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.
What I Didn’t Learn in Business School
In business school classrooms they construct beautiful models of a non-world. (Peter Drucker, 1909-2005) It's easy to dismiss Peter Drucker's comment about the divide between the hypothetical world of business school and the pragmatic world of actual business as just...
Marketing Makes You Nervous?
Why does marketing inspire anxiety? I don't know. But I have two theories. The first is that we possess a fundamental distrust of brevity and simplicity. The second is that we don't recognize effective marketing is simple storytelling. Most of us think the more we say...
Do It Well
When my three siblings and I were children, Mom and Dad took us to dinner at the historic Griswold Inn in Essex, Connecticut. The place was bustling, as always. Young members of the wait staff hustled from table to table, tending to their patrons. After a few minutes,...
Tell Your Story
A few years ago, Peter Guber wrote this in the Harvard Business Review, "Critical details, data, and analytics are more effectively emotionalized and metabolized by the listener when they're embedded in a story." Similarly, Jonathan Gattschall wrote this in his book,...
I’m All Set With the Internet of Things
Kleptus vocabularis is rearing its ugly head again. That's right. The Internet of Things has finally slithered its way into the trendy, mainstream business lexicon and given the jargoneers something old to feel good about. Just shoot me: The Internet of Things (IoT)...
Take the First Step
When I speak to students during readings of my books, Martin the Marlin, The One and Only Ben, and Martin the Marlin: Friends Help Friends — in groups that often number in the hundreds, from Kindergarten through 8th grade — I get questions so direct they can only come...
Marketing Should Be Simple
With a caveat here and a caveat there, another over here for good measure, and one more for the road, we're on the record: We don't have to like inbound marketing and marketing-automation tools, but they're here to stay. And all that inbound-marketing,...
Spooked
Uh ... that thing keeps staring at me. Hello? Are you listening? It's starting to creep me out, to tell you the truth. What is that anyway? A pillow? A mask? Does it ever blink? Can't it just go away?
The Case of the Missing Brand: Part Deux
After learning Johnson's fate at IDS, I called my buddy, Millwood, at The Bugle: "Millie. It's O'Brien. "What's up, OB?" "You ever heard of a company called Intergalactic Data Services?" "Yeah. Matter of fact, we're preparing a piece on 'em for next month's edition."...
The Case of the MIA Brand: Part One
You might remember the first caper I reported here. If not, don't worry. Most folks forget me almost as fast as my ex-wives do. Just in case, I'll fill you in: I'm a private brand detective. Most of the mysteries I'm hired to solve have to do with companies that...
Content is a Two-Way Street
When writing any type of copy or content for any purpose, my philosophy is to give readers credit for the acuity of their readership. To put it another way, my writing style is the compositional equivalent of my personal style: People get the benefit of every doubt...
Mirror, Mirror
In the late '90s, I was invited to pitch the annual report business of the now-defunct Outpost.com. While there, I asked the Communications Director about the results of their recent television spot. She said, "Oh! The spot won all kinds of awards! The advertising,...
Science Friction
I recently read a blog post, "Lead Behaviors not Lead Scores", by Josh Hill, and a book, Great Sky River, by Gregory Benford. The latter opened my eyes to the former. In Great Sky River, the last of humanity fights to survive on Snowglade, pursued by murderous mechs,...
It’s Not Easy Being Green
Salem would like you to know he's not exactly green, but he swears he's recyclable. Our theory, however, is that he stows away in the reusable shopping bag because he likes to go to the store and cruise the cat-food aisle.
Don’t Ask Kwai
I once had a conversation with the founder and CEO of a software company, an affable and unassuming gentleman. He'd inadvertently walked into a marketing meeting I was conducting with his senior leadership team. The conversation transpired like this, verbatim. He...
A Matter of a Letter
At any time, in any medium, we can find any number of articles, reports, opinion pieces, and more decrying a lack of leadership in everything from politics to industry. Au contraire. We don't suffer from a lack of leadership: We suffer from an inability or an...
Fender Guitars: An Iconic Brand
Few brands retain their iconic status through takeovers by public companies, buybacks by employees, ownership by investment capitalists, debt, disillusionment, and dilution-unto-absurdity of its product portfolio. But Fender Musical Instruments has survived all that...
No Illusions
When our clients tell us about their products or services, we invariably ask two questions: (1) Is there a market for it? (2) If we hand you a check right now, can we buy it? The latter is to prevent putting carts before horses. The former is to prevent the...
Higher and Hierarchy
Here are five perennially perplexing questions, as intriguing as they are troubling and, as yet, unanswered: Why do so many organizations create the position, VP of Sales and Marketing? Why is the VP of Sales and Marketing typically a sales person? Is the chief...
Incognito Cat
Sammy's decided to create an act in which he imitates small power tools. In this photo, he's doing his best jigsaw imitation. We thought it was pretty good. But the judges said it lacked authenticity. So, he took a nap.
Knowing Write from Wrong: Part 2
At a large corporation for which I once worked, my boss's boss told one of my internal clients (I love that phrase) — a gentleman who disagreed with my counsel on a matter of communication and went over my head to report his pique — to ignore me because, "He's Irish...
Knowing Write from Wrong: Part 1
In the summer of 1964, my parents rented a small, red cottage on Cherry Street at Chapman Beach in Westbrook, Connecticut. Headed east along the shoreline, the next beach is Chalker Beach. The one after that is Indian Town. That matters because that same summer, my...
Star Trek: The Dark Social
Spock: Captain, why are you wearing that radiation-proof suit and preparing to exit the starship? Kirk: Scotty, Bones, and I are going to measure the Dark Social. Spock: [raises eyebrow] Come again? Kirk: Dark Social. The communication transmissions we get from...
But That’s the Way We’ve Always Done It
SASS (self-absorbed self-satisfaction), is a philosophy, not to be confused with its homonymic variant: SaaS (software as a service). SASS is the twin sibling of stubbornness and the bane of creative productivity. It can be stated in one simple sentence: "We do it...
Let’s Put the “Ex” in Expert*
Someone once told me an expert is anyone paid to travel more than 50 miles to tell someone else what to do. Thanks to the blogosphere, the opinionsphere, and the ponitifisphere, the definition of expert has morphed a bit. An expert now is someone self-evidently...
Today’s Pop Quiz
Guess which one of these two thinks he's the big guy: A. Tar (on the left) B. Crush (on the right) C. None of the above D. All of the above The winner will have to fight these two for a box of Milk Bones.
Do-It-Yourself Marketing
I have four dental crowns cemented into my noggin. I’m completely familiar with every step of the procedure for getting them in there: the prepping of the tooth; the creation and application of the temporary crown; the molding of the permanent one; and the implanting...
The Ten Commandments of Leadership
I've been carrying these on a laminated card in my wallet for as long as I can remember. They need to be shared: People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good...
But We Had a Plan!
When my younger son, Quinn, played basketball at Salve Regina University, I noticed something: When things went badly during a game, the coach would call a time-out and summon the team to the sideline. As the players assembled, he'd pull an index card out of the...
Courage
Though I manage brands for a living, I'm not objective enough to position and manage my own brand. I'm too close to it. Every brand owner has the same myopic inability. But many of them resist objectivity. And when presented with the new, the push is on to replace it...
He Blinded Me With Science
Good news, kids: We're no longer complex creatures. We're neither cryptic nor complicated. Anfractuous behavioral lines are now — if not perfectly straight — at least malleable. Outcomes are predictable. That's right. We have experience maps. An organization called...
Big Data? Big Deal.
Companies complain about the effect of ad-blocking on their revenue streams. They have a point ... to a point. Blocking ads does break the traditional covenant in which users gain access to content in exchange for exposure to advertising. But the complainants don't...
I’m Not Here
Salem, being the quintessential black cat and all, was convinced that if he hid in this black shelf, snuggled in among Arthur and Andrew's books, we'd never be able to find him. He gets positively indignant every time we walk by and say hello.
Make the Logo Bigger
If you do a Google search for dreaded words in business, you'll get millions of hits. That's a lot of dread. And it's a reminder that dread is contextual. Edward G. Brown thinks the most dreaded words in business are Got a minute? Shell Haffner thinks they're improve...
Not Our Type
For those of us who care about such things, it's fascinating to note that keyboard design and composition have remained largely unchanged since Enrico Royal brought the first typewriter to the United States aboard Christopher Columbus' flagship, Santa Maria. Since...
Famous Last Business Words
Here are the five most popular phrases uttered by business people — not at the end of their lives — but at the end of their professional livelihoods: Yeah, but I thought .... You mean it didn't ...? There's only one way to .... I know I'm right. Uh oh .... The pattern...
Marketing Double-Talk
I left my last corporate job 20 years ago. Even then, I was aware of a phenomenon that continues to become more prevalent: Kleptus vocabularus — the stealing of a lexicon germane to one context for the purpose of deliberately misleading in another context. More...
Missing my Dad
My father passed away a year ago today. To say the occasion was life-changing is to do it — and my father — a disservice. It was more like a revelation — a precious, bittersweet reminder of who I am and why: I am my father's son. All I am I owe to him. His courage was...
Joe Willie, Santa, and Sisyphus
Every year, in the eight weeks between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, a number of things can be counted on to take place. Each is a measure of our inexplicable humanity: First, the holiday season will vanish, leaving us to realize our spirits are none the kinder,...
New Year’s Resolutions
I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. They're as effective as a Band-Aid to the ski-jump guy: They won't fix anything, nor will they have meaningful or lasting effects. Nevertheless, my New Year's resolution is to propose some resolutions. Here goes: I won't get up...
Best of What Breed?
In the good old days (when were those?), companies differentiated themselves by purporting to be the best at what they did. One specialization. One concentration. One reliable deliverable or set thereof. That was then. This is now. Can a company that did one thing...
Price Points and Advertising
My friend and partner, Jonathan Spiliotopoulos, shared an article entitled, "What Startups Need to Know About Ad Tech". As Jonathan suggested to me, the article's most salient point might be this: Advertising is essentially divided into two worlds: branding and...
The Devilish Details of Inbound Marketing
There are many reasons to be skeptical of the claims made by inbound marketing (or marketing automation — the terms are virtually synonymous). Here's one. Here's another. And here's a third: Inbound marketing seems to be adopted by B2B companies that don't account for...
Do the Lighten Up*
In 2004, the priest who presided over the high-school graduation of my son, Quinn, said this, acknowledging the myriad difficulties of the age in which the accidents of our births find us in existence: "We are blessed with challenges." My first reaction was something...
Season’s Greetings
JoAnna, Jonathan, and I wish you a happy, healthy Holiday Season and a bright, prosperous New Year.
Season’s Blessings
In the song, "Turn, Turn, Turn", made famous by the Byrds, though adapted from Ecclesiastes 3:1 by George Aber and Pete Seeger, we learn this: "To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under Heaven." So it is, then, that — even for me — there...
Holiday Madness
Since the traditional holiday season is upon us, it might be helpful present some of the other holidays celebrated at this time of year. In addition to the ones listed here, a few more warrant elucidation: Free Gluten Day, December 17: Not to be confused with...
The Business Lessons of Literature
For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. (John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath) Like so many other inexplicable occurrences in my life, I...