by Mark O'Brien | Mar 24, 2015
For living in a world obsessed with communication, we don’t seem to be paying much attention to language. Think about the language of marketing: First, we speak impersonally. We talk about industries, markets, verticals, and accounts. Those referents...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 23, 2015
I wonder if all of us think more about time as we grow older. I’m sure we’re aware of its passing. I want to know if we share a preoccupation with what we’re doing with our time. We have such a perverse relationship with it. When we’re young, there seems to be too...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 20, 2015
Brands, like websites, are most effective when they’re not allowed to be static. Brands — and their graphic marks, in particular — shouldn’t be as dynamic as websites, of course; that is, unlike the constantly evolving content of websites, graphic marks...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 19, 2015
On LinkedIn alone there are so many apparent obituaries being written for the CMO, I pulled my black suit out of mothballs for the funeral. But when it occurred to me that none of the pieces I’d been reading had given a cause of death, I decided to do a little...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 18, 2015
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. (Jim Rohn) In 2013, I had four surgeries, none serious, all requiring sedentary recovery time. The results of the subsequent inactivity were weight gain and a loss of...