Writing is really hard. It is one of those things that lots of people claim to be good at but aren’t. Mechanics, style, flow and the inability to express thoughts succinctly are the usual suspects when it comes to crappy prose. Even if you are OK at putting words together,…
If you, like me, follow mainstream media outlets on Twitter then you LOVE how they clog up your stream by broadcasting their own content. While a number of organizations have figured out great uses for Twitter, big media remains seemingly clueless. The content outlets broadcast via tweets does not seem…
I just got Jamel Shabazz’s incredible book of photos, Back in the Days. In a nutshell, it documents hip hop and street culture (mostly in NYC) from 1980-1989. The incredibly varied sense of fashion in hip hop culture during the early days is striking. It was not all homogenous the…
Parents agonize over where to send their kids to school. This is especially true if they are spending $10k plus on the price of admission to a private institution. Some private schools seem to get marketing, some don’t. While education is something most people are apt to spend money on,…
Since yesterday was so much fun I am back again with installment two of “Shoot that term in the head.” Today’s victim is “this is a critical time.” This unfortunate group of words is often employed by managers who are trying to impart a sense of urgency to their troops….
This post by Julien Smith on the perils of saying “I love you” inspired today’s post, the first in a new video series called “Shoot that term in the head.” In business there are sorts of fucked up and vague terms that people use as ways to obfuscate, betlittle, exploit,…
I had the pleasure of chatting with Aimee Davison (pictured above) of One Hundred Jobs and Fashion Ambush today. So much of the conversation around social media/new PR/marketing 2.0 takes place between industry “experts” so the idea here was to profile someone from outside the industry who “gets it”. Aimee…
On this day in 1737 Thomas Paine was born. Happy 273rd Tommy! I hope it is a good one for you. Paine is arguably one of the most influential thinkers of the last 300 years, having played key roles in both the French and American Revolutions. More importantly for this…
Today, despite the massive increase it would mean in terms of my personal revenue stream, I am glad I am not the Senior VP of Marketing at Pepsi. Why? Two basic facts: It seems the Super Bowl was the most watched TV show ever. There was not one Pepsi ad…
I just grabbed Seth Godin‘s All Marketers are Liars. True to form, it’s bomb ass. The book details how marketing is really about telling stories – a premise you’ve definitely heard if you’ve been near a business in the last 5 to 5000 years. So, if telling a story is…