but I’ll definitely be back for SXSW 2011.

The first two substantial Twitter updates of the year – the Local Trends feature and updated Suggested Users List – may help make your experience on Twitter a little more personal.  Let’s take a look…

The new Local Trends feature allows you to see what conversational trends are popular near you.  As of last week, however, there are currently 15 cities available for users to select.  Dallas, Houston, San Antonio… Three cities from Texas, but no San Diego?  I’m sure America’s Finest City will be one of the next cities added – they can’t ignore our TwitPower for long – but in the meantime, let’s move on to Twitter’s other big change.

Two weeks ago, the Suggested Users List on Twitter was overhauled to recommend tweeters based on categories of interest, instead of just their perceived popularity.  This is a departure from just having a standard list of people users are encouraged to follow, most of whom are talkative celebrities.  Those lucky few celebrities and others on the list got to appear on every new users screen, and most saw astronomical jumps in the number of users subscribing to their tweets (The Guardian went from having 4,000 followers to 66,000 followers in the one month after being put on the list, according to Twitter Counter.)  Needless to say, folks like Scobleizer and myself were surprised we were not on the list, and began to have feelings of jealousy, anger and self-loathing.  After all, Twitter was giving those tweeters an unfair advantage – free advertising – while we were working hard to build a solid base of followers.

For the most part, that’s changed now, although the feature still has room for improvement.  When I looked through the music category, for instance, I still saw an assortment of artists whom I have no interest in following.  Perhaps my eclectic taste in music messed with Twitter’s complex algorithms.  Perhaps I don’t follow enough people.  Either way, the change does make things more organized, which is good news – especially for new users.  Maybe coupling the two new features together, once they’re launched to everyone, will give me local artists, politicians and sports stars I’ll be interested in following.

For marketers, knowing where people are and what they’re interested in can be very helpful, so do these changes signify Twitter getting more marketing-friendly?  I’d say it’s two small steps for the Twitterverse, not a giant leap.

The social media fervor is pushing people, brands, government and hosts of others on a frenetic pace to build cult-like followings.  The risk here is witnessing the failure of these purported stakeholder relationships when these followers look behind the curtain and find Oz is a crusty old man spewing nothing but false promises.

History is littered with companies failing to adapt quick enough as consumers and markets change, and not engaging with stakeholders in social media is the next black hole.  Social media, however, is but one means – albeit increasingly powerful and important – of building relationships with your audiences.  It’s another tool in your communication arsenal, and long before you even think of dipping your toe into the pool, re-examining your brand and how it plays out both offline and online is the second most crucial step.

The first is accepting that consumers are in charge and they’re expectations are on the rise.  They demand more choices – in products and services, where they shop and eat, and where they get their information. They engage in conversations about products and issues – hardly paying any attention to the old school, one-way message marketing tactics – and more often than not, those discussions don’t directly include you, me or any other brand.

Couple the power of consumer control with the realization of the dynamics of a changing marketplace with intense global competition, and brand strategies should become a more frequent priority for any company.  But, please, for the love of whomever you pray to, a brand is so much more than a logo or tagline.  A brand is your competitive advantage that differentiates you from your competition.  News flash: It’s how others perceive you, and you can leave it to them to shape your brand or proactively do it yourself.

Think of this about your brand well in advance of spending 30 seconds to create your Twitter account (what’s more, long before executing any marketing tactic, including the news release):

•    A brand must consistently deliver on expectations
•    At the core of a meaningful brand relationship is a compelling story and a memorable product experience that is attractive enough to repeat
•    A brand is more about what people say after you’ve left the room than what you say about yourself

Successful brands reflect character – who you are and what you stand for, and clarifying that character is paramount.  It’s the centerpiece of an authentic and transparent brand proposition.  Following that, look at your vision for success, scrutinize your markets and competitors; then identify your points of differentiation and build your brand proposition that is strategic and salient, authentic, transparent, and credible.

Ready?  Not quite.  Have you taken the time to listen to how your stakeholders perceive your brand now and how, or if, they’ll engage with you in the future?  When you’re ready to get this far, listen to them and, here’s the catch, fix your vulnerabilities – from operations to marketing – dip your toe into the pool and deliver value.

Related posts:

San Diego Social Media Symposium: It’s About Genuine Consumer Experiences

Social Media is About Staying Relevant

Message to Brands: Be Quiet and Listen

Jumping Into Social Media Without Strategy is Preparing for Doom

Social Media 101: Customer Satisfaction is Key

Take Action: 5 Reasons to Provide Customer Service Via Social Media

Considering a Blog? Some Favorite Quotes and an NST White Paper

Why Public Relations Should Drive Social Media

Approximately 25 million Tweets are posted every day and more than 5 billion have been created since Twitter’s launch.  That’s a lot of 140-character sound bytes! And, if you’re following everyone from Justin Timberlake to the local news networks and NBA athletes, how do you dig through the clutter? Twitter founder, Biz Stone, says that the best way to get real value out of Twitter is to follow a small number of people; it was never his intention for people to follow more than 150 to 200 people.

Twitter recently launched a new feature to organize the people you’re following on Twitter by subject or to declare your favorite tweeps. Twitter Lists offer a way for you to bunch together Twitter users into “groups” so that you can follow their latest Tweet streams – from personal groupings of co-workers or family members to industries or interests, like San Diego restaurants or PR specialists.  It’s a great way to find the subject-specific information you’re looking for quickly, without having to weed through pages of irrelevant tweets.

By creating a public list of Twitter users, you’ll enable everyone to visit that list and follow the people on it.  It’s a great outlet to find groups of users who all tweet on the same topic.  This can also cause users to develop a case of “Twitter envy” of users who are more “popular” on Twitter, hence listed more often.  If you don’t want someone to know that you’re following them or simply want to keep the list to yourself, you can create a private list, which only you can view (sneaky!).

News organizations have already jumped on the Twitter Lists bandwagon, realizing it’s a great resource for gathering the news. They are creating staff directories of journalists and listing particular users by subject, such as politics and entertainment.

So, what does this mean for brands and businesses? Many brands have multiple accounts for various divisions, regional locations or products. Twitter Lists allow brands to create one master list, such as @brand/salesstaff and @brand/ourproducts.  Brands can also more closely monitor their competitors through the private list function.  On the reverse, they can create a public list of customers or critics who mention their brand or company often, or a list of industry news resources.  Companies can also promote their branded lists elsewhere, such as on their Web site, blog, marketing materials and e-mail signature. The most useful and followed lists are the ones that are the most specific, so brands should keep this in mind.

Each list is currently limited to 500 people, users may create a maximum of 20 lists and list names can be up to 25 characters.  Social media is always evolving, so these restrictions probably won’t stay in play too long.

For more information on creating Twitter Lists, public vs. private lists and ideas on naming your lists, refer to Mashable’s How-To Guide.

The changing media landscape.  We’re all grappling with it these days, from consumers looking for trusted sources of information to content producers (old school outlets to the bright shiny object outlets) to brands, marketers and the PR gang alike looking to engage consumers.

There isn’t a magic pill or bullet, other than the realization the game has changed and staying on the sidelines won’t just make benchwarmers of us, hoping for a call from the coach to rush the field and show our mettle – it will just make us obsolete.

“If you want to stay relevant, you need to be there,” said Rob Hopwood, Internet content producer and social media specialist at SignOnSanDiego, at our inaugural San Diego Social Media Symposium when talking about how The San Diego Union-Tribune is delving deeper into social media. (Full disclosure, The U-T and SignOn are a client.)

Being there, Hopwood points out, involves exploring the full gamut of social media tools at our disposal, not just throwing up a Facebook or Twitter page.  He, and just about every panelist, drove home the clear message that social media is more than the creation and execution of a couple hip, in-the-now shiny objects and more about investing the time in identifying where your consumers are in the social media spectrum and listening to what they’re saying and want from your brand.

And that’s precisely where most fail – not just in social media, but also in communicating and marketing to consumers, period.  Consumers have too powerful of a voice to be ignored, and the days of only spewing pre-fab messages to them are not waning, they’re dead.

Even old-school journalists are starting to do the same.  In frequent sidebars and small talk with consumer and industry reporters, we’re finding journalists are getting more deeply involved in social media.  They’re spending the time learning what their readers, viewers and listeners want from them, and taking that knowledge back to their editors and producers with compelling arguments on what stories to tell.  They’re using Web analytics to measure their traction, and they’re building their own individual brands while serving the over-arching brand of their employer.  They’re not waiting for their execs to figure out how to monetize the use of Web and social media content, but instead proving the value of these tools (and creating personal job security).  They’re being relevant by being there – listening, experimenting, learning.

The more often old-school journalists strap up in this new playing field, the more balance we’ll see in news reported in social media outlets, and that will only protect their relevancy.  SDSU Professor Tim Wulfemeyer, another panelist, quips that while bloggers and citizen journalists spout off with little verified information, the “legacy media” – as he calls it – will continue to have the wherewithal to vet and verify, even in the age of using social media to reach people.  He also notes that the new FTC guidelines on disclosure will even the playing field – “Like legacy media, social media is all about credibility,” he said.

And that credibility comes with listening to your audience and building a relevant experience that is meaningful to them.

For more insight from the symposium, read “It’s About Genuine Consumer Experiences,” check out the panelist videos and peruse the tweets.

In trying to describe word-of-mouth marketing and social media as a tool to achieve that means to clients, friends and family alike, I often use the 1970s Faberge shampoo commercial as an example – “they tell two friends, and so on . . .”

Besides giving away my age, people seem to understand the word-of-mouth concept of consumers delivering advice on products, brands or issues on to other consumers.  Back in the day, those peer-to-peer endorsements were shared over dinner, at the office water cooler or coffee pot, the front porch or Little League. When the Smiths down the corner thought the Italian bakery on Center Street was a slice of Italy, they told their two friends, and so on, and word spread gradually – days, weeks, maybe even months.  The same thing would happen when the Fitzgeralds felt they got the sham on their oil change at the local gas station.

What the Smiths and Fitzgeralds (I grew up in an old Irish neighborhood) shared was an experience, something they felt compelled to share with others – no other motivation than to give someone close to them some great advice and to forewarn.

Today, with the Internet and all its social media outlets, we’re talking a matter of hours and even minutes, and not just with the families in the row houses on your block.  An elated Mrs. Smith and PO’d Mr. Fitzgerald can reach entire communities locally and globally.  The bakery can sell out of cannolis overnight; the gas station can become vacant.

It’s precisely what John Moore, WOMMA’s chief evangelist, implored upon the audience at our inaugural San Diego Social Media Symposium: Give consumers a great experience, and they’ll share it with others.  Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?  But how many brands or organizations realize that? And how many others make the effort to look deep inside at the experience they’re giving consumers?  Moreover, how many are willing to change when they discover the experience they thought they were providing wasn’t what consumers were receiving?

By experience, Moore points out, look at how Howard Schultz at Starbucks views it: It’s an emotional connection built on human connections, connecting with consumers who will drive future growth.  Moore also talks about Southwest Airlines and all its quirky behaviors from flight attendants to the pilots – and the no-fee baggage message is off the charts.  Consumers identify with it and share the experience with others.

Don’t buy the experience platform?  Here’s some valuable data from Moore:

•    76 percent of US consumers don’t believe companies are truthful in advertising.
•    78 percent (globally) trust recommendations from other consumers.

That notion alone should freak out every CEO and board chairman and force them into what Moore calls “Becoming a Talkable Brand” – the inside-out approach from which consumers talk about your brands, products, services in a genuine manner.  But don’t expect consumers to quickly and easily become your champion.  Spend time listening to them.  You may find you have to reinvent yourself on their terms.  When you do, you might discover you have evangelists creating the buzz you crave so much.

More to come this week on the symposium.  Meanwhile, download the tweets transcript (pdf) at http://bit.ly/SDSMStweets.

Update, Oct. 29, 2009: Check out the panelist videos and read “Social Media is About Staying Relevant” for more insight from the symposium.

Observations from the world’s largest fresh produce stand – PMA Fresh Summit:

Packed Floor
Reports from the floor indicate this year’s trade show was the association’s largest in its 60-year history with more than 20,000 attendees.  Some think it’s an indicator of an economy on the rebound, considering the expense for scores of marketers and sales folks to set up shop on the trade show floor.  Add to that the costs of the customer dinners, lunches and receptions, and from the looks of the morning hangovers (I’m fighting a combo sinus infection and allergy attack, so my consumption was a two-beer max), there were plenty of good times and cash flowing.

The prevailing theory, however, is consumers are turning to fresh produce more often in this economy – choosing to dine at home and forego family dinners out on the town.  Couple that with the national dialogue on health and swine flu scares, it’s more likely consumers are taking the bounty of fresh produce health benefits to their own kitchens and dinner tables.

Food Safety
Food safety was the dominant discussion on the floor and even outside the Anaheim Convention Center.  The fresh produce industry is well known for its very high self-regulation of an unregulated industry.  The challenge is our political administration is under the gun from various interest groups to establish standards and policies on an industry the administration has very little knowledge of.  What’s more, those on the floor say, it’s highly likely the administration will push down standards and policies with little regard for what the industry, grocery retailers and foodservice operators have done together to affect change.  Fortunately, leaders of the three channels have spent ample time in D.C. trying to bring our elected officials up to speed.

Social Media
Given all the talk and lightening-speed momentum in social media over the past year, it was astonishing to see what little (emphasis on minuscule) has taken hold in the fresh produce industry.  There were exorbitant amounts of discussions and displays about engaging with consumers, but you have to wonder if the industry is still grappling with what social media is and how it can bring consumer engagement to the next level – well beyond the product giveaways and numbers of friends/followers and the like.  The industry is missing a phenomenal opportunity in building true relationships and loyalty with consumers and in creating ROI for their customers.  It all hinges on strategy.

NST Cited in State of the Industry
Nuffer, Smith, Tucker’s Food Foresight trends anticipation collaboration with California Institute of Food and Agricultural Research at University of California, Davis was cited by PMA CEO Bryan Silbermann in his state-of-the-industry address Saturday morning. PMA is a long-time partner and client with NST. Earlier this year, the firm helped PMA design and facilitate a foodservice think tank with the National Restaurant Association and International Foodservice Distributors Association. The event, sponsored by Markon Cooperative, another NST client, brought together leaders from foodservice chains, distributor companies and produce suppliers together to identify collaborative opportunities for increasing produce usage at foodservice. The group put forth a plan to double usage of fresh produce in foodservice by 2020.

Great Food
I’m woefully inept when it comes to cooking with fresh produce.  The sights and smells of the fresh produce, and the amazing cooking demonstrations, kept me starving for hours on end.  Each year, I make a pledge to eat more produce, and today for lunch I had two burgers from the fast food joint down the street.  But I do have my sights set on making a mean stir fry this weekend.

TechCrunch, in its soap opera about the PR profession, finally made a valuable and worthwhile point: Our writing, collective as an industry, stinks.  I hate to admit it, but author Robin Wauters got it right in a rant about 10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases.

Robin is dead-on accurate. Seeing those words in news releases is better at inducing vomiting than ipecac.  Are we lazy and leech onto the lowest hanging fruit when banging away at our keyboards?  Are we choosing sizzle over substance?  I know I’ve heard time and again until my ears bleed about what “sounds good.”  It might be fancy and sound or look good, but realistically we look like foolish grade-school writers and, worse yet, we embarrass our clients.  Every organization wants to talk about “quality” products or services, or “leadership” in a category or on an issue.  But are we clearly differentiating them from the competition?  If we can’t clearly define and back up what we’re writing, thus demonstrating a competitive advantage, then it’s just puffery falling on deaf ears.

Most of all, I suspect, is speed.  The 24/7 information cycle forces many of us to crank out material with little forethought on what we’re trying to accomplish.  Time is of the essence, but at the risk of clear, compelling and informative writing.

Here are the other culprits:

Colleges and universities: Classic liberal arts training, where writing well matters, is disappearing, and we’re getting a young workforce that literally struggles writing something as simple as a new product announcement or new hire release.  Not only are they challenged with how to write the release, but, moreover, with basic sentence structure, grammar and punctuation.  Yes, all you new grads out there will be peeved at me, but it’s true.  Many of us old folks in the profession lament about the quality of writing new grads have, but if you’re dedicated to writing well and are lucky enough to land a job at a place that has the same view, you’ll do just fine – just be prepared for some mentoring.

Social media:  Yes, I said it, social media is destroying the very essence of communication – human interaction, clear and skillful communication and, for *#&(@ sakes, good writing!  It seems to be more about getting information out fast and sacrificing proper grammar and excellence in writing.

PR Industry: Every firm or in-house communications department should ensure they at least have one resident word nerd on the team.  In our shop, all new hires – regardless of their level of experience – go through a lengthy writing program, and every product we produce goes through an arduous QC protocol.  What’s more, we all should follow the basic tenets of communication writing:
•    Identify a need, concern or interest
•    Present a desired behavior as a solution
•    Show the benefits of action and the consequences of inaction
•    Give your reader some rehearsal steps

Spell check: Just ban it, write and edit slowly, and pick up a dictionary.

Millenials: How can we xpct dem 2 care abt ritin good in 140 chrctrs or <?

Consider this:

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. – Rudyard Kipling

Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness – when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven’t had time to know how much better it ought to be. – J.B. Priestley

In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. – Joan Didion