How is it that thousands of years after he lived, we’re still talking about Moses?

Like so many successful leaders, he hired a public relations person.

Moses didn’t have to search through Google Ads to find a firm, though. He just used his brother, Aaron, to speak to the people on his behalf.

Aaron spoke eloquently and clearly. He was able to deliver messages while Moses concentrated on delivering a people.

In those days, Aaron and Moses had minimal tools at their disposal. If the Exodus from Egypt had happened today, we expect the Passover story might have gone a bit differently.

What if Moses had Twitter?

Setting: The desert, many generations ago.

Aaron: Moses! I heard that you’ve been chosen to lead the Jews.

Moses: I can’t believe it. I tried to get G-d to back off, but the burning bush kind of sealed the deal.

Aaron: I heard some of the Israelites talking, and they were complaining that you were a nobody, somebody they’ve never heard of. You should really make a name for yourself.

Moses: I know, I’m thinking about speaking to the people and showing them some of my talents — did you know I can turn a rod into a snake?

Aaron: No, no. Moses, you need to make a NAME for yourself. You need an up-to-date communications strategy. You need to make a LinkedIn profile.

Moses: Wh-what?

Aaron: LinkedIn. It’s a networking Web site where you can connect with people all over the world and share business expertise. You can meet leaders of other nations all over the world, and see what they did differently when taking their peoples out of slavery.

Moses: Interesting.

Aaron: I can see it now — Moses Rabeinu. Leader of the Israelites. Past experience: Prince of Egypt. You can Tweet about it to your followers.

Moses: My followers? I think you’re confusing me with another religious leader.

Aaron: Followers — the people who read your posts on Twitter. Microblogging. To let people know what you’re up to.

Moses: Why would anybody possibly care what I’m up to every moment of the day?

Aaron: Moishe, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but you’re sort of important. People care. You know, just in case you ever find yourself at the top of a mountain for a long time, we might be curious as to where you are and when you might come back down to the people.

Moses: I know my people and I know they will never give up those stone tablets, especially if the words are written by the finger of G-d.

Aaron: Of course! Mose, it’s about time you get into the 21st century.

Moses: It’s only 1446 B.C.E.! I just don’t see how this is necessary.

Aaron: Twitter and LinkedIn are just the beginning. I haven’t even told you yet about Facebook.

Moses: I like the sound of that one — we ARE the People of the faceBook.

Aaron: It’s another great way to stay connected with friends and share important information.

Moses: Do I really need another thing to keep track of in my day? I’m a very busy person, leading a people out of slavery, and all.

Aaron: Can you imagine how different our lives would be if our ancestors had used Facebook? Instead of traveling many long journeys, Abraham could have invited people to a “Judaism” Facebook group. Joseph could have interpreted his friends’ dreams near and far via Facebook wall posts, and his posted pictures would keep his brothers updated with what he looked like. And you could have stayed in touch with Tzipporah even long-distance.

Moses: Okay. Let my people go…online!

Whether you’re destined to be as famous as Moses, or you’re just looking to promote your organization or get some new clients, Jonathan Lehrer Communications, Inc. can help you create an online communications strategy for the 21st century.

Major publications and even daily newspapers have been adding online editions. Many have been killing off their print editions altogether to eliminate the cost of printing and postage.

The time is now to create a strategy for an online magazine or e-zine. (Ask us for help!)

Two Options for an E-Zine

• Using a user-friendly service like Constant Contact (ask us for help!) send your newsletter via an email containing your articles and related graphics.
• A more effective communications strategy is to publish your online magazine articles as pages on your Web site or a special e-zine site. Use the email newsletter for quick summaries that link to the full articles on your site. This will help draw readers to your site, where they can interact with your organization in many ways.

Elements of a Successful Webzine or Digital Edition

The Internet is all about technology, but a successful online magazine is more about content. (We’ll deal with the technology options separately.) Except for the cost of paper and postage, an online publication shares much with its print precursor.

What are the key components of an e-zine?

Editor: Somebody has to be in charge. Once you’re up and running, the title of e-zine editor could be added to an existing staff member. Or hire a webzine consultant.

Schedule: It’s called a “periodical,” right? Whether it’s weekly, monthly or even quarterly, you won’t meet your communications objectives without committing to a regular publishing schedule.

Content: On the Internet, frequency is more important than volume. It’s better to publish monthly with just three articles than to put your e-zine online quarterly with 12 stories. In addition to newly developed content, consider recycling articles from your print publication (after reviewing for accuracy, of course).

Length: Online readers are in a hurry. As a guideline for the length of an e-zine story, use 500 words (the length of this article), unless it’s highly technical information.

Editorial Calendar: Plan your stories several issues in advance. Use your organization’s calendar as inspiration for your e-zine story ideas, such as an advance article on your upcoming annual meeting or something relating to the season or an upcoming holiday.

Voice and Editorial Review: What does your organization stand for? What does your audience want to hear from you? Consider creating an editorial board to ensure that you’re publishing content that’s consistent with the image of your organization.

Readership: Build readership with a “subscribe” button on your home page (and a link in your existing print media) and send an email newsletter to your subscribers when you publish a new e-zine issue online.

At Jonathan Lehrer Communications, Inc., we have the editorial, strategic and technical expertise to implement a online magazine that will enhance your image and broadcast your messages at a reasonable cost. Contact us to learn how to create an online magazine or webzine.

But I told them to hold off on the celebration until later in the day. 

I put in a call to the office of Richard Bensen, then president of AAA-CMC, to ask for an appointment. A few hours later, I sat in his office and explained that after 18 years at AAA, it just might be time to write a new chapter in my life. My good friend, Joe Sameh, had offered me a part-time position handling marketing for his healthcare telecommunications company, American Mediconnect. It was just the opportunity I needed to start a consulting practice. 

Bensen immediately offered me a consulting position with AAA, and shortly after, Sara Marberry asked me to help with some assignments for the Center for Health Design. And my consulting practice was up and running. 

Meanwhile, my staff was stunned to hear I was leaving (but happy to eat the cake I brought). 

Over the ensuing years, I partnered with Sara Marberry to evaluate Web sites; and I partnered with Louie Pukelis to do PR strategy for the Illinois Department of Transportation’s Dan Ryan and Kingery Expressway Reconstruction projects and the Illinois Tollway’s Congestion Relief Program. 

Many clients (and advisors) have provided me with opportunities and have been supportive of my work.  

As I celebrate my first 10 years as a strategic communications and Internet consultant, I’m using this page of my Web site to publicly thank them for making the first 10 years possible by trusting me and my colleagues with their projects. (If I left your name off the list, please contact me, and I’ll apologize to you, and add your name to the list.)

Sharif Abou-Sabh, Joseph Adler, Inez Altman, Bob Benjamin, Richard Bensen, Heidi Berenson, Carl Blackwell, Dr. Stephen Boas, Richard Brill, David Brimm, Karen Brown, Jerry Caamano, Hedvah Campeas-Cohen, Kathleen Cantillon, Ian Carrus, Jennifer Chulski, Mike Claffey, Thom Clark, Jeffrey Conlin, Mark Couzin, Steve Coven, Jerry Cox, Michelle Damico, Tom Dardis, Riley Davis, John DeAngelis, Hank DeZutter, Carole Dibo and Regina Dove… 

Also, Grace Dumelle, Sarah Ebner, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, Al Finley, Dr. Elysa Fisher, Marianne Floriano, Randy Frapart, Pete Friedmann, Richard Ghetzler, John Greuling, Jerry Gruebel, Jim Hall, George Hanus, Arnie Harris, Ian Harris, Clayton Harris III, Bob Herrick, Ellen Hopkins, John Janicik, Greg Kameika and Craig Kantor…

Also, Kelly Kaylor, Michael King, Beth Kloos, Marisa Kollias, Lon Kramer, Pat Kremer, Amy Kritzman, Ron Kritzman, Judy Kupchan, Estee Lehrer, Lia Lehrer, Michael Lehrer, Shirley Lewis, Janet Lifshitz Sameh, Russ Loebe, Sara Marberry, Diane Margolin, Joelle McGinnis, Beryl Michaels, Harvey Miler, Ray Minkus, Richard Moline, Christi Morelli, Sharon Morgan and Kim Morreale-McAuliffe…

Even more: Jim Mullins, Rich Nelson, Debbie Nick, Diane O’Keefe, Rachael Patterson, Wally Podrazik, Ray Pokorny, Jeanne Polydoris, Robert Portogallo, Howard Prager, Susan Prather, Louie Pukelis, Nora Pukelis, Nicole Puracchio, Chana Rosen, z”l, Bill Rubin, Jeff Rutter, Ken Saffir, Joe Sameh, Janet Scott, Dr. Gerry Soff, Lori Stark, Roz Stein, Jill Stewart, Diana Stewart, Paul Swanstrom, Heather Tarczan, Neil Tesser, Tim Touhy, Jacek Tyszkiewicz, Bob Vallera, Helen Vancura, Marilyn Vincent, Rick Vulpitta, Mike Wiater, Mark Weiner and Suzanne Woolford. 

Thanks to all of you!

Companies and organizations are hard-nosed about spending money and measuring results. Yours is no different, undoubtedly. Being competitive and remaining viable require prudent investments of resources and an honest examination of the ROI.

If you are not applying the same level of accountability to the time you invest in soft business relationships, you may not be getting the level of return that the investment should demand. Worse, you may be wasting time, which most of us can ill afford to do. 

In the good old days, leaders were required to belong to the appropriate organizations, serve on the appropriate boards and chair a capital campaign or two, not to mention attending the appropriate dinners and social events.  Those were the days before the competitive global marketplace sucked all time out of a busy executive’s day. 

I observed the transformation first-hand at a local service club, once the enviable bastion of the cream of local business leaders. By the end of the 1990s, all of the plant managers, the hospital execs and the bank presidents were long gone. In their place, small business entrepreneurs, execs of social service agencies, lawyers, school superintendents and government professionals made up the roster.

Even so, the time crunch and work overload can be relentless. Explaining why he dropped out of a service club, a local mortgage professional told me, “Bob, I can’t afford to spend two hours every week with a bunch of old folks listening to boring program speakers.” This was a harsh, but real assessment.

I’m not picking on service clubs, but I do suggest that there should be strategic reasons for investing your time in outside affiliations–that there be a direct tie-back to your organization’s reason for being and that the ROI be audited regularly.

Some of the reasons you might choose to send your execs into the community might include:

• Exposure for your organization providing a reasonable expectation for ROI
• Above average prospects for connecting with key people who can provide ROI
• Your competitors are there—-for the right reasons
• Your boss said so

We helped a client–the head of a large organization–evaluate whether time he and his executive staff invested in community, professional or social pursuits returned benefits that directly related to the company’s goals and objectives. The client was surprised at how many investments were questionable when viewed this way.

I’ve heard people say “we’re there because our competitors are there, but we get absolutely no value from it.” Can you think of a worse reason to be involved? Especially when your competitors are hoping that you’ll have the guts to get up and go so they don’t have to make the unpopular decision.

Community Relations Audit

Ask Jonathan Lehrer Communications, Inc. to evaluate your community relations investments. We can help you define the “community” that makes sense for your organization and prioritize which civic involvements best fit your limited budget of money and time. Contact us to learn more about the Community Relations Audit.

Here’s why:  

1. WordPress is user-friendly. You will find WordPress sites easy to manage, and your visitors will find them easy to navigate. You don’t need to be a computer engineer to use WordPress – symbols, instructions and FAQs make WordPress a breeze for even the least tech-savvy.
2. It’s adaptable. Maybe you want a simple site. Maybe you want a site that turns heads. Maybe you just need a home page and contact information. Whatever you need, your WordPress site can be tailored to do just that. Zillions of customizable themes are available (and by the time you read this article, there will be another zillion).
3. Nothing is written in stone. Can’t make up your mind? Did you choose blue, but later realized that you should have gone with the red? Did you forget to add a menu? In WordPress, the design or content of your site can be changed with the click of a button. Colors, menus, sidebars, designs, layouts and graphics can be easily manipulated as many times as you like.
4. It’s blog-ready. Blogging, or online Web logs, are the way of the future, and chances are your business should have one. WordPress originally was designed to create blogs. Whether it’s a message from your CEO or a “Tip of the Week,” blogs encourage your customers and clients to check your site regularly to see what’s new.
5. A WordPress site will look professional. WordPress is a blogging software, yes, but it’s not MySpace. Sites look sharp and clear and will help showcase your expertise. A site created in WordPress can look like a “normal” site. It doesn’t need to look like a blog at all. (Guess what? The site you’re viewing at the moment was done completely in WordPress.)
6. You can update it yourself. If you need to fix a typo or add a blog entry, you don’t need to wait for the Webmaster’s help. WordPress is so easy to use that you can make the changes yourself. Voila! You’re an instant Web expert.
7. Comments, searches and archived articles are easy. These features require no extra labor or monotonous data entry. Your visitors easily can find the information they want from your site; and, if you choose, they can comment on your site to tell you about it.
8. It’s easy to collaborate using WordPress. Hire JLCI to do the initial setup of your WordPress site, including planning, design, content creation and upload. Then you can take over, adding content as often as you want. (If you run into trouble, we can log in to the site and fix whatever needs fixing.)
9. WordPress resources abound. Because so many people are using WordPress these days, it’s easy to find help, suggestions and themes.
10. It’s free and it’s online. WordPress works completely online. That means you don’t install any software on your computer, and you can edit your site from any computer, anywhere (as long as you remember your password).
11. With WordPress, you have no excuse not to have a Web site. Face it – in today’s day and age, if you don’t have a Web site, you’re behind. But while trying to run a successful business, who has time to create a professional Web site from scratch? With Jonathan Lehrer Communications as your guide, and WordPress as the tool of choice, now is your chance to enter the Internet community.  

Contact us and we’ll set up an in-person or on-the-phone meeting to brainstorm about how WordPress can get your message to your clients and customers.

“Marketing” and “chaos” are synonymous in some organizations. Everybody has a better idea. Each manager is off doing his/her thing.

• The new marketing director doesn’t like the company’s color scheme.
• The CEO’s husband never liked the firm’s logo.
• The sales department is using an outdated positioning statement on all of their proposals.
• Your promotions director ordered a zillion keychains to hand out at Taste of Chicago, but he forgot to include your Web site address on the artwork.
• Maybe that’s a good thing, because your Web site hasn’t been updated since before the iPod was invented.

It’s Time for a Communications Audit

Your corporate balance sheet lists such organizational assets as real estate, equipment and your company-owned Lexus. You’ll never see Web site domain names, brochure designs, signage and YouTube videos on the balance sheet, but they are assets, too.

Whether you’re non-profit or highly profitable, you need to maximize your return on investment. Your communications assets should carry coordinated messages. The graphics and colors should look similar. Your Web site should be customer-friendly.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but I suspect you might want a little help putting your knowledge into practice. An outside, unbiased eye might be just what you need.

What is a Communications Audit?

Tell us about your organization’s goals, then send us everything you can find that has, or should have, your company’s name or logo on it. Send us links to Web site examples and samples of email newsletters.

We’ll give you a written evaluation of everything, along with creative suggestions on how to make the overall package deliver a better ROI.

To make it more fun, we can do this evaluation in your conference room, interactively in workshop format with your key people. (No, I’m not really kidding about the “fun” part.)

The outcome may be a plan for a new logo, or simply an edict from the CEO reminding people to toss the business cards that still carry the name of the company from before the big merger.

Materials to be Evaluated in a Communications Audit

• Web site(s)
• E-mail newsletters
• Brochures
• Sales presentations / proposals
• Trade show booth
• Fund-raising materials (non-profit)
• Investor relations materials
• Signage
• Logos and corporate identity
• Use of new media

Contact us to learn more…

Or is it?

A twentysomething friend who works at a Chicago PR agency recently told me he runs into the occasional older person (in other words, someone my age!) who seems wary of venturing out into the new media landscape, unable to get his arms around the new ways today’s younger generation communicates.

But, seriously, how did they talk to their friends back when THEY were teenagers? The answer is found in the “Telephone Hour” song from the 1963 movie version of the musical “Bye Bye Birdie.”

This song and its brilliant staging bring to life the telephone-obsessed, affluent teenagers of the early ’60s. Visual emphasis on the telephone wires and the shot of the switchboard operator towards the end amplify (pun intended, sorry) the technology component of a song about how teenagers communicate.

For those of you who weren’t around in 1963, note that most of the locations where telephones are shown would have been highly unusual for the time. The only carphones were in James Bond movies. Teenagers on phones in a soda shop (what ever happened to soda shops?) was a laughable exaggeration.

An observant 10-year-old when the movie debuted, I saw moms and dads freaking out over the amount of time teens spent on the phone every night. But peruse the Morton Grove or Skokie (Ill.) phone books of that era (what ever happened to the phone book?) and you’d see that a few of these same parents were adding “child’s telephone” listings. These were second phone numbers in an age where virtually every household had only one.

Also around that time (actually 1959, according to Wikipedia), AT&T (what ever happened to AT&T? Oh wait, they’re back, aren’t they?) came out with the Princess telephone, a revolution compared to the standard black desk phone, and completely targeted to teenage girls. In 1963, they came out with a touch-tone version, and it must have been this version that seems to be in the opening shot of the “Telephone Hour” song.

“Bye Bye Birdie” not only captured the inseparable attachment of teens and technology, but it also predicted a future 40 years later, when every human being would be on the phone all the time everywhere and 2,000 anytime minutes wouldn’t seem like enough.

Why is this important?

The social media phenomenon isn’t new. It’s old. It’s not so much about the technology, but of yet another generation’s failure to understand their kids.

People just want to connect. They used Princess phones in 1963. Now they text and Tweet.

Now let’s travel even further back.

After 18 years doing PR for AAA, and 10 recent years working on Internet projects, “information highway” is a meaningful phrase. The Internet (or more accurately, the Internet of 10-15 years ago, when it was in the early stages of the World Wide Web) serves exactly the same function as the newly conceived Interstate highway system of the 1950s.

In this context, I was telling my twentysomething friend about AAA’s trip logs of the early 1900s. At that time, the motor club was mostly a social organization for rich guys who could afford horseless carriages. They would drive across the country on roads that might have been paved, or might not, and write about their experiences in the club’s magazines. My friend quickly observed that it was another form of social media.

He was right.

When we communications people think about new media strategies that make sense for our clients, let’s focus less on today’s technology fad (actually, today, it’s the Google phone, which looks pretty cool) and think about the bigger picture. People just want to talk to each other. Let’s figure out how to make that work for our clients.

Invite us over to your office for a customized workshop we call “New Media for Old People,” a guided tour across the new media landscape. When we’re done, you’ll want to pull out the old Smith-Corona and start banging out your own trip log about your trip down the information highway.

But am I really “old” if I have been friended on Facebook, if I have space on MySpace and if I have edited a Wikipedia entry?

The old cliche “you’re as old as you feel” has been superseded by “you’re as old as you act on the Internet.”

We are witness to a media climate change of global proportions. Not a day goes by without Google adding a new feature or someone you know creating a LinkedIn profile. Regardless of your age or profession, you need to understand how the “new media” landscape will affect your business.

Photo: Jonathan Lehrer leads an onsite “New Media for Old People” workshop.

Jonathan Lehrer Communications, Inc. Can Help You
Understand the New Media

“New Media for Old People” is a seminar/workshop Bob Herrick and I created. Give us an hour or two — depending on how much detail you want — and we’ll come to your office or a meeting of your professional association. Armed with an LCD projector and a list of Web sites, we’ll show you around the wilderness of social media and online tools that can help you deliver your organization’s messages to your various audiences.

The genesis for this seminar was a workshop Bob and I conducted for administrators of a large high school district. We were retained to help them write a job description and interview candidates for the position of public information officer.

In the “old days,” we explained to our clients, a suburban school merely needed to send a press release to the town’s daily newspaper and its major radio station. Today’s students, and quite possibly their parents, get their information from a million sources, some credible and some not.

The school honchos’ jaws dropped when we showed them their page on Wikipedia (they didn’t even know anybody had created such a page). We found an alumni group someone had created on MySpace (”I can’t believe THAT kid would be running our alumni group,” said an official). We explained the Facebook wall and we played videos of the school’s marching band that someone had uploaded to YouTube.

We tried to plot some of the message paths on a white board and ended up with a dizzying array of linkages that simply cannot be depicted in only two dimensions.

Jonathan Lehrer (left) and Bob Herrick show how new media and traditional media must be used together in a comprehensive communications plan.

No one can really be an expert on all this stuff. The landscape changes too quickly.

A Strategy for Social Media and Online Communication

Eventually, our school client hired a well-qualified PR person who understood the school well (and that’s really the most important thing) and was prepared to lead the institution into the Facebook-Google-YouTube-Twitter land creatively and fearlessly.

Every demographic segment - without regard to age or income level – is on the Internet somewhere. Whether you like it or not, they are formulating opinions about you, your products, your clients or the public policy issues that affect you.

Invite us to your office or your organization for a customized presentation about how new media consumers perceive you.

Ask us for help embracing the new media and finding your path through the challenges of global media climate change.

New Media for Old People is an onsite seminar/workshop, introducing and explaining such sites as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Plaxo and many others to Internet users who haven’t quite ventured into the new media territory, says Jonathan Lehrer, president.

“On the Internet, your age is reflected by the sites you use, not the date shown on your driver’s license,” says Lehrer.

The firm’s Communications Audit is a comprehensive review of such communications assets as brochures, Web sites, blogs, physical signage and television commercials, among many others. The idea is to help clients maximize the return on their communications investments by ensuring that their messages are consistent.

For clients desiring a workshop-style experience, JLCI will perform the audit onsite in an interactive session with key players from the organization.

Learn more about these JLCI services:

New Media for Old People

Communications Audit

Well, not quite. Many organizations have yet to maximize the Internet as a tool for improving business processes, as well as to reinforce their identity and promote their e-business capability. Here’s a checklist:

Domain Name

Pick a domain name that’s easy to remember and spell. If you are well-known in your industry, ideally this should be your company name. While a zillion Amazon wannabees try to establish brand identity with names like “whatever.com,” you should take best advantage of your existing brand. Examples include nike.com, cnn.com or nytimes.com.

Another successful Web branding strategy is to select an address based on a product name that identifies your product (shoes.com) or your well-known trademark (whopper.com). Do the ”telephone test” — say it out loud to others and decide if it is easy for them to understand and remember.

It’s likely that your desired domain name was snapped up by somebody else years ago. Try adding numerals to your choice (mydomain2008.com) or hyphenate (my-domain.com).

Domain Name E-Mail

All employees with Internet access need an e-mail address at your organization’s domain. An address like “joesmith@mycompany.com” is likely to appear more professional and easier to remember than the same employee’s personal e-mail address, which might be “cutejoe@aol.com.”

To make multiple e-mail addresses easier to manage, you can set up e-mail forwarding accounts. Your Internet Service Provider can automatically forward Joe’s e-mail to his personal address, even though your customer sent the message to his “work” address.

E-Mail Protocol

Develop a company-wide protocol for e-mail addresses, such as people’s first initial and their last names, or the first three letters of their first names, followed by the first three letters of their last. You could even use people’s full first and last names. Examples:

johnsmith@ourcompany.com
jsmith@ourcompany.com
johsmi@ourcompany.com

All employees should use a standard signature line in their outgoing mail, possibly including a company slogan or product reference. Be sure to include a telephone number, too. Most e-mail software can automatically include the signature with every message. Example:

John Smith
Sales Director
Our Company
Jsmith@ourcompany.com
www.ourcompany.com
800.123.4567
“We’re your source for widgets”

Generic E-Mail Addresses

Nobody stays in a job forever. When Joe Smith leaves his job as customer service manager, where will his e-mail go? For busy customer-contact functions, it is advisable to create generic e-mail addresses and set up e-mail forwarding to the appropriate departments or people. Examples:

info@ourcompany.com
sales@ourcompany.com
customerservice@ourcompany.com

Responding to E-Mail

Create companywide standards for responding to e-mail. For example, you might require that customer-contact employees check their e-mail every two hours. You might set a standard that all e-mails get a response within four hours, or sooner.

Use the Web site

Proper integration of your Web site with your business process should reduce telephone calls and provide your customers with more direct, convenient contact with your company, around the clock, without any ongoing involvement of your staff. Make sure your Web site is able to:

• Receive and process orders;
• Provide technical information about your products; and
• Answer frequently asked questions (FAQs).

Just like the company directory in your lobby, your site should have a detailed e-mail directory, complete with job functions, so correspondents know to whom they should send their e-mail.

Finally, use all of your print material to publicize the message that customers can do business with your company on the Internet. If appropriate, include your e-mail or Web site address in voice mail messages.

Here’s a checklist:

• Newsletter
• Brochures
• Advertisements
• Invoices
• Letterhead
• Business cards

Sara Marberry co-authored this article, which originally appeared in b3 magazine .