It’s Time to Weave You … For Now
Biz Comics
by Mark O'Brien
3y ago
When we started BizComics two-and-a-half years ago, we thought it was a good idea. We still do. We believed cartoons were the perfect medium in which to deliver simplified marketing messages: to engage, entertain, and educate. We still do. But the market — that great equalizer and The Ultimate Arbiter — seemed to remain unconvinced. So, BizComics is shifting direction — from the steady diet of blog posts and emails we’ve been producing to books. That’s right. Aside from the fact that we’re excited about making the change, we don’t dare give BizComics up because we’re deathly afraid Thomas E ..read more
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Big Ideas
Biz Comics
by Mark O'Brien
3y ago
Big Ideas Ya know what we love? We love it when people say things like, “Let me give you a good idea.” Or they might say, “Here’s a funny story.” We especially love it when people go all in and say things like, “Wait’ll you hear this. This is really smart.” Okay. We lied. We actually don’t love that. We don’t even like it. We don’t like it because it’s presumptuous. Unless you’re something like The World’s Foremost Authority or The Ultimate Guru, how do you know if an idea is good, a story is funny, or some notion is smart? Is there some kind of objective scale for that sort of thing? If t ..read more
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The Wrong Tree
Biz Comics
by Mark O'Brien
3y ago
The Wrong Tree In a recent bout of pointless reminiscence (is reminiscence vs. nostalgia a distinction without a difference?), we were recalling those days, long ago, when people still studied the Humanities. You know, the arts that engaged us creatively before we all became scientists (STEM!) and fell in love with innovation, disruption, digitalization, artificial intelligence, Big Data, the Internet of Things, robotics, and algorithms for everything, including tying our shoes. In those halcyon days ere we all became linear thinkers and lost (or abandoned) our capacities for fanciful const ..read more
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Mirror, Mirror
Biz Comics
by Mark O'Brien
3y ago
Mirror, Mirror We have no idea what came over us, but we had a decidedly uncharacteristic bout of self-reflection the other day. Needless to say, it was profoundly disorienting. And it left us feeling a little queasy, a little humbled, but much less alone. Here’s why: It turns out the mirror, whether literal or figurative, is therapeutic — if you keep your eyes open, that is. It also turns out some pretty heavy thinkers and some pretty surprising people have looked in the mirror, eyes wide open, and found better people in their reflections. When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize ..read more
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Oh, What a Tangled Web(site) We Weave
Biz Comics
by Mark O'Brien
3y ago
Oh, What a Tangled Web(site) We Weave The story you about to read is true. The names have been changed because nobody in their right mind would believe it for a second. We were once hired to create a B2B website. We asked the client what his objectives were. He said, “What do you mean?” Because we don’t give up easily, we asked the client what the site needed to do. He said, “I’m not sure what you’re asking me.” Undaunted, we gave it a gallant last shot. We asked the client what he wanted on the site. He said, verbatim, “Cool stuff.” At this point, pretty much everybody knows hope is not a ..read more
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It Doesn’t Mean We Should
Biz Comics
by JoAnna Bennett
3y ago
It Doesn’t Mean We Should Years ago, this piece of wisdom was imparted to us by the late Jeff Pollard, a graphic designer whose work we admired tremendously: Good graphic design is effective packaging. It packages a message to make it as engaging, accessible, consumable, and persuasive as possible. Everything else is just art. We love all of the implications of that. Like What? Those two sentences are like an onion that just keeps peeling itself. Every time you look at it, there’s a new layer revealed, a new meaning apparent, a new significance to take to heart. Here are a few of the ..read more
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The Irony Board
Biz Comics
by JoAnna Bennett
3y ago
The Irony Board Riddle us this, Batman: If we’re so enamored of abbreviations and acronyms, why do we protract and convolute our speech so much? Ironic, isn’t it? Consider: Rather than, “Prioritize,” we’re likely to hear someone say, “At base level, this project mighty be best undertaken in incremental time-phases.” Rather than, “Let’s coordinate,” we’re likely to hear someone say, “Let’s consider the implementation of a tactical initiative to operationalize compatible reciprocal alignment.” Rather than, “We bombed,” we’re likely to hear someone say, “Given the less-than-optimal results of ..read more
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Who Stole My Vocabulary?
Biz Comics
by Mark O'Brien
3y ago
Who Stole My Vocabulary? If you’ve worked for any amount of time — and particularly if you’ve worked in any large, bureaucratic organizations for more than 20 or 30 seconds — you’ve likely borne witness to a phenomenon psychiatrists, psychologists, behaviorologists, anthropologists, linguists, and empiricists have diagnosed and codified as kleptovocabularis. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Kleptovocabularis is a syndrome that manifests as a pervasive pattern of misappropriating lexicographical elements from one field or discipline ..read more
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Innovative Brutes
Biz Comics
by JoAnna Bennett
3y ago
Innovative Brutes But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going … I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. (Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast) We’ve been wondering why it’s so hard to find one true sentence anymore, to find one clearly expressed thought presented in one cogent sentence. Then i ..read more
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Unwitnesses
Biz Comics
by JoAnna Bennett
3y ago
Unwitnesses There are few things we enjoy as much as idle musing. After all, when you’re in the business of creating cartoons, you only have two reliable sources of material: (1) idle musing and (2) people-watching. And with very few exceptions, that’s a distinction without a difference. At any rate, in an interlude of idle musing the other day, we got to thinking about early members of our species. We weren’t so concerned about Cro-Magnons, who didn’t have much to think about except killing mammoths and wondering when their descendants might invent the outhouse so they could have a little ..read more
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