• » CDI allows you to see around corners because you recognize signal events that arise from the intersection of factors outside your own industry.


• » CDI offers a time warp because it compresses decades of experience into practical staff coaching and refined, updated work practices so you have a lifetime of learning without spending a lifetime to acquire it.


• » Most importantly CDI is a profit-producing practical habit arising from the humility to act on the reality that there's always more to learn.

Duc in Altum

Awash in an ocean of "big data," how do we keep from drowning? Structured questions, proven for decades in power transmission, financial trading desks & military air traffic control, are one way.

Your headcount sets the value that structured questions can bring to tame the chaos of too-much data and too-little time. The larger your business, the more tools we activate in the Systemkey™ Risk Solutions Framework.

Our tailored newsletter solutions (co-created with you, never boilerplate or stock copy) allow you to focus on what you do best: serving your customers.

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Seriously? Why do we strive for excellence? One might as well ask why the best chefs cook.

Matt Weilert launched Little R.E.D. Writ­ing 'hood because there was no newsletter service on the market that filled the well-documented market gap in delivering cross-disciplinary insight.

For far longer than Millenials have been alive, most marketers have been feeding the public's addiction to getting pablum [1, 2] yet being told it is steak. FDR started this decline intentionally, by his focus on "class warfare" dis­cussed in Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man. 

America has been making 'soggy' decisions while many other countries, most notably China, have been very 'crun­chy' in their ob­ject­ives.

These terms were introduced in a now-classic editorial in The Economist [1, 2] by then-editor Nico Col­chester [1, 2]. Sogginess is comfortable uncertainty, crunchi­ness is transparent results, whether or not they agree with the popular whim of the moment.

Across all our 5 brands, we strive to deliver crunchy decisions that foster business intimacy (see below).

On any given day, we all swim through an ocean of millions of words. We're exposed to many inputs: TV, news­pa­pers (re­mem­ber those?…), advert­ising, and yes, of course emails. While not denying the value of big data, it is just one more arrow in the quiver.

Today's innovative entrepreneur understands she has to deliver compelling value on-line and off-line, both at large (or in Silicon Valley speak "at scale") and in person, because the more important the decision, the more likely it's going to be in the room, eyeball to eyeball.

All the current buzz around "big data" is just so much chatter until companies deploy practical ways to foster positive movement in day-to-day behavior. Knowing is worthless without doing something about what you know.

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The biggest threat all organizations face is staring back at them in the mirror!

Current market leaders attempt to solve the challenge of complexity with more complexity, rather than increasing clarity. The elephant in the room is that organizations, both profit and non-profit, drastically lack trust today.

A solution to that lack of trust is a radical openness to asking ridiculous, un­reas­on­able, and irrational questions. A systems thinking-infused perspective restores the rich cream of business intimacy to the skim milk of today's “bottom-line transactions” which have all-too-often ignored life-cycle costs, viewing everything through the lens of the fiscal budget this quarter. That short-term focus is one of the most under-reported and under-addressed risks across business sectors today.

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Global solutions for local businesses

Surveys by IBM [1: pp. 10, 19; 2: p.22; 3], KMPG [4] and the Economist Intelligence Unit [5, 6] say that more than half of key executives surveyed recognize their ability to deal with complexity and risk does not meet the current challenges they face. As recent headlines have shown, it's time for us to recognize we are interconnected at the human as well as at the economic level. 

Kenny, an HVAC contractor from the Dallas-Fort Worth area says it much better than I could:

"Our staff's families appreciate the newsletter coming to their home address. The wives especially like to learn more about what their husbands do all day because many of them never talk about the details of their work.

…If a company wants to retain good people, they've got to build those re­la­tion­ships beyond just the staff, they've got to relate to and build trust with the whole family."

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Kenny speaks of his company's hard-copy newsletter. We're launching with a mobile-friendly digital product that fits the reading habits of 77% of con­sumer-level web traffic: news you can use today with links to content of en­dur­ing value.

One of the easiest ways to share [y]our content is to show-some-love on facebook with a . So feel free to share, the more the merrier.

Start building those key re­la­tion­ships with people most important to your staff, who are those most important to the success of your business!  (For the word-smiths out there reading with an eagle-eye, the double entendre is intentional.)

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Soft-hyphens

We marry the best of high tech and high touch to deliver mobile-friendly, responsive code that delivers "print-worthy" digital elegance. We test and re-test our re­spons­ive code to dynamically hyphenate the text for optimum readability on small screens, tablets and desktops alike.

We apply secret sauce behind the scenes to ensure that the hy­phen­ated text is still fully searchable, maintaining long-term value.
 

Special Publishing Flourishes

Those nuances that distinguish good books, built to endure, from throwaway cheap fiction, aren't just the gilt page edging and marbled endpapers. It's paying enough attention to ferret out the right codes for currencies, ligatures (such as Cæsar), registered marks (This Example® ), trademarks (This Example™), service marks (This Example SM), super- & subscripts that maintain readability with uniform line height.

The phrase we treat our staff like family gets over-used, yet for smart business owners, it's good advice. Kenny's laser-focused clarity resonates with one of our central messages: business intimacy is creating that transparent culture where people feel safe telling us what we need to hear rather than what they think we want to hear.

Issue Frequency	Price & Bonuses
Trial (1 issue, or month-to-month billing)	$197
Monthly (12 issues)	$2,128 (10% off per-issue price + full editorial calendar service included!)
Best Value!
Every 19 Days (19 issues [19 x 19 = 361 days] + 4 'compass' quarterly issues) for 23 issues/year	$3,851 (~15% off per-issue price + full editorial calendar service included!)
Weekly (52 issues/year)	$9,220 (10% off per-issue price + full editorial calendar service included!)

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Newsletter specs:

R.E.D. & her gang will produce minimum 3 articles/issue, with length, focus and "style" (tone, tenor, substantive, fun, etc.) collaboratively established with you and updated per our on-going conversations. More importantly, this service includes a full-on editorial calendar with quarterly themes (see simplified example) when purchased on an annual plan.

Our standard rate is $197 USD per issue for 3 articles between 300-600 words each. Annual plans have a double bonus! Annual Plan subscribers enjoy not only a discount over the standard month-to-month rate, more importantly, they receive an editorial calendar co-created with R.E.D. and her team, tailored to support your strategic growth plans.

Your newsletters are written within the context of an entire year's teaching theme. (Haven't got a theme? Pick an annual plan & you're all set!)

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Delivering rich content in a structured way provides another venue to showcase your articles and presentations published elsewhere, as well as develop material for them.

Here's a simplified version of a quarterly-themed annual editorial calendar: ht­tp://screen­cast.com/t/wK0hJqJ4G, yours will be tailored according to the specs we co-create.

We recommend a "core" newsletter every 19 days for reasons detailed at length in the preview of 19 Days to Business Intimacy. Other more transient info can go out in-between.

Weekly or monthly are also avail­able, and the full-on editorial calendar comes with each on the annual plan. If you'd like a month-long trial of weekly issues, contact us.
 

Hosting

Hosted for free on mailchimp until your subscriber count passes 2000, then mailchimp fees apply. (No hosting fees from us!)
 

Designed with the print-worthy artisanal elegance that is our signature style (see http://stipress.com & pick newsletter to see 3 dozen examples, maturing over time).
 

Our risk-free guarantee

Pay for the trial and discuss your objectives and goals with us. We'll translate that into 3 articles in a single issue, delivered via mailchimp, on the date & time you specify (don't worry we can help with all the details).

We'll deliver in our artisanal print-worthy mobile-friendly digital format, to the email list you provide. If you're not happy with the way the newsletter looks or the complements you get, simply ask for a refund within 15 days. No drama. No hassle.

Annual plan refunds are pro-rated to credit you for issues remaining in your subscription, so you can enjoy the savings and strategic benefit of an editorial calendar without the worry. Artisanal elegance in the digital realm is our specialty. We'll help you express your key ideas in a vibrant lively way, so sign up with the plan of your choice to lock in your rates today! Your clients will be glad you did.

Sign-up today to lock in your savings

• » Month-to-Month | Trial


• » Monthly (Annual Plan w/Edit-Cal)


• » Every 19 Days (Annual Plan w/Edit-Cal)


• » Weekly (Annual Plan w/Edit-Cal)