Photography: Birds of a Feather

Bundle up! It's time for winter bird pictures. Whatcom / Skagit Counties are great for shooting spectacular shots of many types of birds.

Right now, the Eagles are up on both the Nooksack and Skagit rivers in their winter feeding areas. Try heading up Highway 20 about 10 miles east of Concrete. Along that stretch of river you will find dozens of Bald Eagles in the trees. On the weekends, the local Eagle Watching group sets up an information stand along side the road.

One of the coolest sites is the vast flocks of Snow Geese. These flocks are numbered in the thousands. It's a spectacular site to see these incredible groups take off and land in the fields around you. I spotted the big flock recently on the Best Rd. in Skagit County; Just east of LaConner. If the flock isn't there, drive around, you should spot the "white field" somewhere in that area. Don't wait too long. These flocks will only be around for a few more weeks before migrating to their spring/summer locations.

As your hunting for the big game, don't forget the smaller "solo" birds you will find along the way. The "Chuckanut Flats" area around Padilla Bay is full of Ducks, Hawks and my personnel favorite, Blue Herons.

When your done with your adventure, come learn with our photographers! Checkout our Digital Scrapbooking classes, our Photoshop (and Elements) classes, and the Art of Photography class. All will help you take/make/preserve that perfect image.
(click on the images to see larger version)
pictures by Greg Marshall

Business: Dumbing Down Your Customer Base

In business, we have heard the mantra about keeping our marketing repetitive and products simple so they appeal to the widest audience.

This concept has never sat well with me. It always seemed wrong in some way. Well, Seth Godin over at Seth's Blog has really hit the problem on the head... Dumb down your product and you get dumb customers.

Seth believes, and I have to agree, that those customers don't do much for your company. They don't talk about your products, they don't ask questions, and they don't become loyal to your products. They may buy you product, but, that's all you get from them.

Knowing your customer and marketing to them as smart people will get you smart customers who will become loyal to your product and spread the word about what you do. Marketing to "smart" differentiates you from every other company trying to woo the masses and helps to create a niche as well.

I recently experienced this dumb vs. smart marketing while purchasing a new car. I bought a Subaru; My second one. At other dealerships I visited they wanted to discuss... I am not kidding... cup holders, entertainment systems, and the lowest monthly price; Things you ask the mass market (dumb customer model).

The Subaru sales person, once she knew I had owned a Subaru, asked if I wanted coffee. We then discussed the Subaru's we have owned and the road trips we have enjoyed. I asked the salesperson later why such a soft sales touch. The answer was "Subaru buyers, especially previous owners, know as much about the cars as we do. We are there to answer questions, not to sell the cars."

This salesperson had also worked at a different car lot. She said there was a big difference between the Subaru car lot and other car lots. On the Subaru lot, the customers already know what they want before they come for a visit and test drive. On most other lots the customer needs to be sold a car. Basically, Subaru, their marketing department and sales force were designed for the needs of smart customers who become very loyal, spread the word about the product they love (Subaru's) and continue to buy cars.

As you look at your marketing for the new year or write a business plan for your new business ask yourself a simple question: What type of customers do I really want to deal with?

Personal Enrichment: Creating New Ideas

It doesn't matter what type of job you have. At some point you have to come up with new ideas. For some people you have to come up with new and amazing ideas frequently. Writers, marketers, teachers, Dj's, etc. Every day have to grind out new ideas.

I know in the business of providing workshops, we work hard on coming up with new ideas for classes constantly. Community Education creates 30-40 new workshops each quarter. That's 120-200 new workshops each year. Those are just the ones that you see in the schedule. Many hundreds of other ideas don't make it through the entire process of being moulded into a class.

Class creators (program coordinators in our world) have various methods for keeping their creativity up. Most have to do with tracking local trends affecting Whatcom County, Reading schedules from other schools around the U.S. and most importantly, listening to our customers.

Leo Babauta, the writer behind Zen Habits website recently wrote a guest column for the Skelliewag website about the Top 20 Ways to Come Up With Amazing Ideas. In this post he list 20 things he has found that works for creating those ideas. Some of them are obvious, and many of them will get you thinking...which is the whole point.

Why listen to Leo? Successful Bloggers write 5-10 articles a day. Their lively hood and staying power depend on the ability to generate creativity. Leo is one of the most productive and creative Bloggers out there. Leo also practices what he preaches. He has learned these things by trying them himself and probably has a list somewhere titled "100 Things That Didn't Help my Creativity."
Photo by Mike Bitzenhofer (flickr)

Digital Life: Copyright Those Pictures

Some of you are getting real good with your cameras and are starting to scatter pictures around the web. It's cool to share your work and to experience the joy your images give other people. What's not so cool is when you see your picture on someone else's website without proper attribution.

If your picture doesn't have a copyright or contact information attached, its very difficult to give accolades to the photographer. That's where PicMarkr.com comes in.

PicMarkr is a web-based application that allows you to ad a copyright to the bottom of your pictures for free. Basically, you upload an image to the sight, design a quick copyright, and then download the finished image. PicMarkr is also linked directly to Flickr and can upload pictures directly to your Flickr site.

It's also easy to create a copyright in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Checkout our full lineup of Digital imaging classes for more information.