Prosthetics, Wombats and Wedding Disasters

Last week saw publication of a wide range of new work, including two new features.

As I usually do here, I'll start off with my two Extinction Countdown articles for Scientific American:

An Invasive Plant Is Killing Wombats in Australia

Little Time Left for the Tamaraw? Philippine Buffalo Species Down to Last 300 Animals


Next up, my latest feature for Today's Engineer magazine. I spent about two months researching this one and it's about as good an article as I've ever done. The folks I interviewed were amazing people who do good in the world every single day:

Prosthetics: A Career That Changes Lives


Mother Nature Network gave me a couple of odd stories this week:

Do you have a wedding disaster plan? CDC offers tips for surviving the season of love

Brits sing the praises of cheddar cheese


And finally, here's another new feature, this time for IEEE's The Institute. While this is written for engineers, I think it's good advice for just about anybody:

Sales Skills for Engineers 


Enjoy the latest reads and check back next week for another batch of links!

From the archives: 4

Another ad from the archives. I'm pretty sure this came out around the same time as the awful Fantastic Four movie. Luckily, it stands on its own.

Click the image to see it full-sized.

From the archives: Bioengineering

I just found a scan for an ad I never posted here, part of this series that I both wrote and modeled for, one of the more interesting chapters in my professional career.

Anyway, click the ad to see this full-sized. And no, that's not me in the photo.

From the archives: DNA

The archives are producing a treasure trove of projects I enjoyed working on over the years. Here's an ad I wrote for IEEE about five years ago. I still like it.

(Click on the image to see it in all of its glory.)

From the archives: Just Right

Digging into the marketing archives again, here are two of the four pages from a large-format brochure I wrote to launch a new IEEE informational product. (As memory serves, the product didn't last, but it set up the market for several more successful services that followed behind it.)

(You can click on this image to view it in more detail.)

From the archives: Passion

Here's an advertisement from several years back: a full-page ad for a technical journal that we tried to make more lively. I still like it.

(Click to view in full size.)

Extinction, Using Social Media, Scary Books & More

I told you that last week would be a good week for my articles. Heck, I had six published last Thursday alone. (I'm pretty sure that's a personal record.)

Anyway, here are the latest and greatest additions to the Platt Library. First up, two new Extinction Countdown articles for Scientific American:

Survival denied: Birds, fish, plant, pygmy rabbits lose out on endangered species protection

Population crash in Kenya: Rare bird gets much, much rarer--but why?

Next up, an article for The Institute that should be good for any consultant, freelancer or small business:

Using Social Media to Attract New Business

Now we get to some engineering-related articles...

The Price Is Right: Free Design Standard Expected to Be Adopted Speedily

IEEE-USA 2010 Salary Survey Reveals Positive Changes Along with Reductions and Gaps

...and then a few pieces for the readers among you, an overview of upcoming horror novels for this month and reviews of two excellent graphic novels:

Six Scream-Worthy Reads for October

Diario de Oaxaco: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico

Cats Are Weird and More Observations

Finally, here are my latest Green Tips blogs for GreenHandsUSA:

7 Things to do with Shredded Paper

7 Ways to Green Your Laundry

Enjoy!

I'm the only copywriter I know who also modeled for one of his own ads

Here are a few ads from a campaign I wrote a few years ago. In addition to developing the concept and writing the ads, I also ended up as one of the models. (I'm still not exactly sure how that happened...)


(Click through for larger versions of the images.)

Publishing an Academic Book? Don't Forget the "M" Word...

How can you — the potential academic author — help to ensure your book's success? It pays to think about the marketing before you even write your first word...

Read more, in the November 2007 issue of Today's Engineer.

Ad copy: Does Your Research Need a Jump-Start?

Another one of my favorite ads, this time for the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Love that headline/image combination:

You can click the image above for a bigger version.

Ad copy: web graphics

I love writing web ads. They're like haiku poems in a bright little box. Here are a few I wrote over the years for IEEE:

Ad copy: "My profession..."

I wrote all of IEEE's membership campaign material for several years. This print ad comes from the most recent campaign, which ran for the last two years.

Ad copy: "I Made It"

Out of the hundreds of advertisements I have written over the last few years, this remains one of my favorites. The copy really came together, the client was fun to work with, and the designer did a great job on the entire campaign.

Click the image to see a larger version.