Shoe Leather: Behind the seams of Shoestring Magazine

Shoestring Reader Survey: Built by You

We asked, and you answered: the results of last week's first-ever reader survey are in, and we are so impressed by the passionate responses — thank you from the bottom of our "soles."

One thing that became clearer to us as we were sifting through the survey responses, however, was that most of you (67%!) are only getting your Shoestring fix through our newsletter or by reading this blog. While I love writing our newsletter each week and sharing with you a few of my favorite new stories and happening events, and our daily blog is a fantastic way to keep tabs on what's happening "behind the seams" here at Shoestring, we have SO much more in store for you online on our website, on our Facebook page, and especially on our Twitter stream. Please check 'em out -- we think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of surprises, we also asked you what you thought of our newly redesigned website, in which we completely redesigned our top tabbed departments — like Travel and Eat & Drink — to look more like our home page. We also created new landing pages for special topics, like Weddings, driven by the tag cloud found on the right hand side of every page on our site.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be taking it even further by launching totally redesigned tabs and editorial departments, making it easier than ever for you to find the content you love the most from Shoestring staff writers each and every week, including our new monthly columnists: Romi Lassally of TruuConfessions.com, writing our Recession Confessions column; Christine Koh of BostonMamas.com, writing our Minimalist Mama column; Mandi Gerth of ShoestringHome.com, writing our DIY Home Decorating column; and so many more new columnists to come in the weeks and months ahead.

We loved that, overall, all of you (minus one naysayer) love the way Shoestring’s been going and frequently share Shoestring with your friends (98% of you said you would recommend us! Did I mention how much we love our readers?) We hope that you'll continue to spread the word by emailing stories and links, especially later this summer, as we wean off of our syndicated articles from the wires and publishing partners, going to all Shoestring, all the time.

Here are the top 10 types of articles that you wanted to see more of, some of which we already had in the works for later this summer and fall and can't wait to share with you:

1. Frugality (63%)
2. Travel (61%)
3. "The Look for Less" (59%)
4. Food & Wine (59%)
5. Home Decorating (57%)
6. DIY & Crafting (57%)
7. Freebies & Coupons (57%)
8. Health & Fitness (53% — watch out for a big story in July!)
9. “Eco Cheap” & Green (53%)
10. Entertainment & Events (49%)

Expect some great issues covering these and more exciting topics between now and the end of the year, and make sure to read our newsletter and follow us on Twitter for exciting updates on new local blogs and Shoestring events coming to a city near you soon. :)

If you didn't have a chance to answer our reader survey but have ideas and feedback for improving Shoestring, please leave us a comment below — we want to hear from you!

Behind The Seams: Relax, You're On Camping Time

 

Amongst my million other things to do before I left to go to Acadia, I had to stop at my eye doctor and pick up my new contacts. They called and left me a message, oh, maybe 4 weeks ago. With each passing day, I felt more and more lame. It's like when you go to the dentist and they make a point of telling you how long it's been since your last visit. Because I don't want to deal with the guilt, I put my appointment off, and then more time goes on, and before I know it, years have gone by.

I obviously couldn't put off picking up my contacts forever, so I bit the bullet and I went in. I thought I would employ a preemptive strike: I would fess up to how late I was before they had a chance to say anything, but surprisingly they just laughed at me, and said:

"Oh, honey, we're on Spanish time here. We have glasses from three years ago."

Of course, it instantly made me feel better, but thats the mark of a good doctor. (Thanks Dr. Wayne) It made me stop and think how many times I've heard that phrase.

We're on "Insert Name of Country Here" time.

Be it a leisurely lunch in Paris, a three-hour mani-pedi in Morocco, dinner served four hours after ordering in Tanzania, or tapas and sangria in a cave bar in Madrid, any time I get the least bit antsy, I'm reminded that the rest of the world runs on a more leisurely time schedule than the U.S.

Whenever I travel somewhere, it always takes me a while to slow down. With camping, I think you have almost no choice but to slow down. Nothing cooks fast over an open fire, and, besides hiking, I was left with cards and a crossword puzzle book. The dogs had almost no problem relaxing. They play hard and they sleep hard. You can see the fatty asleep in the tent after a long hike.

I think back to when I worked for a European company: I had a month of "holiday" vacation instead of the standard two weeks. I used that time to travel to Spain and Portugal, and, when I came back, I was rested and energized in a whole new way. I could definitely see the appeal of a 35-hour work week, 2-hour lunches, and the whole month of August off.

Do you think that Americans are losing out by not embracing leisure?

~Meghan

Back To Basics: Retro Packaging

I love cereal. As unhealthy as it is, there's nothing like having a lazy weekend eating cold cereal the entire day. Call it a throwback to my youth, or just a way to indulge my inner child, but there is something so satisfying about it.

My biggest complaint is that I find the packaging to be ugly. I mean real ugly. It reminds me of the website Make My Logo Bigger. In advertising, we have this joke that if you want to please a client you should make something bold, and if you can't make it bold, make it red. I am a strong proponent of clean design. I believe in white space. If the design is too cluttered, I don't know where to look. I try to design with a strong call to action in mind, and the rest of the design should be visible without being overpowering. Make My Logo Bigger tries to hammer home the point that if everything is top priority then nothing is top priority, and that's how I feel about cereal packaging. (I know, I'm a freak.)

As I walk down the aisle at the supermarket, I'm attacked by bright colors, and the bane of my existence "The Burst." (at right) I can't help but feel like I'm going to have a seizure, right in the middle of aisle 5. Red would rush to save me, only to succumb to a seizure, too. I'm afraid that with newer technologies, products will be talking, and have blinking lights and such. How far will companies go to get my all-too-precious consumer dollar? I can imagine companies turning into Sméagol, calling my money "precious."

So it was very much a welcome surprise to see General Mills do throwback packaging. I was walking down the cereal aisle at Target, and I was hit with a sense of calm. I wasn't having a sensory overload. Clean packaging as far as the eye could see. It was fantastic. (yes I know, as I said, before I'm a freak.) Now, I know it was just a clever marketing ploy, perhaps to appeal to a more grown-up demographic, but honestly I don't care. This was a marketing ploy that really worked. In the days when everything old is new again, General Mills hit the nail on the head. Sometimes -- in advertising and in life -- we get so overwhelmed with the newer and bigger thing, that we forget what actually works.

Then again, maybe retro packaging is the newer and bigger thing. Discuss.

~Meghan

Shoestring Productivity Tools

It seems that the bigger Shoestring gets, the busier I get, whether due to new press opportunities or freelance clients who like my work. You can see just how busy I am today by how late my blog post is (but I'm still 10 days running!) In honor of my crazed schedule, I'm going to highlight my five favorite free online tools for staying organized. (I didn't say I used them enough.)

1. Google Calendar
All you need is a Google account, and you're good to go. You can share your calendar with your friends and family, even color code it by person. When I go out of town, I use the Google calendar to coordinate dog walks.

2. Remember The Milk
If you're a list maker, then this is the tool for you. "Create as many lists as you need. Into tagging? Use the task cloud to easily see what you have to do. Want to store notes along with your tasks? You can do that too." Email your lists to yourself. Set reminders to alert you by SMS, IM, or email. Keep track of your tasks with your RSS aggregator. An iPhone app is available, but only for a pro member at $25 a year. Easily one of the most robust tools available.

3. iProcrastinate Mobile
This only comes for Mac users and as an iPhone app, but its pretty great none the less. iProcrastinate strips down the excess, unnecessary functions to bring you a simple and easy-to-use tool. Color code your items (I love that), or allocate your tasks under subjects. It includes the standard functions of priority, due dates, and notes fields, but also allows you to add steps required for each task, and, if necessary, to add team members.

4. Voo2Do
This website is a little ugly at first glance, but it gets the job done. You can organize tasks by project, track time spent and remaining, add tasks by email, even publish task lists.

5. Squinto
The two best parts of Squinto are that you can set a calendar overview of upcoming tasks, and you can export your to-do lists to iCal, Google calendar, or your other favorite calendaring program. Know what you have due and when.

If you're a Luddite, or you just have a love of paper and pen. Check out D*I*Y planner.com. They offer free templates for creating and printing your own planner.

Share your tips for productivity tools with us in the comments.

~Meghan

Holy Crap: Shoestring Presented at Girls in Tech

Last night I presented a case study at the Girls in Tech: Using social media in your organization. I got up, and have a bumbling 15 minute presentation on how Shoestring uses Social Media. Our two main goals are boosting national readership, and generating revenue using social media. The four panelists were fantastic, but the one who really stuck out for me was Cappy Popp, co-founder of Thought Labs. Cappy really took us to task for not updating our facebook page more often.

This morning I spent two hours navigating the inner workings of facebook, to try and update all of our settings. The fact that we only have two full time employees, means that Melissa and I have to streamline our processes as much as possible. As we all know "Content is King" the more often you post, and blog, and tweet, and retweet, and comment, means more exposure, and quite frankly I for one have been slacking.

Step 1. Meghan must post on the blog everyday (see I've accomplished today)

One of the biggest pieces of advice we received was to post in one place, and let our RSS feed do the dirty work. We've had problems syncing our blog posts to our facebook page, but hopefully my frustrating hour using feedburner, and the blog RSS feed app on facebook should take care of that. In a nutshell, if I write this blog post it should update to all of my social media tools. (I admit that this blog post is somewhat of a test run to make sure that everything works.) If you read my last blog post, you learned that I'm a newbie to "public" social media. Or as I call it "social media with an actual purpose." Everything that I post should have the ulterior motive of generating buzz around Shoestring. I don't now if I'm doing an OK job. Lets be frank here: I say things that are not appropriate. Nathaniel has made me a list of appropriate topics and non-appropriate topics to talk about at his company dinners. We joke (sort-of) about laminating note cards that I can stick in my purse to pull out when I'm at a loss for conversation. I've been know to have conversations about politics, a woman's right to choose, and that time I retouched porn, all at a fancy restaurant with Nathaniel's boss. I would like to say it's part of my charm, but I'm sure others might disagree.

I apologize for saying "holy crap, and then "oh shit I shouldn't say crap in front of a room full of people." Yup I said it once, then I made it worse, and then I said it again. In truth I would understand if Nathaniel left me at home when he has dinner with his boss.

I want people to find me interesting enough to read what I have to say, but this is my business, and I don't want to offend anyone. Though for anyone who read Shoestring Saves, it might be a little too late for that ("climbing the ass-crack of Africa" anyone?)

So what do you say. Is my off-color brand of humor offensive, or funny? Do you think it's hurting my social media reputation, or giving me "indie cred."  Lastly if you have any ideas or suggestions for expanding our readership, or generating revenue, give us a shout out.

~Meghan

Behind the Seams: Next for Target Go International, Thakoon.

According to reports from Vogue UK, Glamour.com, and FabSugar, this fall, Thakoon Panichgul will become the 13th designer to create an eponymous line for Target, dashing the hopes of all whose fingers were crossed for Alexander McQueen, as rumored. (Although I love McQueen, I have to applaud Thakoon for joining the growing line of editors-turned-designer.)

For more information on Thakoon, check out New York magazine's designer bio for Thakoon, or the critics' take and runway coverage from Thakoon's Fall 2008 Ready to Wear collection at Style.com (the online home of Conde Nast's Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines).