August-October 2009 has been one of the busiest periods in my entire career. I’m grateful to have such great clients when the world economy is not doing so well!

Here is what I’ve been up to…

For my major Japanese automaker client, I…

• Wrote and edited content for two major reports
• Edited the company’s internal newsletter (I do this every month)
• Wrote 89 individual articles for a new section of the company’s website

These projects involved translation to a degree. I also did several projects for this client that were pure Japanese-to-English translation.

For ghost blogging client No. 1, I…

• Updated the blog
• Edited a press release
• Named the company’s major new product
• Helped write a new brochure on the new product

For ghost blogging client No. 2, I…

• Updated the blog
• Provided a gratis consultation on the client’s current marketing mix (as a marketing MBA, this is something I do to help my clients out!)

For ghost blogging client No. 3 (new since August), I…

• Completely revised the client’s website both to create a better site and help the blog be maximally effective
• Updated the blog

I love this new client! They are the best at what they do in Indianapolis, and I’m proud to be their blogger. In line with my “Japanese training,” I have been visiting the client’s gemba: I’ve been going to every one of their stores, meeting their associates, and deepening my understanding of their business.

Sports fiction

I wrote seven new short stories for a major publisher, and I’ll be writing two other stories by the end of the year. Five of the stories dealt with football, and two dealt with basketball (the remaining two will also deal with basketball).

Another new client

Through a referral I developed another new client that is like a YouTube for positive, family-friendly infomercials.  I wrote two short video scripts about an agricultural product for their client. These scripts received very good reviews, so I hope to do more work for this company in the near future.

Yet another new client

This is a medical device company doing some very exciting things. I have helped them write two press releases, which seem to have gone over quite well.

Biz lit book

My coauthor and I have made major progress on the book, and we plan to have a pretty clean draft complete by Thanksgiving.

What I’d like to help you with

Since this is the first time I’ve had any breathing room since April or so, it’s a good time to talk about new projects! I am interested in taking on new ghost blogging and newsletter clients. Now would also be a good time to talk about revising your website copy–why not make your site new and fresh in the new year? I also tell people I am looking for “fun projects.” I have my regular work each month, and it’s nice to have variety.

Please feel free to call or email me about your projects–I can help!

Like June, July has been flat-out. Here is what’s new:

Website copywriting
I am rewriting and adding to the website copy of the best dry cleaning business in the city. The hope is also that they will become a ghost blogging client. Great people.

Ghost blogging
Right now, I have two happy clients, and the ghost blogging is producing results for both.

Major Japanese automaker newsletter
July has been the best month yet. I look forward to getting my new story assignments every month.

Biz-lit book
My writing partner and I are getting significant interest on the book. Editing proceeds apace.

I will be in Japan for a month and New York for two weeks starting July 29. I will not be able to take on new jobs (except for two new ghost blogging clients if they come on board) until mid to late September. I’d like to express my thanks to my local clients who have made summer 2009 very busy and enjoyable thus far!

June has been a massively busy month thus far. I have three main projects to talk about:

New ghost blogging client
Great new client! Truly fun to write for. Taking on only a few more clients will put me in the state known as “maxed out.”

Major Japanese automaker newsletter
This gig is going very well. Also quite fun.

Biz lit book enters editing stage
I am done taking dictation from my coauthor, and now it’s up to me to put it together.

I am more or less booked for the summer, but I am interesting in taking on steady work such as regular script writing, newsletter writing, and ghost blogging.

The past month has been busy, and more and more work keeps coming in!

I received some good news this past week: Hits are up for my ghost blogging client’s blog and ecommerce site. We are having a meeting this Friday to refine strategy further. It also seems I soon may have another ghost blogging client. On ghost blogging, I am working with Rhoda Israelov of Say It For You, a truly wonderful writer and blogger. You can catch her blog here. Ghost blogging is very enjoyable work and helps me achieve balance in my workload, as I am able to work ahead on posts when other work is light.

Other work, however, has not been light. I am very happy to have been selected as the editor of the global newsletter of a major Japanese automaker. Although I do Japanese-to-English translation as well, this job involves very little translation. I receive stories from around the world and edit them to make them fit the newsletter format.

I also continue to make progress on the “mystery business lit book” with my coauthor. We’ve both been so busy, though, that it’s increasingly hard to find time. I suppose that’s a good problem to have.

Many thanks to my clients who have been entrusting me with numerous jobs this year!

In this post:

1. I started using Twitter more.
2. I came to understand the Ugly Truths of Twitter.
3. I now quote from, analyze, and mock the Twitter Support follow limits page.
4. I sum up the problem and suggest how to fix it.

I started using Twitter more.

I had been using Twitter mildly for a month or two, and last week I decided to make better use of the site. I used the tried-and-true method of following a bunch of people and reciprocating all follows. Joyously, I saw my following grow, but I soon butted my head against Twitter’s 2,000 follow limit. Perturbed, I researched the situation and…

I came to understand the Ugly Truths of Twitter:

1. Most people who build big followings do so by reciprocating all follows.
2. Most people who reciprocate all follows do so automatically by means of software. They also use bots to automatically follow people based on a variety of criteria; these bots later unfollow those who do not in turn reciprocate (”deadwood”). The result is that the bots are able to get around Twitter’s follow limits by ensuring that the number of followers is roughly equal to the number of followed.
3. Most people who build big followings via such automated tools are, according to their bios, social media experts, MLM marketing gurus, Twitter fanatics, wealth coaches, life coaches, law of attraction preachers, etc. I even saw a Beanie Baby broker. I didn’t think such a thing existed anymore.
4. Many, but not by any means all or perhaps even most, of people with such big, fake, automated followings automatically send out junk content to their followers: repeating sales messages, an automated stream of links, etc.

Bots following bots. What a mess. What a joke. All of which makes Twitter’s follow limits an apt object of ridicule.

I now quote from, analyze, and mock the Twitter Support follow limits page.

One would think that no one knows Twitter better than the 30-human-strong organization known as Twitter, yet the follow limits page comes across as crushingly naive:

We do not limit the number of people who can follow you, but we have put limits in place to stop people from aggressively following others. Everyone is allowed to follow 2000 people. After that, follow limits are based on the number of people who are following you. Follow limits cannot be lifted by Twitter, and everyone is subject to follow limits, even high profile and API accounts.

Yes, we would hate for you manually to follow thousands of people–that would be unnatural. But if you use a bot to up your total (tick.tick.tick), we’ll reward you by raising that 2,000 limit–in fact, the sky’s the limit! Because that’s not aggressive (Guy Kawasaki *cough*).

Though follow limits do help with spam control, the limit itself improves site performance by ensuring that when we send a person’s message to all of their followers, the sending of that message is meaningful.

Perversely, the limit formula punishes manual users and rewards automated users–who, one would suppose, are much more likely to spam.

We believe that following 2000 people is a reasonable limit for the number of people an average person can follow. [Later on page] If you follow too many people, there is no way you can keep up with everyone’s updates in your home page. If you’re following more than 2000 people, you’re missing quite a few updates from many people you follow. You can view a profile page to catch up with someone’s latest updates.

Don’t they sound like a preachy parent here? “There are starving children who would beg for the updates you’re wasting.”

They are right, however: I think it would be difficult to monitor with any kind of care more than a few hundred people’s tweets. On the other hand, it is by no means too high a number if one were to filter a large number of tweets based on keywords. For example, one could monitor a very large number of users in one’s city with the keyword “real estate” and extract a good, digestible amount of information from that, since the number of tweets with that keyword in it would not be very high.

In any case, if that’s the belief, then why not impose an absolute limit on follows? Am I to understand that because Guy Kawasaki has more than 100,000 followers he is thereby made able to follow 100,000 himself? Whereas the “average person” can only manage 2,000?

Avoid hitting Twitter limits by not following aggressively– if others see that you’ve tried to follow 500 people but only 12 are following you, they may not follow you back, and worse, they might block you.

Twitter is an opt-in community– that is, you can follow who ever you want, but no one has to follow you back. If you use aggressive following tactics, no one will want to.

In fairness to Twitter, this page went up November 24, 2008, which, in Twitter time, was a century ago. Also in fairness to Twitter, however, this ridiculous policy explained thus ridiculously is still the law of the land on the site. Clearly the company’s notions about the sociology of their own site are hopelessly obsolete.

If you have a public account, I can follow you but you don’t have to follow me. Unlike most social networks, you follow me on Twitter NOT for the sake of a mutual connection, but because you want to get my updates, regardless of whether or not I get yours. If I want to read your updates too, I can– and unlike social networks, if you change your mind and un-follow me, it doesn’t stop me from continuing to follow you.

Again we have mommy wagging her finger and telling us how to use the site.

Verily, this quote represents severe ignorance of human nature, sociology, and game theory. People reciprocate not just for the aforementioned scammy reasons; they do so also to please and placate friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances. If we are in the same circle, and you follow me but I don’t follow you back, that’s a dis.

More importantly, however, Twitter users soon understand, game-theory-wise, that the “payment” for a follow by a stranger (automated or not) is reciprocation. They want followers and don’t have the time or inclination to vet all their follows, so they follow back. Or their bots follow back.

I sum up the problem and suggest how to fix it.

First, I don’t know what the actual cost to Twitter is in server space, etc., but the inescapable conclusion is that a high percentage, perhaps even a majority, of tweets are junk: spam, or at least slick, insincere content. Savvy users can choose to cordon off the crap, but it will affect inexperienced users and turn a percentage of them off the site.

Second, the astronomical following/followers numbers are meaningless once one understands whence they come, but they are still likely to influence some inexperienced users. For example, Cheesy McWealthcoach follows 34,282 with 33,540 followers thanks to effective automation, but a new user quite possibly could think “Wow!” and be influenced. If the technique didn’t give these jackanapeses some benefit, one may assume they wouldn’t use it.

In contrast, I have come across vanishingly few users with a real following a la Oprah, Ashton, Stephen, et al. I have seen a very small number of users with a few thousand differential in the favorable direction–but I have yet to see anyone with, say, 500 following and 5,000 followers. I think this fact tells us something: it is very hard to become ultrapopular on Twitter without preexisting fame and prestige.

My suggested solution is simple: impose an across-the-board “social follow” limit of 140 x 14 =1,960 (or 2,000, whatever): that is, this would be the number of people listed in one’s profile under “following.” If Twitter believes this to be the right number, then Twitter should stick to it. This would make moot the bots, as their follow announcements and thus reciprocations would end once they hit the limit.

As I suggested earlier, there could be very legitimate reasons why someone would want to follow a much larger number of users and mine the tweetstream. I thus think it would be appropriate to have an unlimited “non-social follow,” but Twitter would also need to ban off-the-grid follow announcements and reciprocations.

I hope that everyone has had a pleasant Passover or Easter….

As you can see, I have been adding a lot of new content to the site (the pages about the type of writing I do; the links are to the left of the screen), and I am adding more at a rapid pace.

For the past week, I have also been gearing up for my new ghost blogging client, working to understand his business and writing new posts. This is quite a new and exciting job!

In any event, I didn’t have a lot to report on, but please stay tuned for new pages and posts.

I hope you enjoyed the recent post explaining new goings-on at Marrubium. I have remained in a flat-out state for all of March with various writing projects. I am thankful to be doing well in this economic climate and give heartfelt thanks to my clients.

My writing partner (who has also become one of my best friends over the nearly three years we have known each other) and I are making significant progress on our book. In fact, we have gotten most of it written at this point and have sent the table of contents and three sample chapters to some influential people (my coauthor is a very experienced HR and general business guru who has built a wealth of connections over the years). Thus far, the reaction has been highly positive, and we are both quite hopeful. Full steam ahead on this project! (By the way, once we get a book deal, I will lift the veil of secrecy about this project and reveal all!)

It’s about time that I honor another very good friend, mentor, and writing partner: Rhoda Israelov, of Say It For You. Rhoda has been writing for 30 years and has been featured extensively in the Indianapolis Business Journal and other prestigious local and regional publications. She is a certified financial planner (CFP) and thus also has extensive experience in writing about financial matters. Say It For You offers ghost blogging: that is, she will write your blog for you, and you can say it is by you, “From the Team of,” by Rhoda herself, or whatever works for your particular situation. Her blogging style is simply amazing! Check out her blog to see why I think so.

I am honored to report that Rhoda has seen fit to reward my meager talents by taking me under her wing and providing me with clients.

Recently, Rhoda and I created original website content for a local Indianapolis pharmaceutical firm (no, not Eli Lilly, but a pretty exciting company nonetheless). The content consisted of new landing pages describing how the product can help alleviate the symptoms of a variety of conditions that the company had not previously promoted. The president of the company is quite pleased with our work.

Rhoda has also obtained for me my first ghost blogging client, about which I am really excited: this too is a local Indianapolis company, a manufacturer of products for the home. About this client I must say no more, as I will be ghost blogging for them, after all.

In addition to my writing work, in March I did quite a bit of Japanese to English translation, which you can read about in my latest post on Marrubium Translation.

Spring is around the corner, and soon the horehound will be in bloom! In this post I’d like to update you on everything that’s been going on at Marrubium and with the Web presences I’ve been creating for it. I now have four blogs:

www.mattrouge.com
My personal blog. Full of wit and wisdom. Enjoy at your leisure.

www.marrubiumwriting.com
This site. The one you know and love. I apologize to those to whom I’ve given my card, which says this site has an explanation of the panels you see in the header. It will soon! I will be adding new pages about my philosophy of writing and good things like that.

www.marrubiumtranslation.com
My new site, herewith explained:

I am fluent in Japanese and can and do claim, credibly, to be one of the top Japanese-to-English advertising and PR translators in the world. But. When I go out and network, my goal is not to be tagged as “that guy who knows Japanese.” Owing to human psychology, this is a difficult endeavor, since people naturally remember the most unusual or interesting thing about a person. Since I am dull in most other ways, people recall my Japanese ability.

Back in 2000, when I had completed my Purdue MBA, I faced the same dilemma: promote my Japanese ability, which made me stand out from the crowd yet got me pigeonholed me as “that guy who knows Japanese whom perhaps we can use in Japan.” Or not. I wanted to be known as “the marketing expert” and find a job in Indianapolis, my hometown, but, again inevitably, I found myself returning to Japan.

Fate has worked in my favor, however. Back in Yamato, I worked in the drug industry and the semiconductor industry, further augmented my Japanese technical vocabulary, and, most importantly, translated/wrote advertising and PR materials for my final employer. I was then “discovered” by an ad agency that does a lot of work for several Japanese automakers and other major companies, and I have now been working with them for five years. Being a translator for multibillion dollar (or, rather, several hundred billion yen) companies has allowed me to prove myself as a writer for such companies, and now I am truly living my dream.

Contrary to what I have found to be a typical presupposition, about 75% of the work I do for Japanese companies is translation-based, and 25% is direct-to-English. I have also encountered a tendency for people to think that translation-based writing is “just translation.” It’s an understandable thought: people think of dry technical manuals or instruction sheets in which the style of the prose is unimportant. Or treated as unimportant. When I translate advertising and PR materials, however, I must create a translation that satisfies the client as to literalness or accuracy while at the same time creating copy that sounds natural and appealing to a worldwide audience. This task, to say the least, is difficult.

In response, therefore, to the responses my marketing messages have thus far received, I have divided said message in twain: Marrubium Writing will deal with writing, whereas Marrubium Translation will deal with translation. I have created new business cards that list my title as “Writer,” which I am using at my networking events. So far, so good. I am also expecting some SEO benefits from this change.

www.marrubium.com
Previously, I had this site on redirect to Marrubium Writing. Henceforth, I will be using it as a metablog for all of my endeavors. It will contain both my writing and translating marketing messages, and I hope that it will provide an SEO boost as well.

Current situation and goals for 2009
I have been fortunate. Although the auto industry is doing poorly around the world, the companies for which I work still need writing and translation. Lots of it, apparently, so I have been busy.

I welcome advertising and PR translation work, but, in reality I get so much of that right now that I am not actively seeking it. Instead, I am seeking the following:

1. One-off advertising and PR projects: print ads, website content, press releases, video scripts. I am up for anything and everything for which I feel a resonance.
2. Ghost blogging.
3. Newsletters and other periodic pieces.

If you are an ad agency or Web developer, I will be your staunch ally. I am creative, careful, and timely. If you are a company looking for a one-time marketing boost, I am an MBA who will visit you, listen to understand your situation, and create some stellar materials for you. All at a price that you can afford.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you!

In Medical interpretation has slowed down a bit recently, but writing work has been plentiful. For a major Japanese automaker, I have done the following:

• Translated from Japanese to English a script for a short video about a major new safety technology. I had earlier translated the press release, in effect branding the technology in the English language. This technology, and hence my particular wording, has received a great deal of attention in the press.
• Translated from Japanese to English a press release for a major new automobile model. I had earlier served as a lead writer (writing straight to English) on the US press kit for the model.
• Begun translating from Japanese to English a 13-page article on this model for internal use in the company.
• Edited a 20-page internal newspaper for the company. I translated several articles from Japanese to English, wrote others in English based on materials provided by the company, and edited articles by other writers.

In local news, I helped a Japanese family secure a mortgage the other day. I translated (or, in this case, provided an overview of) some Japanese banking documents for a local mortgage company and talked with one of the borrowers on the phone to help her understand what additional documentation was required.

My coauthor and I have reached a new milestone in the business literature book we’re working on: we’ve now got a mockup of the full book together in Word and are working on filling in the blanks and polishing the content.

That’s what’s going on in Horehound Central. I have a good plate full o’ work right now but would very much like to discuss your writing projects and needs, so please drop me a line.

This week, for a major Japanese automaker I translated some goodbye speeches to a manager who is leaving India to return to Japan. A somewhat unusual job, but quite interesting.

I have had a tremendous amount of medical interpretation work the past month.

My coauthor and I are picking up the pace on the book we’re writing. Actually, he is the star of the show; I am just helping him edit a bit.

Things are not too complex or harried right now, but suitably busy.