The Blog

Reader’s Digest used to have short anecdotes, quotes or stories of wisdom at the end of their articles in their magazines. They probably still do, but I haven’t picked up a Reader’s Digest magazine since high school (so it’s been…what, five or six years?).

I remember once reading a short paragraph-long story about Jay Leno and the jokes in his monologues. Leno said that, when writing and presenting jokes, he’d avoid word repetition.

For example, instead of using the word “car” three times in a joke — or three times over the course of two jokes — he’d mix things up, calling it an “automobile” one of those three times.

This kept the joke and the story from going stale, as repetition sometimes does.

For some reason, this stuck with me. I find myself challenged when it comes to avoiding repetition in my writing. I cringe if I have to use the word “fire” or “firefighters” more than twice in any given story.

But I think the word repetition rule is one that helped me become a better journalist.

Imagine being able to give out one phone number to sources and clients that would ring every phone you own, increasing your availability for scoops and story ideas while keeping your actual phone numbers private.

A few years ago, a service called GrandCentral launched with one big idea: One phone number that can reach all of your physical handsets, including your desk phone, your cell phone and your home phone. In 2009, Google purchased Grandcentral and relaunched the service as ‘Google Voice,’ and recently the service was taken out of its invitation-only state and became available to anyone who had a Google account (if you have a Gmail or YouTube username, you have a Google account).

Why journalists should use Google Voice:

• It’s free: The core features of Google Voice (a phone number, text messages, voice mail, etc) are free.
• It’s like a real phone number: Google Voice gives you tons of features you probably already use on your home or cell phone, including the ability to receive calls, text messages and voice mail.
• One number for all phones: Give out one phone number to your sources that rings your personal cell, work cell and desk phone at the same time.
• Privacy: Don’t feel comfortable handing out your cell phone number or printing it on business cards? Hand out your Google Voice number and be reached wherever you are — your contacts, sources and clients won’t ever need to know your actual phone numbers. Stick it on your business cards and your email signature without fear.
• Annoyance Control: Contact or client bugging you non-stop? Google Voice has options to send them straight to voicemail or block them outright. Don’t want to receive phone calls at home during certain hours? Google Voice will let you schedule certain numbers for certain times.
• Second area code: Let’s say you live in the 530, but work in the 916. Go local where you work or live by signing up for Google Voice.
• Changing physical phone numbers: What if you move from one job to another? Just change your desk number, house number or work cell phone number (or all three) in Google Voice and your contacts move right along with you.
• Respond to texts at your desk: The Google Voice website will let you send and receive free text messages from within the website itself.

I’ve been working at a certain television station in San Francisco for a few months now, and during those few months of work there have been a couple of times when I’ve met people and wished I had business cards to hand out.

Rather than ordering some business cards through the station, I decided to take matters into my own hands and design my own. After about an hour, the end result was this:

These are what I’m calling “Living business cards:” Simple cards that contain a quick reference or QR code in place of a logo or mugshot. When scanned, the QR code above links to http://qr.matthewkeys.net, which at the moment redirects to my main website but in the future could redirect anywhere I’d like. Eventually, I’d like to design a special landing page for mobile phones and tablets that, when scanned, contain my phone number, mailing address, email address and so on.

QR codes bring a whole new level of interactivity to business cards and other kinds of promotional material. One could place a QR code on their business card to link to their Facebook page or online resume. News organizations could start placing them on promotional index cards, where the code links to their mobile news site or links to the iTunes store for app downloads.

I built my QR code here and designed them through Zazzle.com. The total cost was around $20, which included shipping, for a box of 100 on plain white cards.