If you’re under 25, you’re probably saying, “Paul Who?”, and if your over 30 you’re probably saying “Paul, Mr. IBM, Rand”. Truth is, Paul Rand had a very successful graphic design career before the time of internet and mobile phones (fax machines and copy cameras?).

Well it seems the Paul has resurfaced, and is now designing great 140 character messages for the graphic designers of the 21st century. Now, in comes “The Angry Paul Rand”, and the greatest bit of graphic designer sarcasm since AnyoneCanSwiss (a small plug).

Example genius: “In my day I had a name for stupid clients who would not listen to my brilliant design advice. I called them “David Carson’s clients.” – The Angry Paul Rand.

We are designers here too. We were even trained in print design (like, on paper). While we recognize the work that Paul Rand did was indeed influential in his day, we also try not to harp on the past, and romanticize about “how design used to be”. @SwissMiss tweeted about him, and we also suggest that you go check him out. I hear he’s really old now, and please, don’t forget to laugh. @AngryPaulRand

Watch and enjoy. Gary is a driving proponent of increasing the hustle,  doing what you love, and finding a way to monetize it. We agree with Gary. Let us help your business focus the passion, and spread the word.

We believe that social media can be used strategically to help promote your business for free. It it actually quite simple. Millions of people exist on Facebook and Twitter. With the right amount and quality of messaging, social media can work for you.

Our new fan page has been published and is the new home of Dirk+Weiss on Facebook. Follow the link below to become a fan now!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/DirkWeiss/127687197924

Above: 31 results since I started searching? I did my search only 10 seconds previous. So at 7:30am EST, that’s about 10 tweets per second I have access to. Amazing.

The recent events in Iran have be a testament to the importance of social networks in the lives of every day people. Today, even The New York Times, “America’s Newspaper”, has reported on the overwhelming trump of sites like Facebook and twitter over traditional media outlets for Iranian Election News.

Why? Well, we know the printed media is yesterdays news, and TV media is faster, but not as fast or efficient as the internet. Social Networks have proven king.

As the Iranian government is desperately trying to block various websites that election protesters are participating in, its proven to be too big of a beast to tackle. The people have even threatened to overload the servers of government websites by bombarding them with web traffic.

What is the method here for beating the censorship? Twitter, Facebook, and other pop-up websites, have there own code written that allows a web programmer to build a website, or mobile application, that can access the said social networks content. These Application Programming Interfaces are free to access, and can be installed on any server. Thus the issue for Iranian Government blocking one site after another.

It is a true viral mechanism, and the more you tell them ‘no’ the more it inspires them to move forward faster, smarter, and more efficiently.

If you do frequently watch cable news, you have probably seen the ever increasing competition squabbles between networks about amount of coverage on a certain topic. One network blames another for lack of coverage to adhere to an agenda. Its no surprise really, with the use of social networks and the impact they have. On social media, you don’t deny your agenda or bias, you just create a Twitter tag or handle to organize it, thus creating complete transparency. Less money spent, more eyeballs for content.

It is a “Move up, or Shut Up” for traditional news outlets, and the Iranian Election is defintaly a big win for social media, and one for the record books.

Over at Convince and Convert, owner Jason Baer expresses his wealth of knowledge of social media and the trends that apply. His theories apply greatly to what we do here at Dirk+Weiss, including viral online marketing and return on investment.

In this video, Jason is speaking about how people use the web now, and mentions some stats from an “internet usage” study that was released. Always great to see how Jasons knowledge aligns with our practice and usage of marketing across social networks.

Very interesting: “Is social media being used more for communication or entertainment or both?”