Endeavorance
The point of our blog isn’t to show you how up to date we are with buzzwords and jargon. It isn’t to instruct you with how-to guides, tips, tricks, and hacks. It isn’t to encourage, endorse, or engage in conformity. The point of our blog is to provoke, to counter popular notions, to question the status quo, to prompt your imagination, and to challenge you to think and achieve more than you might otherwise. Whatever happens, it’s worth the endeavor.
Endeavorance
The point of our blog isn’t to show you how up to date we are with buzzwords and jargon. It isn’t to instruct you with how-to guides, tips, tricks, and hacks. It isn’t to encourage, endorse, or engage in conformity. The point of our blog is to provoke, to counter popular notions, to question the status quo, to prompt your imagination, and to challenge you to think and achieve more than you might otherwise. Whatever happens, it’s worth the endeavor.
The Quest for Success: Success
Identity becomes voice. Voice defines value. Value creates presence. Presence becomes marketshare. Marketshare ensures success. That's why. The quest for success is the story of potential achieved. It's the story of diligence, self-awareness, objective assessment of...
The Quest for Success: Marketshare
When a brand is known and trusted, it's accepted. When it's accepted, it's bought, literally and figuratively. When it's bought, it creates marketshare. Marketshare is the evolution of identity to success. Why? The answer is self-evident. Brands are created to...
The Quest for Success: Presence
Allowing people to attribute value to a brand creates mindshare. It creates memorability and legitimacy. It engenders trust, comfort, faith. It facilitates the transition from identity to success. Why? The simple answer is: presence. Presence connotes the occupation...
The Quest for Success: Value
Voice yields value. It expresses the attributes of the brand. It affiliates speaker and listener. It connects brands with markets, prospects, people. It creates space between itself and its competitors. Why? This answer is not so simple. Value is as subjective as it...
The Quest for Success: Voice
Success or failure is a matter of definition. Defining the brand creates its voice, its personality, its promise. What is the brand? What does it mean? What does it have to say? Who should listen? Why? The simple answer is voice. The voice of your brand is as distinct...
The Quest for Success: Identity
Companies are founded every day. Products and services are created every day. All are named. Some become well known. Some achieve the revered status of brand. Some succeed. Others do not. Why? The simple answer is: identity. Every brand has an identity. Every brand...
The Gentle Realist
I don't know Steven J. Thompson. But I admire the man. All I know of him, so far, is that he published this post: "Leadership without Arson". But because of that post, I know and admire these things about Mr. Thompson: He's a realist. He recognizes that, in real life,...
Fun With Words
My colleague and LinkedIn connection, Derrick Martins, posted what he had to have known would be irresistible bait for a word-shark like me. More specifically, he angled for trouble when he published this piece — "Analytics and Big Data: The Skeptics vs. the...
The Persona of My Business Technology Agenda
I love dots. And I obsess about connecting them. That's why I wonder when people obsess about other things, like this — "Leading CMOs Will Excel at Customer Obsession in 2016" — without connecting them to other things, like this: "5 Questions You Should Answer When...
My First Selfie
One of the more superficial revelations of my recent trip to New York was that I'd never taken a selfie. This realization was driven home by the fact that I saw people who'd come from all over the world seemingly for the sole purpose of taking pictures of themselves...
Highways of Algorithmic Morality
I admit it: I'm an aggressive driver. Rendered as an exponential value, I'd be a Type A¹³. When I drive, it's simply and strictly for the purpose of getting from Point A to Point B in the shortest possible time. I have neither understanding of nor patience for drivers...
Take That, Starbucks!
There are some things for which modesty and humility just don't allow me to wish. But my inherent propriety notwithstanding, it appears I may actually achieve the status of Certified Home Brewer (CHB). I hadn't dared hope. "And how, precisely, will you achieve such a...
When You Wish Upon a Star
People who know me understand I'm not clairvoyant. In fact, most people who know me don't even think I'm particularly bright. But it took neither precognition nor perception to see this one coming: "Big Data Killed the Marketing Star". Forgive the boxing analogy, but...
Much Ado About Nothing
Now that content marketing has started to demonstrate some rather disappointing (but not surprising) results, the snake oil is flowing hot and heavy. And what's causing content marketing's bell curve to descend harrowingly? That's right: Lack of strategy. Here's what...
My TCOE Was DOA
Every once in a while, I like to challenge myself to do something I might not otherwise consider doing. After all, I spend the lion's share of the lion's share of my days writing. Aside from putting me in perilous proximity to an alarming number of lions — and despite...
Sense and Meaning
I saw two things the other day that got me thinking about the ways in which we're stripping sense and meaning from our communications. The first was this post: "You Think You Speak Digital?" It pointed out, unwittingly of course, that we're failing at communicating...
Glass Half Full
Four days ago, the buzzkills at The Atlantic ran a glass-half-empty article intended to scare the bejesus out of us: "Hangovers: They're Costing the U.S. Economy". (The reason for its intent is neither stated nor clear.) It shared the results of a new report from the...
Email: Mine and URINE
Have you ever noticed the people who are most likely to warn us of the dangers of email are also the ones who are most likely to keep us waiting longest for replies to our emails — and least likely to think their icing us is rude, discourteous, or unprofessional? They...
Do the Herky Jerky
When it comes to topics for blogs posts, I tend to have a fair degree of fortitude (or at least I imagine I do). But I have to admit this one made me a little squeamish: "Jerky Juggernaut and the Power of Protein". This part was unsettling enough: Sales have...
It’s My Own Fault
It makes me uncomfortable to realize how many opportunities I miss to blame myself for things. I was reminded of that particular failing, yet again, when I read this article in Fast Company: "The Psychology Behind Why People Steal Their Coworkers' Stuff". It...
Defining Action
In addition to the fact that I love marketing — and in case it's not already apparent — I love language. I was reminded of that love, yet again, when I read an article from our language-loving friends at Gartner. It's called, "The Arrival of Algorithmic Business"....
The Variable SEO Scale
I was right on the verge of doing something drastic. And I wasn't taking chances: I had a full can of Drano, five cyanide capsules, two guns, five razor blades, a noose, and a Barry Manilow DVD. A client — a provider of enterprise software and services — had just...
Droning On
I'm not easily rattled by big numbers. But this one got my attention: "Drone Operator Fined $1.9 Million". I immediately wondered, "Geez. What the hell did the guy do?" It turns out he violated FAA regulations for operating in Class B airspace. If he'd used his...
It’s Only Words
If you want an indication of the causal relationships between language and culture, business, the popular jargon of both, and the confusion of everything, consider this: "Charm School for Mavericks' Re-cap". Said charm school was a session intended to impart to its...
Market Karma
I don't want to sound vindictive. But there are very rare moments at which the market's disinclination to tolerate garbage dovetails harmoniously with karma's disinclination to being denied. And when they come along, you have to take notice. Case in point: Imagine a...
Contagious Human Characters
Forbes has introduced something called BrandVoice, which it describes thusly: Forbes BrandVoice allows marketers to connect directly with the Forbes audience by enabling them to create content – and participate in the conversation – on the Forbes digital publishing...
Splitting Hairs
I got an email this morning that made my hair stand on end. The subject line was "Regrow Natural Hair". I don't know why, but that simply never occurred to me. Every time I've regrown hair, it's been synthetic. And I've fallen into one of the three most predictable...
Ground Control to Major Tom
As you're well aware by now, I'm usually late to the proverbial dance when it comes to trends. So, it's with typical tardiness that I come to this winner: earthing. In case you, too, are not yet up to speed, earthing promotes the idea that walking barefoot on the...
Danny Gatton: The Darkness of Talent
On October 4, 1994, guitarist Danny Gatton was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Newburg, Maryland. In early 1989, some friends and I had the privilege of seeing and hearing Danny Gatton play in Hartford, Connecticut. It was a cold, snowy...
Web Advertising: DOA
In the two weeks since this post was published — "It's the End of the Line for the Ad-Supported Web" — the crying has been conspicuous by its absence. Who could have been surprised, let alone despondent? We, in fact, did this to ourselves. That's right. We exhausted...
It’s Hip to Be Hip
There's nothing I enjoy more than being made to think about things I haven't thought about before. That's why I was overjoyed to read this post about the fall TV premieres. It made me think about a group of people I'd never been prompted to think about before:...
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Both
I visited New York City this past weekend, stopping at Ground Zero before taking the ferries to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The experience reminded me of things I was in danger of forgetting. Here's what I learned (again): The Freedom Tower at Ground Zero is...
Innovating Disruptive Quackery
I love bad movies. In fact, one of my greatest pleasures is staying up till the wee hours of the weekend watching ill-contrived films and wondering; Why were they made? Who financed them? For what return? Did the writer(s) think it was any good? What were the actors...
Lies, Damn Lies, and the Abuse of Marketing
Despite the fact that some of my ravings might suggest otherwise, I love marketing. I love it with a passion. So, with equal passion, I hate its being abused. As one indication of its abuse, I enter into evidence this post — "Which Technologies and Content Types are...
Swizzle Sticks and Stones
I've been looking for some constructive recreational activities with which to fill my idle time, ideally one that also would land me in the news. I can't believe this one got by me. A dude from Copemish earned his 15 minutes of fame the other day by hauling a rock,...
A Belly Full of Content Marketing
I don't know about you, but I think I take my powers of digestion for granted. What I mean is that, beyond the act of mastication, I don't give all that much thought to how much my physiology can actually assimilate, let alone metabolize. I was prompted to that...
The Big Chill
Nothing inspires apprehension like an infomercial called "5 Interview Questions for Your Next Big Data Vendor" from something billing itself as the One-Stop Shop for Big Data, creating the Big Data ecosystem by connecting all stakeholders within the global Big Data...
No More Glasses
I received an email the other day, the headline of which — "No More Glasses" — reminded me why I love technology. As a card-carrying Irishman, I've always admired, and (at times) have been, a two-fisted drinker. This email brings the promise that, since glasses are no...
Our Culture is Our Brand
A post in The Cauldron, published by Sports Illustrated, is one of the most affecting things I've read on brand, marketing, culture, and their inextricable relationships in a long while. "The NFL remains addictive in America, but it's losing ground internationally" is...
The EPM Cloud Under My Saddle
I got the scare of my life this morning. While reading through my various feeds, I saw this headline: "5 Ways Cloud-Based EPM is Altering the Landscape of the Business World". I suddenly imagined the business world being decimated by equine protozoal...
People Are People, Too
People are coming back into vogue, at least in marketing. And I can prove it. Since I'm a believer in the cyclical nature of all things, I knew people would reappear in marketing. I didn't know when. But I did know why: Data doesn't buy anything. People do. The proof...
From the Mailbag: Volume Four
As Victor Frankenstein discovered, sometimes you don't know you're creating a monster until it's been on its feet for a while. And, as young Vic also found out, once it's up and around, getting rid of it might pose something of a challenge. When we inaugurated From...
Impressively World-Class
If you read as much as I do, you can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content being pumped out daily. But if you're anything like me, you've discovered that, like the effort required to find the figurative needle in the proverbial haystack, perseverance is the...
High Steaks
Some friends recently invited us to their home for dinner. Considerate hosts that they are — and knowing Anne and I are proud, shameless, and card-carrying omnivores — they planned the meal around filet mignon. Once their local butcher made them aware of the fact that...
Maintaining Our Footing
In his book, The Life of Reason, the American philosopher, poet, novelist, and critic George Santayana (1863-1952) wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it." Fourteen years after September 11, 2001, the matter is not whether we remember...
What’s Your Objective?
Sometimes LinkedIn posts are as valuable for what they don't say as they are for what they do say. Case in point: Jeffrey Strickland, Ph.D., CMSP (which stands for County Medical Services Program, California Motorcyclist Safety Program, Custom Medical Stock Photo,...
Cuckoo for COCOs
I'm really worried about the future. More specifically, I'm really worried about the future of marketing. A vague sense of uneasiness morphed into full-blown agita when I read something called, "The New Marketing Leader". I don't know who this guy is. (Sorry, ladies....
LABOR Day
Since we just celebrated Labor Day in these here United States, I offer these thoughts: As manufacturing supplanted agriculture as the driving economic force in the late 19th Century, the leadership of groups like the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor...