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Weekend Favs May Twenty One

Guest post by: John Jantsch

Article Overview: My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr.

Weekend Favs May Twenty One

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr.

Good stuff I found this week:

Movie animation – Three tools that make it very easy to create animated video by mixing text, images, and video without the need to draw.

TweetPsych – creates a psychological profile of any public Twitter account and identifies those traits that are used more or less frequently by the user analyzed

Tagaroo – WordPress plugin the analyzes your text as you type and suggest relevant tags from around the web and also suggest images from Flickr.

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I hate holidays... - My zine readership always goes down from Friday through Sunday... but it really gets bad during the holidays - in particular three day holidays like this Memorial Day Weekend! Wouldn't be so bad if I thought people were actually doing Memorial Day things... saying thanks to our Armed Forces of past and present... but it's just a way to get out and get some sun and not read webzines...
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Profile: Essie Weingarten, creator of Essie Cosmetics - Pop culture has its share of dynamic duos: Batman & Robin, Dolce & Gabbana, Brad & Angelina, and, as devotees of Essie Cosmetics' nail polish know, "Baby's Breath" & "Ballet Slippers." And what's Essie Weingarten, creator of Essie Cosmetics, wearing right now? Why it's "Mademoiselle" paired with one coat of "Pink Glove Service,"of course! It's this playful take on fashionable colors and color combos, coupled with Essie's chip-resistant formula, that has converted beauty professionals and customers into adoring fans and secured Essie Cosmetics' position in the $1 billion nail industry. As a little girl in Queens, NY, Essie was undoubtedly the youngest customer at local nail salons. A manicure was a reward her parents indulged her with on special occasions, and she relished the experience. She did, however, eventually grow bored with the limited selection of nail polish colors, and imagined that other women felt the same way. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology, she worked for Geraldine Stutz, the visionary behind Henri Bendel; Essie admired Geraldine's business acumen and was determined to learn from her mentor. Following a few more years in the fashion industry, Essie decided to address the nail polish niche that still remained untapped. In 1981, Essie launched her business in Queens by introducing 12 new polish shades that have since become classics in the nail industry. Twenty-six years later, she is still on top of her game and has transformed Essie Cosmetics into a $150 million empire. what we learned from essie: You have to find what works for you. You cannot overextend yourself. It's very important that you know exactly what you can handle before you get into it. making moves "I wanted more. My stint in the fashion world was done. It was time for me to move on and do something on my own. I knew I loved nail polish and I knew that there were no groundbreaking nail products out there that promised long-lasting polish, so I decided to run with it. I had identified a niche product and market and was excited to make the move." vegas, baby! "I said, 'Where am I going to get the best bang for my buck?' Las Vegas was the quintessential test market. There were cocktail waitresses, dealers, dancers, cashiers. Twenty-six years ago, there were not that many women working together in one geographically concentrated area. But Las Vegas was the exception. I went to all the hotels and casinos that had beauty salons and I left samples. By the time I got home, which was less than a week later, I already had orders. The calls kept coming in. I got calls from women in Florida, New York, California, and Illinois who were in Las Vegas on holiday and tried my product there. They raved that it was still on their nails a week later. I thought, 'My god ... I have a business!'" man's world "Back when I started, there weren't as many women in the workplace. Customers and clients would call up and ask to speak with Mr. Weingarten. I had to deal with chemists, box manufactures, brush manufactures, bottle manufactures. It really was a man's world. I quickly learned how to convert challenges into opportunities. I often compared myself to a bumper car: I hit a wall, turned around, and kept going. I met each roadblock with the following question: "How can I do it better, different, and put a spin on it?" That mindset helped me through it all. If you start to get negative or down on yourself, then you're done faster than you started. You have to keep yourself very positive and very focused." skin deep "Before you can expect anyone to believe in you, you must believe in yourself. It's that simple and that important. If you feel good and secure, you shine. You don't have to be the most beautiful woman in the world to look and feel great. If you put yourself together and make a statement, people respect you. And there is no better or cheaper way to change or spice up your look than with nail polish. I always say we are the cheapest addiction around!" the sweetest thing "Do you have any idea how many doors were slammed in my face? I lost count. Never, ever get frustrated. Perhaps they're not interested in your product or service now, but they will be. They just don't know it yet. When they come back, and they do, you are in the driver's seat. You set your terms. They want and need something only you can give them." networking "Networking to me is the most important business practice. I never burn a bridge. I still network with people I worked with in my first job at Bendel's. Women are an unbelievable resource for networking. They enjoy helping one another. You must have good follow-through, contacts, and networking skills to survive in business." fresh and fun "Every 90 days we come up with six new colors. 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Don't use your nails as tools. 2. A smoothing hand cream is a must. Essie has several kinds that match specific moods. If you're on vacation, try coconut pineapple. If you're feeling Zen, try the fragrance-free aloe. 3. You must use a base coat. Then follow it with two coats of color. After three days, apply "Good to Go!," a fast-drying topcoat. It keeps the polish looking wet and new and it's also protective for the nails. parting thoughts -"My greatest strength in business is ... I never give up." -"I am happiest when ... the ultimate spa or salon that I've always dreamed of having as a customer calls and becomes a new customer." -"Success to me means ... when you get all the wonderful press and endorsements without paying for it. And when I make people feel fabulous." -"I will retire when ... it's no longer fun. But it's still so much fun, so I don't see when I'll retire." -"I will always think of myself as ... fun-loving." -"I care most about ... making people feel good." -"I care least about ... money." -"The key to being a great boss is ... I don't ask anyone to do anything that I wouldn't do myself." -"Every entrepreneur should ... be passionate." This Featured Lady was profiled by Alexandra Salas, a Buenos Aires-based writer.
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I bet on myself." the power of friendship "It helps if you have friends who believe in you. My friends read my first drafts. A lot of times they will believe in a project when I'm getting rejected. We underestimate the importance of having one strong friend. The telephone is a wonderful ally to combat the isolation of being a writer, as is e-mail. If you know what your friends are doing, it's harder to feel lonely. I also think writing is its own companion. You're not lonely when you're actually writing." a typical day, the artist's way "I get up late. If I can, it's noon. I write my morning pages first thing. I ask for guidance and sit quietly and see if there's anything I need to be doing. I usually work on the music [for my upcoming musical]. I have a collaborator, Emma Lively, and we've written three musicals together. We work for a few hours. Then I put in a couple hours of prose writing. I sometimes don't get out of the house until 5:30. I try to get a walk in every day." overcoming writer's block "I use the same unblocking tools that I teach my students. They make you much more alert to the signals. I grapple with writer's block right away. Morning pages [three pages of writing about anything that comes to your head] are one such tool. I've been writing them for 25 years. In The Artist's Way, I also write about "blasting through blocks." By listing any angers, fears, and resentments related to a project, that often clears the decks right away. Emma and I have been hired to write music for a one-woman show. I feel blocked around it. I take a look at my ego—I'm not used to working FOR people anymore. I need to be a beginner again. Hopefully once I surrender my need to be the boss, it'll work out." favorite books "Tim Farrington is my favorite writer. He's written two books—The Monk Downstairs and The Monk Upstairs. He's so funny and deft, and he was the inspiration for me to write Mozart's Ghost. I dedicated the book to him." daily must-reads "I read a little teeny book called Twenty-Four Hours a Day that was put out by Hazelden. It's a meditation book. I also read Creative Ideas by theologian Ernest Holmes, which was originally published in 1934. They just re-released it, and I wrote the intro. Right now I'm reading My First Five Husbands by Rue McClanahan and Drinking: A Love Story, a memoir by Caroline Knapp." most rewarding career moment "I think I'm sort of singular in that I like book tours. I meet people who say I used your tools and they changed my life and this is what I did with them." scariest career moment "Watching my first musical go up in 1998. It's scary. I just heard the music so beautifully in my head that it was hard to deal with some of the compromises of getting it on the stage. I was sitting in the back of the theater saying, 'It's brilliant. It's awful." on networking "I think it's most important that we do the work and then have something to network about. Sometimes people want networking to be a shortcut or a guarantee. Networking gives you a sense of the possible. I have a number of women friends in their 70s and 80s and they are a tremendous source of inspiration. One runs a horse ranch. One got a master's in poetry at 75. One is in her 80s and is still an active actress. I believe that other women are inspirational." parting thoughts... -"I am happiest when ... I'm writing." -"Success to me means ... creativity." -"The public figure I wish most would read The Artist's Way is ... Warren Beatty. I don't know if he has." -"I will always think of myself as ... a good horseback rider." -"My business would not have happened if ... I waited for guarantees." -"The most important thing I do every day is ... stay sober. I have 30 years without a drink." This Featured Lady was profiled by Michele Shapiro, a writer living in New York City.


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