🍦 Make Disney's Dole Whip, sell anything with good copy, and the E-Ink Wall Newspaper

That's right - a digital newspaper on your wall!

How are things going?

I really mean it. All this isolation and social distancing is really getting to people’s hearts and souls. As people, we love spending time with others.

I’m a pretty hardcore introvert - and I miss spending time with my friends.

Heck - I’m really sad I haven’t been able to show off my beautiful new daughter to anyone.

Feel free to send me an email - Just respond to the newsletter and I’d be happy to chat.

Well, I hope you feel a little encouraged by today’s newsletter. I’m intentionally including some extra fun stuff for you to check out!

So - grab that cup of joe and let’s get to today’s topics!

🍦 Make Disney’s Famous Dole Whip

I’ll be the first one to say it. I’m gaining weight from staying home. 😂

However, I’m loving all these “exclusive recipes” that companies are releasing. It’s really generating a lot of free brand awareness for companies - and making people crave the real thing.

Think about it! You might make this Dole Whip at home - but it will make you do one of two things. It’s a fun little psychological trick to get good ole’ Disney on the brain. Think about it!

1. Remember the taste of Dole Whip and miss Disney - thus making you more likely to get tickets when you can. You miss the way things once were, and want to get back to normal.

2. Wonder how the real thing tastes. You’ve never gone to Disney. You really like your homemade Dole Whip - but you want the real thing. You consider when you’ll be able to buy tickets . . .

It’s a pretty cool “lead magnet” to get people craving the way things were a month ago. Heck, it could even generate sales!

Have you checked out Disney’s Dole Whip recipe yet?

Check out the recipe here. Yes, this is a Buzzfeed article.

I haven’t tried it yet - but I really want to!

🧾 Sell Anything with Good Copy

Let’s face it. You want to sell a lot of that stuff that’s lying around your house - especially now that you’ve had extra time to stare at it.

But how? Facebook Marketplace is full of stuff. What can I or you do to make our offer stand out against the noise?

Well - I found out about a pretty cool social experiment called Significant Objects. Basically, the authors bought some really cheap and random items, created fictional stories for them, and sold them on eBay with the brand new stories (taking care to make sure that the stories came across as fictional) for more money! It was a successful experiment, and they often made a profit.

By creating the fictional stories, they added more perceived value to the products - and people often paid way more than normal.

So - I propose a challenge

I’m going to try it too.

Find 3 items from around the home and craft a compelling fictional story for them. Create a listing on eBay and post the item. Can you sell it?

It’s worth a try at least, isn’t it?

Check out the website here for inspiration!

📰The E-Ink Wall Newspaper

Do you remember the good old days when you used to read newspapers? I used to read them when I was young. Now I just read hundreds of articles from the web.

There was always something nostalgic about the ole’ newspaper.

Max Braun thought so too, and created a tech solution that’s part art, part hack, and 100 percent brilliant.

Essentially, it’s a giant E-Ink screen that automatically pulls up the front page of the NYT every day. You don’t have to do anything other than make sure it’s connected to the internet and plugged in.

There’s no UI to play with - no switching between new pages. The only interaction you have with this device is reading what you can see on the front page. It’s so minimalist I could cry.

It’s part art but also part functional.

Read about the whole process at the link. It’s totally worth the read!

🐙 The Land of Random

Fun stuff to occupy the mind! That’s the name o’ the random this week.

🎵 Make Beats

Make beats and loops - collaboratively. It’s a pretty unique concept, and I’ve enjoyed messing around on it. Honestly, if you have an unused Ipad lying around you could totally set this up and use other people’s beats as background noise.

⛏ Steampunk Survival

I stumbled across this neat little survival game. I don’t see many FPS style steampunk games out there - especially ones with exploding volcanoes. I haven’t played it yet, but it looks pretty cool!

📷 Make a Neo-Noir style photo

Do you enjoy a little Lightroom photo editing? I’m no expert, but I like tinkering with photos once in a while. I personally like the fun old school style of Neo-Noir. Check out this really neat tutorial on Youtube by @futur_vizion from IG. Make your photos look all cool and Neo-noir!

🕸 Visualize Any Website

Ever wanted to see the visual map of a website? What’s it connected to? How many third-party apps are greedily watching your data? Check it out!

🧮 Make Fun Spreadsheets

Whether you’re doing data entry for your business or you’re tracking personal stuff, Coda is a really cool tool. It’s like Google Sheets, but easier to use. This link takes you to the music section (Track your top songs in Spotify, for instance) - but there are hundreds of templates to increase productivity!