Call it what you want: a mistake, a blunder, a faux pas, a misunderstanding, a slip-up, an oversight, or an error.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST TO BRING YOU A BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN: THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPICS COMMITTEE (IOC) HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THE HOST COUNTRY FOR THE 2022 WINTER OLYMPICS WILL BE HELL. WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING.“Dude,” I hear you...

MEMORIAL DAY & FEAR Fear JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group 30 May 2019 Is it Wednesday or Thursday? A three-day weekend can make it difficult to gauge the day of the week; although, in my estimation a third day off basking in sweet sunshine, especially...

I have connections, colleagues, and friends on LinkedIn — people like Leslie Hossner and Nelly Jebran — who are kind, astute, and generous enough to point out the differences, similarities, and relationships between words like accept and except, like than and then....

There is a huge difference between going to school and being educated. One definition of education is an enlightening experience.

In much the same fashion as content marketing and inbound marketing (aka marketing automation) are on the way out, SEO is on the way out. But it’s not on the way out because it’s proven its irrelevance, a la inbound marketing/marketing automation. Nope. It’s on the...

It’s pretty easy to pinpoint things that are important to us and keep us ticking. But how about when it comes to company values? Are those as easy to define?

As any of you who saw this know, the question on the lips of all people in their right minds three weeks ago was this: “Who, in God’s name, would hire Accenture to create a website?"Before we examine this abonimably aberrant phenomenon, let’s take a moment to savor...

LUCK & SUCCESS Good Luck JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group 9 May 2019 Think about one of your most powerful successes. Was it getting a new, enormous client? Or perhaps buying your first home? Maybe it was rescuing your beloved mutt from the shelter? Or...

As regular readers of my routine ravings know, I’m no fan of bureaucracy. Neither am I a fan of obfuscatory jargon. My education in the liabilities of both was well-earned. Herewith, a story from my days in the belly of the beast.While dutifully serving one of the...

Technology is dangerous!

Pardon the interruption. I have a question.The question is prompted by a newspaper article I saw recently. Since the question is likely to be perceived as politically incorrect — or, at the very least, as something like gender-insensitive, rather than pragmatic, which...

The statement in the title of this post seems pretty obvious; however, I know I forget it all too often. You can only know what you know.

Since many of our clients sell software and services to the insurance industry, it behooves us to pay attention to much of the content published in the industry’s myriad media milieus. This is a practice that yields mixed rewards: On one hand, we come across some...

Now that your taxes have been paid – unless you opted for that extension – we should draw our attention to some of the other reasons April is an important month.

Anyone who knows me and is familiar with my unflaggingly sunny disposition knows it’s pretty hard to piss me off. It takes a rare breed of presumptuous dolt and an equally rare combination of inanity and audacity to get my Irish up. But every once in a while ...Ladies...

It’s like selling a soup sandwich to a guy who didn’t know what soup was. Was the sales guy really good or did he simply find the ideal target?

Stand back, kids. Creativity is about to take it in the shorts ... again.That’s right. Last week, Accenture announced plans to acquire an advertising agency. Here’s all you need to know:Accenture is trying to add the kind of creative muscle not normally associated...

FANTASY & INTERVIEWS Do Interviews Work? JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group 4 April 2019 When it comes to hiring new employees, the current times seem pretty dire. Resumes are copied and pasted from the internet, skills are exaggerated, and interviews...

I once got a call from the publisher of a trade publication. The publisher and the publication shall remain unnamed to protect the stupefyingly unbelievable. I was in the T.F. Green airport in Providence, Rhode Island, when I received the call. I vividly remember that...

How can you change? How can you transform? It’s pretty easy to think about how other people should change, but how about yourself?

As you may have surmised from this post and myriad others, I’m no fan of Harvard Business Review (HBR). Maybe it isn’t fair to say I’m not a fan. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I don’t see the point of publishing things that are patently apparent to sentient...

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT You Are What You Eat JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group 21 March 2019 Our brains are hungrier than our stomachs. Every smell, sight, experience, and thought we encounter feeds our brains on a consistent and daily basis. What we...

In the beginning was the Narrative, and the Narrative was with Global Warming, and the Narrative was Global Warming. (Al Gore 1:1) Then the Narrative was with Climate Change, and the Narrative was Climate Change. Then all Hell broke loose. The polar vortex that...

When it comes to establishing your brand’s voice and overall personality, it may seem like an unnerving task. Are you supposed to be serious or friendly?

Before you cast those vacation plans in concrete or book flights for your next business trip, you may want to take a look at this: "Our galaxy is due to crash into its neighbor—but when?” At risk of alarmism:Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is destined to collide with its...

Will March go out like a lamb, or a white bear? I’m going to fight the urge to seek the answer to that question. And in the GSoT, does it matter?

The older of my two sons, Sean, started coaching basketball — at Saint Timothy, a Catholic Middle School in West Hartford, Connecticut — when he was just 22. It was his calling. He only lost one game in his first two seasons. That loss was the final game of the New...

Researchers at Australia National University (ANU) have discovered irrefutable evidence that humor can reduce workplace stress. So, the institution publicized the results of its research in a post called, "How humour can help reduce workplace stress", and put a u in...

Bottom line: Before you tell your story, uncover your values. And before you accept someone else’s story, uncover theirs.

As you might have surmised from reading this and this, I'm not a fan of meetings. And I've always suspected every meeting I've ever attended cost me considerably more than time. Well, now, there's apparent proof, courtesy of this study: "Implicit signals in small...

Aside from being tied for the world’s second favorite color, red is most well-known for being the extremist in the group of primary colors.

If you thought Al Gore, the Clown Prince of Self-Enriching Hysteria, was done — if you thought a Nobel, an Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy, a Webby, a few million bucks in the bank, and an energy-sucking mansion might be enough to satisfy his publicity-craving,...

RESPONSIBILITY & ACCOUNTABILITY Great Things JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group 7 February 2019 Patricia Jones thought of herself as a good person. She had grown up on the Upper East Side, attended Marymount School of New York, and for as long as she...

In a short blog post more than four years ago, I published "The 10 Commandments of Leadership". They weren't original. Since then, I've done much, learned much, and come to realize things are hardest for those who think they should be easy. They're not. If you want to...

When we find folks in our professional networks that share our values, we should hold onto them. We’re human. And we thrive together.

We were on a call with a client the other day when he said something about mergers and acquisitions (M&A). But it sounded for all the world like murders and acquisitions. And that got me to thinking.According to Investopedia:The key principle behind M&A is...

Finding our tribe seems magically delicious. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: The only way into a tribe is to be a part of a tribe.

The marketing funnel (alternatively known as the purchase funnel, the purchasing funnel, the customer funnel, the sales funnel, the conversion funnel, or the snake oil funnel) is a model that purports to show the various stages of the journey ostensibly taken by a...

It’s nice to imagine being as rare as a unicorn, but being precious can be damaging to our psyches, our lives, and our sense of enjoyment and fulfillment.

People come to me all the time and ask: "OB, how can I tell I need a brand-management program?" My answer is always the same: "There are many ways in which you can tell you need a brand-management program. But one of the most important ones is the way in which you...

PERSONALITY & GROWTH Identity JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group 10 January 2019 Have you ever taken a personality test? Did it describe the you that you always thought you were? Thinking about the way I view myself compared to the way others view me, I...

The Dilbert strip at the top of this post boggles my mind. Before I tell you why, I'd like to list some of the reasons for which it doesn't boggle my mind. It doesn't boggle my mind because: I know people use language like this. I hear it, read it, and try to keep our...

I’d like to offer a bit of advice by sharing the promise I made myself for the new year.

logotype (noun): 1. any alphabetical configuration designed to identify an individual, product, service, publication or company 2. a single piece of type that prints a word or group of separate letters 3. a single piece of type that prints a logo or emblem 4. a logo...

The omnipotent feelings of peace, magic, and acceptance are what I’d like to bring with me into 2019. I hope you’re able to conjure up some of those feelings as well.

I originally published this piece on December 24, 2015. I vaguely remembered having written it. I didn't remember at all having published it. But I'm glad I found it. I offer it now with even more fervent hope that we might recognize its universal truth, that we might...

The pressure is on – unless you happen to celebrate Hanukkah, which concluded last Monday. For the rest of us, it’s five days until Christmas!