The Corey Vilhauer Brand

November 19, 2008


“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”

This past week, I was given an offer on one of our photos – a picture taken almost as a throwaway, rescued from the pile and produced into one of my favorites. A national publication wants to use it. And they’re willing to pay us. Us. Little amateur Corey and Kerrie, skilled in ways we never realized.

A friend of mine asked how this possibly could have happened. How do you take a photo and, a few weeks later, without any promotion or marketing, get it sold?

And the answer is easy: The Internet. An amazing tool. (As long as you use it correctly.)

Three years ago, my entire creative portfolio consisted of six articles for a local men’s magazine and one blog. Yet, I desperately longed for a career in the creative industry. I wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know how to position myself.

So it was complete blind luck that I began to realize my name was starting to gain a little equity, thanks to both a published column and, even more surprisingly, this little blog. I associated my name with Black Marks on Wood Pulp, one of the few consistent South Dakota blogs at the time. I made friends with other bloggers – primarily the political ones – left comments and became sort of well known in the S.D. blogging community.

The person I interviewed with for my first ever writing job was familiar with my blog. She enjoyed it. She hired me.

From here, I realized I had something. I submitted Black Marks on Wood Pulp to 9rules, gaining a larger audience and more connections. These – and most of the local marketing or web design personalities – turned out to be the first twitterers I ever followed – and, in return, my first follwers. I took up flickr to post our photos and, through a mixture of the three, my name was suddenly known for writing, photography and basic WordPress blog design.

There are a lot of people out there who are much more talented than I am. So it has a lot to do with luck as well. But I’ve managed to make give my name value – both through recognition and results – in a way that I never could have without the ‘net.

And in giving my name that value, I turn up on more people’s searches. Because I have a background already, my creative endeavors are automatically given more credence. All things being equal, you choose the more well known person over the unproven kid, simply because you know what you’ll get.

To answer the question my friend asked, I simply put my stuff out for all to see. I unabashedly brace for failure, discover a lack of it, and forge ahead. I embrace feedback, write and contribute to the teeming humanity located within, and come out with something I can be proud of.

This networking, though for the most part passive, has given me – and countless others – a feeling of success. The type of success that drives us to continue creating, even if only to a small audience.

Because we know that, for every person who leaves a comment, there are hundreds who stop by and silently admire. For every person who complains or writes off, there are just as many who are coming across your work for the first time.

Because it’s always out there, my name continues to gain value. And with it, my creative endeavors gain traction faster than they did when I was starting up.

It takes a long time to build brand equity into a name. But given enough time, and the willpower to continue linking back to your identity, someone will take notice.

And when they do, you can finally begin to reap the rewards.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Blogging, Career, Photography, Vilhauer |

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Reading the coffee leaves

November 16, 2008


While Billie Holiday’s voice slowly settles on my mind, blanketing my headache with the twiddle of a saxophone, I look around and realize that, somehow, I’ve become the oldest person in this coffee shop.

Each chair is filled with youthful abandon, legs splayed like a spilled box of matches, computers blinking back into busy, wandering eyes. Some are students, obviously, studying. The books give them away, as does the look of panic; an eight p.m. panic that betrays the fear of the next day’s classes. Others are just talking – at times to each other, at other times to their phones, to someone else who’s not even here.

(The image is common: two phones are poised as if ready for battle, two girls staring at each other through the flipped top of an LG enV.)

I wonder what they think of the people around them. If they know them from school, or if they’re blissfully unaware that there’s even anyone else in the place. Some of them are working hard, barely registering the fact that, really, they’re working hard for the privilege of working even harder in a few years.

Because I’m often vain and self-conscious, I wonder how I look. I’m by no means old, but I know I’m older. Even at 30 I’ve lost the luster of college living, no longer fresh faced, weary from a weekend of hammering out a marketing plan and the other non-creative diversions that pay the bills long enough for me to do something really fun. Do I look out of place? Am I blending in? Oh, man, I hope I’m blending in.

Most of all, I wonder what I’m missing.

That used to be me, I think. That was Kerrie and me, sitting across from each other, enjoying the night, the last few hours before the week began again, me with something that didn’t resemble coffee and her with something more true to the notion. Planning not our future, but our present. Planning our night. Planning our next few minutes. Planning on getting the hell out of the coffee shop and into the cold and through the brisk St. Cloud air into something completely different, reveling in the freedom of the moment.

Sometimes, I miss that.

And at the same time, I don’t.

There’s a lot to be said for the beauty of consistency. There’s a lot to be said about having someplace steady, about going home to a beaming young girl, to the warmth of familiarity, to the place where my stuff is and where it will be not until the end of the semester but for the rest of my life if I want it that long.

It’s times like this, surrounded by those who will shape the future, all of them seemingly oblivious to what’s ahead, that I feel nostalgic for college. For cramming and learning and forced writing and bluffing through textbooks. I remember how hard it was, and how rewarding. Even more, how now, seven years later, I’m still cramming and learning and writing things I wouldn’t if I had my druthers but at least now I’m making money and – GASP – enjoying it.

The door rings. An older gentleman walks in.

My mind clears again. I’ve never been so happy to see a stranger in my life.

Tags: Vilhauer |

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For the love of the wounded

November 13, 2008


The other night, we were watching an episode of House. As is common with House, the plot involved a patient with some weird medical problem; in this case, a five-year-old girl. Within the first two minutes the little girl received a monster-sized shot, then began seeing double. Her eyes welled up as she realized what was happening – a frantic look settling on her face.

She was scared. She was about to cry.

We changed the channel.

“I don’t think I can watch this,” I said.

“Thank you,” Kerrie replied.

I suppose it comes as no surprise that my heart has become a lot more tender since Sierra showed up. I am more connected to children, genuinely caring about their well being and enjoying my time with them. I feel like a father – not just to Sierra, but in a more general sense. Even more, I feel hopeless when I’m unable to help – when some little kid around Sierra’s age is sad, I begin to take those feelings on myself. I mean, genuinely sad – not temper tantrum emotions, but true seemingly grief-filled sobs.

Unfortunately, this fatherly tenderness has bled into other walks of life. Case in point: I’m suddenly more sensitive to the plight of toddler-aged characters on television.

Another example. There’s an ad for a national wireless company that features a mom who is hosting her daughter’s birthday party. Because the woman doesn’t use said wireless company, she missed a call informing her that her clown was going to be a scary monster.

The monster walks into the room. One little girl starts to cry on screen.

And it bothers me every time.

Open up my heart, why don’t you. Stab it with barbed wire, show me drowned kittens, do whatever you think it takes to get my emotions into a crumbling pile of broken parts.

Just don’t get me around a crying little girl. That’s too much for me right now.

Tags: Sierra |

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Pepsi’s new logo

November 11, 2008


Two takes on the new Pepsi logo.

First, my thoughts on Coke vs. Pepsi in regards to logo and brand stability are collected in a nice little package at Post Haste.

Then, my responses (and the responses of many more random bloggers) to Make the Logo Bigger’s blogger challenge on how Pepsi could have better promote the new logo to the new media.

Check them out. Then, take the rest of the day off.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing |

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Winter neglect

November 8, 2008


As I pulled the air conditioner out of our upstairs window, its frame blanketed in a double layer of snow and ice, I wondered why I hadn’t gotten around to taking it out sooner.

Easy. Just a week ago, it was beautiful. The clearest and most beautiful Halloween night I can remember. The chores could wait a week.

Six days pass. Our best intentions weren’t enough to stop the inevitable. It was November, after all.

Snow. And with it, the cold, icy hand of winter.

Two days later, our yard still seems unblemished. Few footprints have broken the clean glaze of constant melting and freezing. The only things that break the horizon of snow along the edges of our yard are those that were abandoned as the snow approached.

Two bags of leaves stand in the front, an unfinished raking job from the night of the storm. Our patio furniture floats alone in a vast sea of white. Our garden still contains the last gasps of the growing season.

It’s as if our life itself was frozen shut, trapped, unmoving. Time stops. Chores are suspended. Plans remade. One moment, everything is moving smoothly, gearing toward their natural end, and then the next they’re stopped short, like the reminding corpse of a road-killed animal.

The fire that fueled our summer is doused, smothered in white, a form-fitting covering of insulation. Our yard stands as if filled with white stone reminders of what we left undone.

Everything is frozen. Unfinished.

It’s what I imagine the end of the world to look like. Various items representing various actions left scattered in various states of incompleteness. Cold and unfeeling, their stories lost and their purpose forgotten.

It’s nothing that dramatic, though. It’s simple.

It’s winter. And it’s here.

Frozen Whirlygig

(For more winter neglect pictures, check out my post at Much More Sure.)

Tags: On... |

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Hope.

November 5, 2008


Hope.

I’ve written and deleted and re-written, trying to find the right angle – something that isn’t cliche, something that hasn’t been written already in the past several hours at a much higher level, with more inspiration and feeling.

I’ve tried to tie this election to the leveling spirit of Paul Wellstone, to compare it to the future we might have had, to connect with the world we are creating for Sierra as she grows.

But it all comes down to one thing. One word. One emotion, one feeling, one promise.

HOPE.

I give thanks for the nation that helped elect the first black President. I give thanks for those who trusted a new generation of leaders, a new direction – an agent of change.

But most of all, I give thanks for all that has happened over the past two years – instilling in all of us the idea that, no matter who we are or where we live, hope will never be simply a four-letter word.

Because we see it now. HOPE is for real.

Tags: Politics |

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Election night special

November 4, 2008


Blue and red. Percentages. Calling a state. Graphics and experts and legends.

Take everything you love about sports coverage. The predictions, the numbers, the human interest stories. The battle of good and evil, of your team and their team, of underdogs and how the standings will shake out when it’s all said and done.

Now apply this to something with real consequence. Like the future of our country’s policies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Election Night Coverage!

It’s all there. Talking heads, trained to interpret and console, to think logically in the wake of so many decisions. They’re there to make you feel better. They’re Al Michaels or Pat Summerall, prepared to sum up the election in a matter of sentences.

There’s the opinion men and women, the John Maddens, the Tony Kornheisers, all prepared to put a little spin on the whole proceedings. They take the simple facts and turn them into speculation, both preparing us for the possible and reminding us of the excitement – the thrill of the chase.

Stats appeal to those who love concrete details. Candidate parties appeal to those who want to be included. Talk of surprising winners appeals to the underdog-chasers, and tales of real people doing real things touch a nerve in all of us.

This is our process. Our selection. We choose these people to run our country, and in these first few hours after polls close, our optimism (or pessimism, if your candidate is losing) is at its peak. If we win, we’re almost positive that everything will be perfect. If we lose, it might as well be the end of the world.

If you know what’s good for you, you’ve already voted – or at least you’ve made plans to vote. Now, sit back and watch this crazy process unfold. Grab a beer, make predictions – hell, take bets if it makes things more exciting.

You only get to see this kind of spectacle once every four years. Grab your foam fingers and start rooting for your candidate.

Because it’s all downhill from here.

Tags: Politics, Television |

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