Big3 Communications

01/02/2025

January was a fantastic month for networking! I made new friends and reconnected with a few I hadn’t seen in a while.

The events also brought me to some incredible places around the Temple Terrace-Uptown Tampa area. Here are some of my favorite pictures from events like:

✂️ The ribbon cutting at Hyatt Place Tampa/Busch Gardens.

🏀 The USF Bulls women’s basketball game, supporting the Florida Autism Center of Excellence (FACE) on Autism Acceptance Night—Go Bulls!🤘

🍴The Temple Terrace Uptown Chamber of Commerce's monthly member luncheon at the impressive Yuengling Draft Haus & Kitchen.

☕️ The chamber’s Networking Women of Uptown Breakfast, also at Yuengling.

🍻 The Temple Terrace Craft BrewFest kickoff event at Shamrock's Ale House.

Everyone wants to do business with people they like and trust! Networking is how I find new people to help and establish that critical relationship. I'm glad to be a part of such an awesome community! ♥️

31/01/2025

Announcing the revival of YEP! If you're a professional in Tampa Bay who's under 40, this group is a fantastic way to connect with likeminded people and discuss doing business together over some of the best food and drink in Uptown Tampa.

I'm excited to be there on Tuesday to share my past experience directing YEP and set the tone for this revival.

POSTPONED. Visit this page next week for details about the new date.

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Calling all young professionals: Come to Shamrock's Ale House for a lowkey meet-n-greet! Tuesday, Feb. 4th 2025 between 5:30 - 7:00 PM.

Join us as we discuss the revival of this important networking group! Shamrock’s will be providing snacks. We are looking forward to meeting you Tuesday 🙂

Invite your friends and professional contacts — this event is open to all! If you have questions, leave a comment under this post and we will get back to you ASAP.

Hosted by the Temple Terrace Uptown Chamber of Commerce.

14/10/2024

Here is a special Halloween-themed blog post about the King of the Gimmicks, William Castle. An overlooked horror film director, Castle used innovative props and systems to create a kind of augmented reality for theater audiences.

If you're interested in movie history, film production, creative work, or marketing, you'll get a thrill out of this one!

The underrated Castle invented physical props & systems that gave theater audiences a shared horror experience that was also participatory.

16/08/2024

"Alien: Romulus," the seventh installment in the influential science fiction franchise, releases today, making this the perfect opportunity to share one of my favorite Hollywood legends.

Released in 1979, Ridley Scott's "Alien" was a smash hit that is now regarded as one of the sci-fi genre's best films—and horror's, for that matter. Everyone expected a sequel, but no one expected it to come from 30-year-old James Cameron, who was mid-way through production on his first film, "The Terminator."

Cameron submitted a 42-page treatment for an "Alien" sequel in 1983, but production still stalled. A year later, new leadership stumbled upon the unused treatment and invited Cameron to make his pitch.

A fresh-faced Cameron was waiting in the conference room when the executives arrived. The word "ALIEN" was written on a board behind him. He was aware of their concerns: they viewed the original's success as a fluke and doubted a sequel could be as successful. Cameron walked them through his now 90-page script, then ended with uncommon charisma.

Standing up, he crossed the room and pulled out a marker. He added an "S" to the board: "ALIENS." After a brief pause, he drew two lines through the "S" so the board read, "ALIEN$."

The implication was clear to the executives: Cameron knew his idea would make money. "Aliens" would exchange some of the haunting horror and suspense elements that defined the first film for big guns and pulse-pounding action, much like Cameron's "Terminator." Instead of one monster alien, the protagonists would face waves of them. If films like "The Terminator" and "Rambo: First Blood" were hits, "Aliens" could be, too.

Cameron was borne out. His sequel made nearly $200 million on an $18 million budget, almost mirroring the massive success of the first film. Interestingly, Cameron's friends attempted to talk him out of directing the film, worried that Scott would get the credit for its success while Cameron would bear the blame for its failure, but Cameron believed in the project; he was a huge fan of the story, recalling, "I knew it would be cool."

I love this story because of its simplicity. Using effective rhetoric, Cameron offered the studio executives a vision of financial success and confirmed he knew how to think like them. He gained their buy-in not just through his creative talents, but also his communication abilities, and that gave him the opportunity to make one of the most influential films of his career—maybe of all time.

22/05/2024

I don't remember who told me to "make each project suck less than the one before it," but that's become a sort of mantra for me. In creative work, it's easy to get caught up in your own thoughts, struggling for perfection—and rarely achieving it.

By embracing a learning mindset that focuses on iterative improvement over time, you can make major progress and conquer creative block.

-Joni

When you simply aim to make each project suck less than the one before it, you set an an attainable goal and manageable expectations.

15/05/2024

In honor of the release of the season finale for “X-Men ‘97”—possibly the best ever adaptation of the mutant heroes and their complex comic book soap opera—I’m revisiting a tribute I wrote to writer Chris Claremont, the primary architect of their uncanny world.

Chris Claremont wrote the X-Men comics, including multiple spinoffs, for a remarkable 16 straight years from 1975 to 1991. His writing is timeless. He is a master of purple prose, a delightfully silly style full of exaggerated emotion, multisyllabic words, and iconic cliches. He uses the comic book medium masterfully, finding innovative ways to add emotional weight to his stories.

In the panels below, one of the most intriguing hallmarks of Claremont's style is on display: the jerk narrator. In a Claremont comic, the narration boxes occasionally engage and berate the characters during stressful moments. That's unusual. In most writing, the narrator is wholly separate from the characters, a disembodied observer of events, not a participant. Even in first-person stories, the narrator is having a private conversation with the reader.

Here, though, the narrator itself goads Cyclops. It's not a character's perspective, but the personification of Cyclops's guilt. Although his teammates do not blame him for what happened, Cyclops bears the burden of leadership. As long as the possibility exists in his mind that he could have made a different call, he will feel judged, even after he has been absolved. Conventionally, this would be spelled out through Cyclops's thought bubbles or through narration boxes (or a combination of the two). Those would get the point across just fine.

Claremont's writing captures the depth of the character's emotion by giving guilt a cosmic voice that Cyclops can hear. It repeats itself and builds in intensity, bringing Cyclops along with it. Claremont breaks convention to drive his point home.

It's a highly-effective creative choice that makes this small story beat memorable.

21/03/2024

Most people see "The Core" not as a disaster movie, but as a disaster, period. After a half dozen viewings over the years, I take a different position.

"The Core" is a charming B-movie that relishes its status. People don't give the film enough credit. It has many positive qualities and is ridiculously entertaining.

This critical film analysis focuses less on "The Core's" weaknesses and more on its strengths. Along the way, we dive into discourse about the necessity of scientific accuracy in Hollywood. I had a lot of fun with this one.

Don't be afraid to dig a little deeper.

-Joni

The Core (2003) is commonly cited as one of the worst sci-fi films ever, but it's something of a comfort movie for me. There’s a lot to love here.

27/02/2024

Today is Pokemon Day! 🎉 Here's a little tale from the height of Pokemania:

The hottest gossip on late 90s playgrounds was this: “Have you heard about the secret Pokemon?”

Everyone knew that there were only 150 original Pokemon, but rumors were spreading about the 151st, named Mew. It was iconic, a creature of such rarity and power that every kid wanted to get their hands on it.

The only way to obtain Mew was through hacking the game. Or was it? Rumors swirled of other methods . Most revolved around jumping through some truly insane hoops, but when the information comes from a kid who claims his uncle works for Nintendo…at nine years old, it’s best to do what he says.

At the time, we didn’t know that this was by design. Even Nintendo, Pokemon’s publisher, had no idea. Satoshi Tajiri, Pokemon's creator, added Mew to the game’s code at the last minute, after the code had been checked for errors. When the data that made up the debugging tools were deleted, he discovered, there was just enough space to squeeze one more monster onto the game cartridge, a secret only for his employees and their families—for a while.

When the secret got out, as Tajiri knew it would, interest in the game skyrocketed. Everyone was talking about Mew, providing unprecedented word-of-mouth marketing. It gave us something to investigate, to theorize on: a game outside the game.

At its release 25 years ago, Pokemon seemed unlikely to leave a mark on a shifting video game industry, but this innovative design decision helped catapult the franchise to success and cement it in the public consciousness.

19/02/2024

I grew up going to the Pasco County Fair in Dade City every year, and it kicks off again today. One of my favorite things was to watch the live shows by traveling performers. Their acts were engaging and charming, and there was a quality to their work that always impressed me. It takes a special kind of person to go up on stage night after night, in a different city each week, not sure whether you'll be performing to fifteen people or five hundred, excited fans or hecklers.

I stumbled across this movie recently—The Great Buck Howard. John Malkovich delivers an outstanding performance as a mentalist whose fame is fading as he tours community stages across the country to keep the magic going. It impressed me because I saw the same optimism and professionalism exuded by Buck Howard in those performers I watched growing up.

Showbiz on the road is grueling. The Great Buck Howard gives us a look into the challenges of the work and the ways professional performers thrive in a line of work that most people just aren't built for.

-Joni

Critical look at The Great Buck Howard, a film that explores the idiosyncrasies of performing artists past their prime but still striving for greatness.

15/12/2023

For over 25 years, Pokemon has captured the hearts and minds of children and adults alike, achieving global dominance as the world's most successful media franchise. Pokemon's enduring cultural impact was far from assured, though. Many viewed it as another passing fad, and they were partially right. The original wave of Pokemania in the United States only lasted a few years, and by 2003, the unprecedented level of interest had waned. Yet for the millions of players around the world who have remained passionate over the years and across generations, something hooked us, in the same way people are hooked by sports, comic books, or other iconic franchises like Star Wars.

In this article, I discuss in depth four clever design decisions made from the very beginning of the Pokemon brand that helped cement it as a favorite for so many, for so long.

Basically, I overexplain what's fun about Pokemon and reminisce about one of my favorite pieces of media over the years. It's a blast, and you should read it if you have even a passing curiosity about the brand and it's popularity. I'm very proud of this piece.

-Joni

I was six when Pokemania swept over the United States in 1998, and I remember it vividly.

07/12/2023

Do you respond to all of your online reviews? Here's why we think you should make it a priority, for the sake of your business.

You should respond to every review that your business receives, positive or negative. People leave reviews for a variety of reasons —…

04/12/2023

My friend Shawna, a noted, national political fixer, shared this excellent article recounting a pivotal experience she had with the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

It's a brief story of selfless service and friendly collaboration, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

-JW

I received the phone call on an ordinary afternoon over ten years ago. “Will you please hold for Mrs. Graham?”