packaging
This is a sequel to my previous post about the challenges of getting together a spec portfolio. I'd like to broaden the point. Packaging is a big part of what we do when we communicate. Although I'm naturally organized, I'm not a natural packager or finesse person. That means I do stuff, if it serves its purpose, I don't make a scrapbook out of it. Often I delete the file. I'm happy to have the purpose served. There's also a little post-feminist (and post-high school, frankly) impulse to say packaging is unimportant, it has no effect, it can lie and hide things and our time is better spent on substance.
This attitude of mine trips me up, and has done recently to such an extent that I'm compelled to do a packaging retreat. This is akin to the point in the product development cycle where you scream "no new features" but plow in and reposition everything. A packaging retreat would be "no new projects." That's right, no programming, no starting new books, just a realignment and repositioning of what I already have, for public consumption.
Funny the things we dismiss because we think we're "growing up" and instead we loop right back to those things once we have really done so.