by Ruth Lanham

(Blipfish note: A well-written primer to the history of the tshirt – republished with permission)

T-shirts have come to signify relaxation, comfort, and a devil-may-care attitude. They are incredibly versatile and are a wardrobe essential for all busy people.

In the 1950s Brando, wore a plain white t-shirt with a black leather jacket. The chain-smoking, t-shirt wearing James Dean also played a part in making the t-shirt essential wear for a cool, rebellious youth. Punk sealed the t-shirts status as acceptable clothing for the new generation of rebels. Then, starting in the mid-1960s, people began using custom tees as placards to express political ideas and humor.

While t-shirts became acceptable as everyday clothing in the 1970′s it was punk rock that really sealed their position as the standard clothing of a disenfranchised youth. Ultimately, rock t-shirts worn with jeans and sneakers became a uniform of conformist non-conformism. Now the t-shirts from these early days have become one of today’s hottest-and most costly-fashion trends. Vintage t-shirts and other collectible tees can sell for as much as $500.

Even as late as the 1980s, custom t-shirts were controversial. Their popularity as a garment of defiance came about in the mid 80s. Political custom t-shirts in South Africa were banned as the struggle against apartheid increased.

Today’s custom t-shirts continue to evolve with new styles, colors, piques, knits and new synthetic fabrics. They are showing up everywhere from corporate boardrooms to the golf course.Recent research suggests that sports teams which adorn their players with red t-shirts play better and win more games. While red tees may be associated with competition and winning, earth tone and white remain the most classic and popular choices.

It’s clear that Americans love their t-shirts. And since anything can be printed on them, custom tees will surely continue to be a means of personal expression. T-shirts signify patriotism, display one’s attitudes, feelings, product loyalty and political beliefs. T-shirts can be worn as underwear, pajamas and workout clothing. Many women have replaced the traditional blouse under a suit jacket with a nice custom t-shirt, indicating that the t-shirt is becoming more acceptable in the workplace.

There is no doubt that t-shirts are here to stay. No matter your age, size or sensibilities, if you feel the urge to express your view, to tell complete strangers how it is, to point out why you are right and everyone else is wrong, then get a t-shirt.

Ruth Lanham
Entrepreneur, Author, T-Shirt Designer

Ruth Lanham is a T-shirt designer who authors three websites and writes on various topics relating to t-shirt design and Christianity.

For more information or to contact Ruth please visit her website.

http://www.topteedesigns.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ruth_Lanham

I’ll try to give an explanation to a question I received regarding “What is a conversion?” in terms of online retail selling.

Okay, the quick run-up: A prospect/suspect is someone (or likely a “demographic” of someones) you believe would likely purchase from you… and they are the people you try to reach via marketing. Think of this as what some might call “potential customer.” In some circles just requesting more information can be considered a “conversion” into a customer and in direct response marketing (“Call now – operators are standing by!”) it’s common to define conversion this way. However, I have a tighter definition for online, retail sales:

A customer is someone who has bought from you.

I think it’s important to make a technical distinction that until they hand you money and take your product they are still a suspect/prospect… not actually a customer. I reserve the term “customer” for people who have purchased already.

Conversion is basically a term to describe the process or series of steps that lead to the moment a suspect/prospect hands you money and becomes a customer. It’s important to keep track of the numbers so you can define your “conversion rate” – the percentage of people who were turned into customers.

Conversion, ideally, is done in as few steps as possible, quickly, and cheaply. For example one might describe your advertising to be, preferably, cost effective in reaching prospects and you have a two-step offer that gets them to buy something from you that, in the end, made the cost of advertising worth the money to reach them. Coincidentally this moves into what’s called “CPM” or, Cost Per Thousand (“M” being the Roman numeral for “Thousand” – hence CPM). The generally accepted standard for breaking down how much money it costs to reach and convert a customer at an expected value of that customer.

This is also where you might have heard about a customers’ “lifetime value” – the amount of money you make from that customer (and repeat business) that can often mean more profit, over time, than the loss you may have suffered in reach them in the first place. An example of this would be in those music CD clubs where you choose 12 albums for a penny with only 3 to buy over the next year. The company knows exactly how many customers bail (creating a loss) every year and how many customers they lose after 3 albums and then how many customers remain for years to come – purchasing “x” amount of additional albums on average. All this is factored into it still being profitable to offer 12 albums for a penny in the first place.

So, that all-important “conversion” is the critical moment you turn someone who might buy from you and you spend money on to get the attention of… and someone who pays you for your product – a customer.

Oh, and I’m out of coffee. Damn.

Seems I’ve been videoing storms a lot lately so this one is no different. We had a lot of lightning tonight – even knocked the power out and physically shook the house. A few strikes even hit nearby and one of the first ones was during this video.

I actually lost my vision temporarily and couldn’t really see the camera for the remainder of the shot – I was looking right in the direction of the bolt.

in the interest of getting this important message out:

From Steve Root of Cafepress (Official Announcement Here)

As you may know, the State of New York recently enacted new legislation that addresses tax registration, collection and remittance, which challenges the CafePress affiliate business model.

Due to mounting uncertainly over these new laws we will no longer be able to support affiliates residing in the State of New York, effective July 1, 2008.

While CafePress has no tax nexus in any states other than California, Nevada and Kentucky we feel it wise to discontinue our affiliate business in New York State at this time.

Regrettably, our hand was forced into making this difficult business decision, and we openly acknowledge the loss of income this means for our New York affiliate partners. Should circumstances around this law change we will eagerly reconsider this decision.

Effective July 1, 2008 CafePress affiliate agreements with all New York residents will be terminated.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Steve Root
Affiliate Manager
CafePress
sroot@cafepress.com
650-655-3055

If you’ve been following this issue, in general, you’ll undoubtedly know that it not only affects Cafepress but other, similar business models.

I don’t normally remind/update about maintenance schedules but this one could be a note-worthy one.

From Cafepress’ General Announcements:

Posted 17 June 2008 08:30 AM
Hi Everyone,

On June 20th, the CafePress Community Forums will be undergoing maintenance by our forum vendor. Maintenance will begin at 9pm PT, and last approximately 24 hours. During this time the Community Forums will be unavailable. This maintenance will not effect other areas of the CafePress website, or your shops.

We apologize for the in inconvenience.

DATE: June 20th, 2008 (Friday)
TIME: 9pm – 9pm (06.21.08) PT.

Now, just an inside note: It’s possible it may not require the entire 24 hour period. So, the announcement is telling you what to expect, as it should, but perhaps we’ll be lucky and it won’t have to take the whole time.

Boys have a peanut and girls have Chinas.
Yes. I’m brewing a second pot of coffee because of this revelation.

Now that I’ve indulged my 90/10 rule for another day I return you to your regularly scheduled Blipfish.

Actually, here’s the real reason I’ve been a little busy lately.

Video courtesy of FollowingChris.tv and Viddler.com

cant type properly to poossssssssst to blog

have goood xcuse

HEP ME!

This is a sentence I heard last night. Actually, it was an all too common plea for help, disguised as a sentence.

I was helping someone develop some of the finer points of her business plan’s marketing and competitor analysis. Her husband and her are taking their great children’s book art and illustrations and bringing them to market via merchandising online. Previous attempts at using a POD (print on demand) service were met with disappointment and frustration. Thankfully, they couple decided they needed to take a proactive approach, as opposed to throwing in the towel. This is a good sign when failure is met with determination to overcome, rather than quit.

It was noticed during a few conversations that, although the couple have a successful book and illustration business (good, old fashioned, brick and mortar business) they may have had unrealistic expectations of what happens when you go online with a business. The most common misconception was that simply being online gains attention when, in reality, I think it is a greater black hole than anything. I truly believe it’s possible to be invisible online for years – and that it’s the norm. A person must work at being noticed… and that’s a little different than simply opening doors in a building on Main Street, USA.

There came a point, to make a long story short, where we had to analyze expectations of what an online business is and what it isn’t. In some cases it’s an extension of an existing business. In other cases, for all intents and purposes, it’s an entirely new, separate, and aspiring business. One’s experiences with an offline store can certainly be used to good steed but it’s unheard of that a new, online business, no matter how much you feel is a logical extension or expansion of your existing business… is a new entity with all the related challenges.

We discussed soliciting and directing current customers and creating awareness of the online presence to people who are already predisposed to have a favorable opinion of the existing business. We discussed the usual ramping-up via search engines, inventory, press releases, events, etc.

However, there was a certain moment of Zen when my friends realized something from a comment I made to their frustration that the online business wasn’t living up to expectation:

“You don’t have a business yet. You have an online store.”

It’s one thing for a person to sign up with an online POD service, create art, upload and apply it to products and technically have a “store” of some kind online. It’s another thing to realize that it’s everything after this point that will be the business.

The business, in my mind, isn’t the www URL. The business will be the weeks or months of decisions, tracking, adjusting, marketing, promoting, and growth that make that online store anything more than a bunch of pixels in a browser window. The business isn’t the site – it’s the operations behind it and honestly… it might take time and effort.

There was brief sideways nod of her head, a pause, and then a thoughtful look replaced the frustrated expression. It was at this point we began having an exciting and dynamic conversation about “the business” and all the possibilities, potential, goals, and planning. It was at that moment the business plan was born.

[Cafepress time is currently 10:22pm Friday 6th, 2008]

As I sit here in my hotel room… fighting to keep the hotel wifi connection active, watching Bear Grylls eat something unnecessary on the Discovery Channel, I am trying to think of what might be interesting to recount?

For me, the highlights have been thus:

I barely slept last night. We had severe thunderstorm warnings as well as tornado watches well into the night in my neck of the woods and I was a bit too preoccupied with the sirens going off all across town to sleep. Besides, by the time the warnings were canceled there was little reason for me to go back to sleep as I had a plane to catch at an airport that was likely to see its main road flooded and closed-down (rivers overflowing, thank you very much).

I did manage to get on the plane out of Tornado Alley. My connecting flight in Denver was beginning to board while I was still in the air descending to 7,000 feet. I had four minutes to get from Gate 21 to Gate 50. Somehow I made it and arrived in San Francisco with high winds thumping our jet in all the way. It was great!

A quick visit with fellow mods and CPV’ers in the lobby and it was time to check in, call home, then grab a quick bite to eat at BJ’s. Their fish-n-chips are quite good, by the way.

It was then off to Cafepress’ new offices to do a little work and then happy hour!

Happy hour at El Toritos was great – the gang was all there and it was a real treat to see old friends again and make new frienships as well. I took pictures and as soon as I cease to be exhausted I’ll post them.

After a fantastic time at El Toritos most of us headed back to the hotel for dinner and drinks in the lobby – a wise move because this cowboy needed to ap out early – lack of sleep and change in time-zone means I need to catch some Z’s if I’m going to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for meetings all day tomorrow at CP.

I’m seriously looking forward to it – there’s a lot to discuss and being in the same room with my peers is always a dynamic and productive thing. I think tomorrow will be a proper, full day with a lot going on.

I see Bear is eating an alligator. Why can’t he just ask one of the cameramen to fork over a candy bar or something?

Anyway, it’s late even if it’s not late. I’m tired. Time to tap out now.

Here’s to a fruitful and productive day tomorrow!

…I hope Shannon doesn’t snore too loudly? She’s in the room next door and I really need my beauty sleep – more than usual.

…I also hope Adam turns in early. He’s like an unstoppable, late-night machine. We need him alert and awake tomorrow.

…2 days and counting.

With all its warts, I still use Twitter (see post below). However, some of those warts are pretty bad. Twitter’s scalability problems seem to at the heart of most of the blemishes.

At any rate, it was becoming problematic having my Tweets appear here, on the blog, because it was cutting in to my request-performance each hour (Twitter reduced requests from 70 per hour to 30). I was unable to even use Twitter, let alone feed this blog each entry.

The upshot is that Twitter is cutting down how often people can update their usage each hour. The less online locations (like a blog, Facebook, etc.) that bang against Twitter each hour… the better. It’s another sign of Twitter’s problems.

Anyway, just letting anyone interested know why I pulled Tweets off this blog. It’s no big deal – if you genuinely wish to follow me on Twitter just find me @blipfish.

Okay, it must be synchronicity that makes me blog this little topic but I had three people this week express similar reservations (or questions) to one another about what Twitter seemed appropriate, or inappropriate for. I guess that’s as good of a reason to bring it up here as any?

One person thought it odd to use Twitter at all, considering instant messaging was similar. Another comment suggested that the privacy of broadcasting to so many people was problematic. The most recent mention was about the understandably odd idea of using Twitter to organize groups of people (such as business travelers arriving for a conference) for things such as dinners, cab sharing, etc.

These are things I understand completely and can’t argue with because I had similar doubts or reservations before I began using Twitter.

Surprisingly, these are exactly the sort of things that catapulted Twitter to the level it’s currently at.

During the SxSW (South by Southwest) conferences Twitter users frequently (obsessively, actually) tweeted (publicly broadcasted) interesting or, in their opinion, uninteresting talks, seminars, and presentations and even the conference promoters cited huge, dynamic flows of attendees between events. I won’t go into the small but Tweetery group that caused a Twitter ruckus during one of the events.

Then, the craziness really began: the after-parties. It was awash with Tweets like “After party Bigelows @ 10th and Main with @soandso @soandso” – and people knew where to go and who was there all without a single phone call. Needless to say some of these things would require multiple phone calls (and perhaps long distance charges).

So, as bizarre as it might be, Twitter (especially in the SF Bay Area) has taken on a life of its own for these sorts of things.

I think some people also like to be a little geeky-voyeuristic and maybe participate vicariously through tweets.

It’s cool. Some people use Twitter as a mini-IM (not my favorite but I’m guilty of it too when my HD crashed and I lost my IM’s). Some use it as a random train-of-thought way of expressing short ideas. Others use it as a nonstop marketing machine (something I despise). However, I think that’s the first appeal of Twitter – the “use it as you like” element.

There’s also an element of instantaneous communication – but without the need to reply or have pre-existing relationships with the people involved. An instant messenger usually requires a person to send and have approved either an invite request or permission. This isn’t always reciprocated, either. Twitter allows anyone to follow the musings of another without permission – by default.

I follow people I have no prior relationship with and, realistically, probably never would have had it not been for Twitter. I could read their comments, respond back, and if they chose to ignore me… it was never a rejection. However, if they chose to respond… that opened a door in a controlled and measured way that private email or instant messaging makes difficult.

I wouldn’t ever broadcast something on Twitter I wouldn’t be willing to say in an office full of coworkers, of course. However, it’s not unusual to read things that are obviously intended for others (and therefor a little cryptic) but innocuous.

My general instinct is that Twitter will find its way but it works many ways for many people and it’s they who will determine its core usefulness – providing the company can either muster the tweeticles to deal with their internal issues (including scalability) or hire/sell off to a firm that can. This is a post for another day, though.

Thanks to Action Datsun for the wallpaper image.

…3 days and counting.

…4 days and counting.

Well, it’s no surprise I finally got asked “So, what the heck is this Kickoff you keep talking about?” After all, I’ve only posted a handful of short, buzzy, videos counting down to the event, Twittered a little about looking forward to it, etc.

It’s not a public event but it’s not really a deeply held secret. The Cafepress Kickoff 2008 weekend is an event (this is the second year) where members of Cafepress’ Community teams (Community Forum Moderators and the new Cafepress Voice teams and related Cafepress staff themselves) meet to discuss all things “Community.” It’s a chance for groups that either are community-driven or part of the overall development of Cafepress’ community development and interaction to get together in the same building (Cafepress HQ in Foster City, CA), the same room, and review a years-worth of subjects related to the Community as well as plan ahead the next year.

Yes, there’s an NDA, so no, I’m not being evasive. I’m just saying that you can imagine that having teams associated with the vibrant, active, and ever-growing Community of shopkeepers at Cafepress takes a little planning and benefits from having people on the same page.

The two separate groups – the Cafepress Voice and the Moderators – also have their own goals and objectives to go over with appropriate Cafepress staff. One doesn’t grow a social circle this large without planning and teamwork. I think it says a lot about the company that they work hard to have a yearly meeting to get many diverse people together (rather than suffer through emails or conference calls exclusively) to get honest feedback, opinions, and ideas about how their Community of shopkeepers and customers are doing and how it relates to Cafepress, the company, itself. It’s admirable they take such an interest and welcome face-to-face relationships-building.

For me, I look forward to hearing about plans for the Community forums themselves, getting to know the new CP staff I’ll inevitably be working with over the next year, and form new friendships and working relationships with the CPVoice crew. I’m also looking forward to the social time I’ll be able to spend with all of them. Between the mods, CPV, and CP staff… they are really fantastic people and worth the effort of getting to know in the short time we have. They all have a deep passion for making the most of their time and service to Cafepress and the Community they volunteer to serve. So, it’s with a lot of gratitude that I attend these events Cafepress so graciously provides.

I’m trying to figure out a way (or more particularly the opportunities) to do some kind of “live” reporting from my time there. It’s probably a fairly grandiose idea and likely to fall short of whatever goals I might have in my mind but I’d like to do a bit more than just share photos and a few snapshots upon my return. So, we’ll see if some sort of blogging, video, or live-stream has any acceptable (and practical) place while I’m there. If so, you can be sure it’ll be piped to this blipfish.com blog – just for you.

…5 days and counting.