FireCrystal and the "100,000-Hour Rule"

New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell has suggested that the key to becoming extraordinarily accomplished at any task is to practice it for 10,000 hours. That means starting young, and it apparently applies to everyone from Mozart to the Beatles to Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard in his teens to write a version of BASIC for the Altair, a very early version of what became the personal computer.

We're not so sure.

What we are sure of is that we've easily spent over 100,000 hours (ten times as much time) practicing our skills over the past 30 years, and it has yielded a certain mastery... and one boatload of samples to show. The projects we've featured here are representative of what FireCrystal Communications can do for you. But the list isn't even close to being comprehensive. If you don't see an example of what you think you might need here, give us a call. The chances are that we have a relevant sample on file to send you. Alternatively, you can conclude that "If these guys can do all this, then they clearly can produce what I want."

Our goal here is to demonstrate our ability to communicate whatever you want to say in any medium on any topic.

We hope you enjoy the tour!

Web sites »

Videos »

Speeches

Corporate Histories

Advertising Copy

Web-based Training »

In-depth Interviewing

Books »

Indexing

And More!

Web Content

The problem with Web sites: All business people and professionals know they need one - it is simply expected today if you want to be taken seriously - but few have any idea how to create a truly effective site. That's not their business, after all. So they will typically transfer their existing printed brochures to the Web, never realizing that the medium really does shape the way you deliver your message.

Prospective customers don't approach a Web site the way they do a printed brochure. And with so many people online now, your audience has high expectations regarding how the information they want is presented. If you don't hook people on your home page and anticipate their information needs throughout the rest of your site, they'll quickly click away to one of your competitors.

The two sites featured here meet that standard. The first is a membership site we created for owners of second homes and investment properties. We developed the content for the other site, an installer of in-ground swimming pools, based on an in-depth interview with the husband-and-wife team that founded the company.

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Videos

Videos are always a collaborative effort. We've served as the general contractor on some projects and as subcontractors on others. Typically, we do the research and interviews needed to create a first-draft script. The client, usually with input from the director and the producer, will then review the script and request changes.

The second draft usually becomes the shooting script. But things change along the way based on input from others, budget considerations, and the availability of shooting locations.

If you need a video, we can handle all aspects of its creation and production. Or we can operate as part of your team, doing the research, interviewing, and writing.

The first video here focuses on Alpha Systems and its document storage, retrieval, and destruction services. We started by interviewing the principals and plant manager and touring the company's facilities. The goal was to produce a brief DVD video that Alpha's sales staff could show to prospects using their laptop computers.

The second video was commissioned by a local Chamber of Commerce to honor an outstanding physician. We interviewed the doctor in-depth, wrote the script, and the director/producer handled the shooting and editing. The video was played at an awards banquet, and, by all accounts, was very well received.

(click for sample)

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Books: Paper-and-Ink and Electronic

We have written over 60 books in the past 30 years, with combined sales of over 1,000,000 copies. Several of them were co-authored by us based on interviews with individuals who were experts in their respective fields. But most were conceived by us and published by houses like St. Martin's Press, John Wiley & Sons, Simon & Schuster, Random House, and McGraw-Hill.

FireCrystal Communications can write, produce, and market a book for you. It all depends on what you want to accomplish.

Should you want to try to sell your idea to a commercial publisher, we can write your book proposal, cover letter, and sample chapters. However, with over 300,000 books being published in the U.S. each year, that's a long shot. You may get published, but you're not going to appear on Oprah.

Most individuals and businesses will be better off taking the self-publishing route. And, of course, we can help there as well. We can not only write the book, we can get it designed, indexed, printed, boxed, shipped, and marketed.

Even today, there's still nothing like a paper-and-ink book to establish a person's credibility or to present a company's history. No CD or DVD will ever replace the heft and "presence" of a printed book.

On the other hand, if your goal is to sell your expertise to interested parties, then you should definitely consider the electronic option. We can help you there, too.

Once we have written the copy (approved by you), we can create a PDF file that looks like a printed book but costs almost nothing to produce. Then we'd arrange to offer it for download on a Web site that lets you accept credit-card payments. We can put it on Amazon and other online stores, as well.

We can help you with all of these details because this is exactly what we've done for our own vacation-rental expert information.

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Web-based Training

Web-based training typically combines interest-grabbing video or animation with interactive quizzes and links to supplemental materials. Employees can work through the training at any time, while their companies can document that their workers have indeed taken a given course. Employees who do not earn a sufficient score can be required to take the training again.

We were commissioned to write the script for "Hospitality Suite Hazards," the first video offered here, as part of training program designed to focus on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (the "Enron law").

Of course, Web-based training can also be quite straightforward. There is no better example than the 150 career profile videos we scripted for the New Jersey Department of Education. The second video here is titled "Tool and Die Maker."

The challenge in all of these career profile videos was to capture the interest of teenage students while accurately presenting the pros and cons and requirements of each job.

(click for sample)

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