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 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...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 17, 2015
According to this article in Inc., “9 Things You Should Never Ask Employees To Do”, two things are absolute no-nos: Ask employees to evaluate themselves. Ask employees to evaluate their peers. When you’re as bureaucracy-averse as I am, advice like...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 16, 2015
I frequently receive unsolicited spam. But I repeat myself. Among the most frequent spammers is something calling itself the Reverse Logistics Association (RLA). Until I went on its website to find out what it was and what it did, my only recourse was to guess at what...
