by Mark O'Brien | Dec 22, 2014
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...
by Mark O'Brien | Dec 16, 2014
It was a dark and stormy night. I was sitting in my office at the corner of Bleak and Bleaker when the phone rang. I’m no clairvoyant. But I knew something was wrong before I even answered. Maybe it was my female intuition. “O’Brien?” “Yeah.” “It’s Millwood...
by Mark O'Brien | Dec 1, 2014
You walk into a doctor’s office with a week-old hangnail. It’s still painful and showing signs of infection. The doctor asks no questions, hands you a bottle, tells you to put two drops in each ear twice daily, and call him in a week if you’re not feeling...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 25, 2014
Here are Immutable Communication Rules 1 through 3: We are not the target audience. We are not the target audience. We are not the target audience. Here are Immutable Communication Rules 4 through 6: If technical people could communicate with non-technical people, God...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 21, 2014
Inbound marketing is a dangerous concept. There. I’ve said it. Combining pie in the sky, fantasy, delusion, and something like reckless lunacy, it panders to the misbegotten fantasies of every organization that thinks SEO and social media are latter-day...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 20, 2014
Human psychology doesn’t play nice with the relationships between price, cost, and value. To illustrate the point, I offer this letter to a hypothetical client, a company with no brand recognition in its target market. The company is reluctant to commit to an...
