I'm Unique! Guerrilla Angle!

Yep, that's right! I've cornered the marketing angle for me - I'm unique! According to this survey, How Many People in the US Have Your Name? There is no other Cindy Gimbrone in the US....does this mean I may run into another Cindy Gimbrone if I go global?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Now that I've decided to become "guerrilla" - I've got to think of all the angles, right? Well, here is where I tell you all that I'm being sarcastic since reading a blog doesn't carry tone of voice. My sarcasm comes from the marketing research I was conducting this morning - the proverbial "vote for me" buttons on everyone's webpage.

Has anyone actually looked at the statistics, i.e., how many "hits" you get from that "Vote for Me" button? I did. The most popular sites get 60. Some of the best artists have only 30 or less hits. If you get the right 30 to 60 hits then 60 is enough, but if they aren't the right hits, then you're spitting into the wind.

Listing your site and posting the "Vote for Me" button is a painless marketing strategy but how effective is it? The site doesn't give any information on how many of the 30 to 60 hits turn into sales for the listers.

Hey, I'm not picking on anyone here - I've taken the painless marketing route too. I've been spitting into the wind for about 2 years now by listing my site on an artist ring. Generated lots of hits and two sales.

Wow - that stinks.

So that's why I'm rolling up my sleeves and "getting guerrilla." I've got to put better effort into this. I've got to look for the right niche and find what's unique about me.

The first thing I've found is my name. I thought for sure I'd find someone else with my name but nope, nada, none!

Kewl!

Merry Christmas, y'All!

The Next Big Thing!

So, I'm looking at some vlogs 'cuz I'm sick and tired of reading about marketing when I come across this - The Next Big Thing! Ok, so I gotta admire the guy for taking on the concept of marketing and making it BIG! Makes me think that marketing can be done in a cynical, outlandish way that might be pretty funny. He's taken the idea of fame and turned it on its head - this guy's a marketing genius and very insightful at the same time! Bravo!

Ok, I gotta go and make some stuff today! Think marketing, Y'All!

What the heck? Guerrilla marketing

So I have to kick myself in the a#$@ for the coming year. I've taken things in hand by buying a book called "Guerrilla marketing in 30 days" - if a guerrilla can't kick me in the you know what who can? The book sounds like a fitness plan - get fit in 30 days! See results fast!

Sell more beads in 30 days!

Earn more cash than you ever thought possible!

Ok, so now I'm getting cynical.

I do need to think about the business end differently. I miss opportunities for people to see my work. Gotta do something about that. So, I've got some pictures up for you to see some of that work!

These are flat spirals - they're made along with the long spirals and are made to compliment them. I love the reactive glass - this is from Doublehelix and is called Gaia - it's their best recipe yet! They're cooking with glass!

Another opportunity to see my handiwork is in the Annealer magazine that will be coming out this month. I wrote a tutorial on Lucky Knots and Lampwork. Can't wait to see it!

Women Flameworkers in the 1940's....

While I'm on the subject of being a "baby boomer" or as I'd rather call myself, a "tail ender" - I've put up a publicity shots of my mother that appeared in brochures for a company called Fachney's. My mother was a flameworker during World War II. making glass thermometers at Fachney's. She set up a bench at home to do "piece work" - thermometers she'd blow at home and then take into work - she was paid by the thermometer or "piece."

Yep, that's my mom in the picture at the bench with her torch with the 1940's ribbon tied in her hair. She's doing the "Rosie the Riveter thing." Look at the glass! Where's the ventilation?? (Mom's 87 now and her lungs are fine!)

I wasn't born yet - so I don't remember her bench at home. I don't remember her working with glass. I don't remember her being a flameworker. Yet she was.

Tail Ender - or did I want to call the end of the boomers BOO-menders? Well whichever I decide in my own personal revolution, the reason is the same - wasn't there, don't remember - so how can you call me a baby boomer?!!?

Duh! Baby boomer vs Tail Ender

The cable internet connection hasn't been working for the past two days. We were cursing the switchover of companies when my husband realized he'd disconnected the cable - DUH! Sometimes, we're just not very bright in this household!

I've been re-evaluating my business goals seeing how it's the end of the year and all. I'm re-vamping everything including how I present myself in writing and so it's time to take a look at my nice safe bio. It's time to mess with it a little and put a little bit more of myself out there - say a few things in writing that I'd say if you were having coffee with me. Be all I can be! Deep breath, here it goes....

I'm a baby boomer but never liked it much - I just don't identify with the boomer generation - never have, never will - probably because I'm a "tail ender" - born near the end of the baby boom (an "oops" baby as my mother describes it - as in "oops" I didn't mean to get pregnant at 40). I missed most of the things that "define the generation."

I think I should start a revolution - Tail Enders unite! Ok, so maybe I do have some of the generation's 60's rebel in me but seriously, how can those born in 1947 have anything in common with someone born in 1960? So, call them the boomers, I need a new name! Tail enders - boom enders....hmmm let's merge that into one word....boomenders - say it like BOO menders. What do you think?

So, keeping that in mind, I've re-written a more irreverent bio:

Being born at the tail end of the baby boom, Cindy has never felt a part of the baby boomer generation – she doesn’t remember when Kennedy was shot, she didn’t go to Woodstock and she didn’t iron her hair. Having a parent from “the Greatest Generation” has made her a packrat - saving and recycling everything because you never know when the stock market will crash again!

Quick! Go stuff your mattress with money!

More Spirals.....

More spirals today - I've been trying them in every transparent color I have! I particularly like the "reactive glass" - Doublehelix being the best of the bunch I think. The green/blue spiral is Doublehelix's Gaia - awesome!

That time of year! Spiral Remembrance Ornament

It's the holiday season and every glass artist worth her weight in glass makes ornaments of some kind. This is the the first year I've come up with an ornament. I haven't really gone to production level on the ornaments but am testing them out for the 2007 Holiday season. Right now, I call them Remembrance Ornaments. They incorporate the spirals and I may end up changing the name later on because of that.

The Remembrance ornament combines the meaning of the spiral with the significance of a milagros. Living in the Arizona, you would see these little metal charms left at the foot of a St. Francis statue. Wondering what they were, I researched them and found out that one says a prayer for the health of a loved one or any other significant person or event in their lives and leaves an offering to the saint. Living in a city where 85% of the population is Catholic, I was familiar with the idea of praying to the saints to ask for assistance.

A few years ago, I purchased a stock of white metal milagros that were handmade in the countryside of Mexico. They are raw and aren't meant to be jewelry quality as they are left with the statue.

The milagros paired with the handmade glass spirals makes a special ornament. I've made up several and am selling them through Chochkey's on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, NY. I have this one up on my website. I have only one to sell this season. I have one other left, that one is hanging on my Christmas tree!

New work...Spirals

In the drive to express ideas through my glass, I wanted to express the never-ending cycle of life. How events will happen at one time in your life and then circle back to them again - or how we repeat patterns in our life - you know when you think, "why does this always happen to me?" We have our own life-spirals and we travel around on them and come back to events although maybe not in exactly the same way. But a spiral can bring you peace too, the assurance that everything WILL circle back around. In that sense, it serves as a rudimentary mandala for us to meditate upon.

So, I chose to make spirals in glass to express that idea - glass is a perfect medium because of it's potentially fragile quality. A glass spiral can be beautiful, colorful, reflective yet if you don't treat it with some care, it could shatter.

I make these spirals out of soft glass and the "silver" glass. The silver glass reacts in an unpredictable manner, changing colors as I create the spiral. You can see this in the spiral entitled Spiral of Kronos II. I use two different transparent colors for the Water Spiral.

The Kronos style spirals were sent to Beadwork for the April 2007 Challenge. I'll be excited to see what they do with them! I've made a few into Christmas Remembrance Ornaments and placed them on my website along. If you like them, you can see more at my website