Unique solutions for your advertising-cliché needs

Hello ad clichés, my old friends. I've come to talk with you again. 

My war on advertising clichés has been hard fought and lost over the past decade, yet I soldier on even while knowing, inevitably, the day I retire from work will be filled with gifts emblazoned with the word "unique," as though my hatred of the word was some personal foible and not the war on creativity and humanity itself that I know it to be. 

This year, I provided to students a handy list of the words, phrases, and constructions to avoid when creating an ad. I challenge them, you, and the population of planet Earth - nay: the Universe - to never use any of these again in advertising or life. 

See you at the unique retirement party!

1. Unique
2. Solutions
3. Something for everyone
4. From (blank) to (blank), we have it all
5. Whether you want (blank) or (blank)…
6. A wide variety of...
7. We are dedicated to...
8. We believe...
9. We aim to... 
10. No matter the occasion...
11. For all your (blank) needs.
12. We provide you...
13. We offer you...
14. We cater to...
15. (Blank)…since 1980; Since 1980, we’ve been...
16. We are proud to...; Proud providers of...
17. (Blank) is located in (blank)
18. Can be found
19. We promote...
20. For people from all walks of life

The 69 important online articles I read later on Instapaper in 2012

It's easy to tell the best or most-important online articles of the year: they're the ones I saved on Instapaper. 

Do yourself a favor and join the site, download the app, and start reading stuff later like Larsen does. Soon you too will be referring to yourself in the third person, losing your hair, and compiling your favorite online reads list on a year-end blog post. It's just that damn addictive. 

Education and teaching

• Why college students today can't write, via Brain Track

• Why American students can't write, via The Atlantic

• The Writing Revolution, via The Atlantic

• Secret Teacher: stop micro-managing teachers and give them time to think, via the Guardian

• Why (and how) teachers should start using iTunes U, via edudemic

• 30 surprising (and controversial) ways students learn, via edudemic

• The iPad and critical pedagogy, via Mark Anderson's Blog

• Implementing best practices in online learning, via Educause Review

• Nine tools to turn create e-magazines and newspapers for your class, via Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

• A simple guide for teachers to create ebooks on iPad using iBook Author, via Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

• The five biggest myths about online learning, via edudemic

• Teachers should change how they teach students today. That's our job: response to NY Times, via HASTAC

• To empower students, let’s bring interactive learning tools into the classroom, via VB

• Technology changing how students learn, teachers say, via NY Times

• Online universities: why they still don't measure up, via readwrite

• What 4,500 professors and administrators think about online learning, via EDTECH

• Content versus service in media and education, via BuzzMachine

• How the Nearpod iPad app changed an entire school, via edudemic

• The shifting paradigm, via edtech digest

• How to roll out a 1:1 iPad program, via Edutopia

• What we learned: a 1:1 iPad reflection, via Edutopia

• Nine sites to save you big on college textbooks, via Mashable

• Teachers on the defensive, via NY Times

• Building a better teacher, via NY Times

• New rules, via NY Times

• Developing a strategy for lifelong learners in Canadian universities and colleges (and its implication for online learning), via Tony Bates

• Twenty-five things you probably didn't know about higher education, via edudemic

• Teaching lessons, via the NY Times

• Ten edtech inventions you probably don't know yet, via edudemic

• Our future schooling? Via Our Future Planet

• From smoke signals to tweets: how the evolution of communication is changing your classroom, via edudemic

Advertising and PR

• NHL lockout is doing alarming damage to brand, via Globe and Mail

• Advertising on LinkedIn: your guide for 2013, via Mashable

• Does advertising help or hurt the economy? Via the Washington Post

• Seven metrics PR pros should track to gain respect, via PR Daily

• Are traditional media-planning jobs going the way of the dinosaurs? Via Advertising Age

• Which polls fared best (and worst) in the 2012 presidential race, via NY Times

• Four advanced targeting techniques every Facebook advertiser should master, via HubSpot

• The future of personalized pricing, via Six Pixels of Separation

• The trouble with online advertising, via Six Pixels of Separation

• Secret e-scores chart consumers' buying power, via NY Times

• Advertising's bumpy transition (and why it matters to you), via Seth Godin

• The. Polls. Have. Stopped. Making. Any. Sense. Via New York

• PR industry developing social media measurement standards, via PR Daily

• How to manipulate the law of supply and demand...and make a lot more money, via QuickSprout

• How the press release morphed into multimedia content, via The Wall

• How theatre ticket prices are changing like airline fares, via the Chicago Tribune

• Publishers start signing up for PostRelease's content marketing network, via TechCrunch

Technology

• How an iPad is a more powerful content-creation device than a laptop, via Douchy's Blog

• Six Twitter analytics tools to improve your marketing, via Social Media Examiner

• Is Amazon the future of media? Via Six Pixels of Separation

• Coming soon: Nielsen Twitter TV rating, via Twitter Blog

• iPhone 5 tips and tricks, via Apple

• Three tools to turn your tweets into a newspaper, via Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

• Social media eye for the small business guy: a Chicago Butcher gets a makeover, via Mashable

• Grow your business with Twitter, via Twitter

• New economics of photojournalism: the rise of Instagram, via British Journal of Photography

• Dub your cassette collection onto an iPhone, via Spin

• Five Google AdWords features you need to know about, via Mashable

• Google integrates new display interface with AdWords, via Search Engine Watch

• Google's Crystal Ball, via the NY Times

• Can technology boost our multiple intelligences? Via On Islam

Etc. 

• How much is an appropriate tip for good service? Via the Globe and Mail

• Don't tear down that wall! Via Roger Ebert's Journal

• A printer freezes up and the maker does too, via NY Times

• How to be a genius: this is Apple's secret employee training manual, via Gizmodo

• How to handle plagiarism and fabrication allegations, via Poynter

• How not to steal people's content on the Web, via HubSpot

• Are you spending 1,000 hours preparing for your next job? Via Harvard Business Review