Language and the Family Historian

How a person uses words tells others a lot about them. The first thing that probably comes to mind is how we can get a good idea of what country a person is by their accent, for example if a person speaks with a strong British accent it is pretty safe to assume they were born and raised in the United Kingdom.

Along with an individuals accent there are other aspects of language that reveal clues about the speaker, such as; variations in pronunciation, how certain words are put together in a phrase, as well as variations in meanings to a single word or phrase. For example "Knock me up" in England means "wake me up" while in the United States it has a completely different meaning. Language can also give us an idea of the individuals level of education, and to some point their social economical status.

Although I have long known how language is a key clue to an individuals level of eduction and geographical location, I never gave it much thought beyond that. Especially considering my oldest daughter who had never been to New York, for some unknown reason spoke with a strong New Yorker accent until she was in second or third grade. (Believe me I have no clue how that happened)

However, after taking this QUIZ and seeing how close it was to pinpointing not just the State in which I was born and raised but also the general location with in that state, it got my gears spinning. 

I was born and raised within a 60 mile radius of Riverside, CA.

So I took the quiz again this time using my second choices on questions that I use more than one word to express the same thing. Low and behold the second test results although less accurate put me in the Midwest where I have spent nearly 20 years of my life.

Talk about a pretty accurate quiz. 

Taking this quiz reminded me of some of the various odd terms and phrases my Grandmother use to use when I was a little girl. Then I got to wondering with all my enthusiasm of maintaining a detailed family history for future generations why have I not considered making a written or audio record of some of our speech patterns. Most likely it is because to us they are just how we talk.

Do you make a written or recorded reference of your family's colloquial diction?

If you are a vocabulary nut like I am you may also find the quiz's HERE a lot of fun.

Family History Month

I knew that October was Hispanic Heritage month but what I didn't know was that in 2001 Congress passed a resolution making October 'Family History Month'. Going into the month I kept thinking it was a great month to get myself back on track. I love my Hispanic heritage and family history in general so what better time than October to pull myself together. Well the month is almost over and as you can tell I am still not really 'With It'.

I did do a bit of looking around for ideas of fun ways to celebrate both Hispanic Heritage and Family History. I found some good links at Family Tree Magazine. I also found some fun activities being held at public libraries and genealogy societies. Yet each time I sat down to write a post sharing these finds and remind everyone of the fun way to collect family history which I wrote last year, my mind went blank. So not only did the post never get written but my motivation to get out and take part in the many activities never appeared. 

So when My Mother-in-Law called and asked if I would fly out and spend a week with her and my Father-in-Law this month I was overjoyed. I will be leaving VA this afternoon on a plane headed for Arizona. I am looking forward to visiting with my late husbands' parents and hopefully they will share some of their families early history with me so I can record it to pass on to my children and grandchildren. 

What heritage based activities have you participated in this month if any?

From Hobbyist to Professional

Taking my art from hobby to professional is probably one of the biggest challenges I have faced. After years of creating composite artwork for others at little or no charge one might think the transition would be easy. Let me tell you it is anything but easy. However I still believe it is well worth the challenge.

When developing Artistix Network LLC, there were a lot of decisions to make including the following very important decisions.

1. Our Mission statement: Our mission is to enable clients to preserve their cherished memories for future generations with high quality professional artwork that captures their style and emotions.
Which means:
A) We will not limit the photo's used to create a memory composite to photo's we take for the client or limit the number of photos that can be included in the artwork.
B) We will not use quick labs or only offer digital files and recommend the client print them at a quick lab.
C) We always consult with the client and allow them a wide range of design options.
D) We will make every effort to keep the cost of our services affordable to the general public.

2. The company will not incur any outside debt and will operate entirely on funds generated by sales or contributed by the founders.
    (This may not have been the wisest decision toward the success of the company as it has limited the company to a shoe string marketing budget primarily made up of word of mouth marketing.)

Deciding what services we wanted to provide and how we wanted to provide those services was probably the easiest part. Although, even that took may hours of planing. Add to that months of research on marketing, organizational, product and web development. Followed by months of putting everything into action and the whole process took almost two years before we even opened for business. Needless to say it is easy to get bogged down with all the 'business' aspects and loose sight of 'The Mission', you know that little reason why you ever decided to go professional in the first place.

Throughout the process there have been many times while working with marketing and business development professionals we were advised to do the following:
    1. Double our charges so that we were more in line with other photographic design agencies.
        Benefit: Increasing profit margin and potential of corporate clients with deep pockets.
        Disadvantage: Complete deviation from our mission.
    2. Limit the number of options available to clients.
        Benefit: Increasing profits by decreasing design time.
        Disadvantage: Hindering the clients ability to have created a piece that expresses their style and emotions.
    3. Limit the clients to using only photos we took.
        Benefit: Increasing profit by charging both for photography and design.
        Disadvantage: Hindering the client from having created a memory art piece that captures the moments they personally photograph.
    4. Limiting the number of photos included in each art piece.
        Benefit: Reducing production time thereby increasing profit margin.
        Disadvantage: Hindering the clients ability to have created a piece that expresses their style and emotions.
    5. Market to businesses and those within upper income brackets.
        Benefit: Increased profits
        Disadvantage: In direct opposition to our mission to provide professional corporate style design services to the average person.
    6. Market the digital design file as an affordable substitute to printed format, taking advantage of the clients desire for both connivence and savings.               
        Benefit: Increase sales
        Disadvantage: Potential to be in opposition to our mission to provide high quality artwork that will last for generations.

 We did decide to offer the option to purchase the digital file with full print release. But decided that when doing so we make sure our clients understand that quick lab prints deteriorate in as little as 15 years as compared to a life span of 75 to 100 years for a chemically processed photograph. We also let them know that they can contact us in the future to have their design sent to print at the professional lab we use for only slightly more than a quick lab will charge for the same size prints. In this way we are able to offer the savings and convenience while still remaining true to our mission.

As you can see by the above list, being committed to ones mission is not always the easiest or the most profitable. Which can result in the temptation to take the easy way and change your mission.

Of course that means that growing the business has been a very slow process. Taking almost two years before we actually started to break even.  Now in our third year although we are starting to make a profit it is still not what one would call profitable. Some might say we should give in to the all mighty dollar and make the changes to our mission statement and business strategy.

To me family memories are just too important, even if they aren't my families memories. So for me there is no option but to remain committed to our mission. Even if it means taking a second job while the business grows slowly. So far my partners agree with me, so instead of changing our mission we chose to keep our mission and add a gift division of the company that offers fun non-memory art gifts through a convenient online quick lab. In addition we continue to look for creative ways to market the business and other services that might fit in with our mission.

So what do you think, should a company change its' mission to compete with other companies that provide the same service but don't share the same mission? Have you gone from hobbyist to professional? If so what was your biggest challenge?