by Mark O'Brien | Oct 31, 2016
A confession: As a late-blooming college student (I was 28 when I hit the hallowed halls of higher education), I became a Literature major because I didn’t have the vaguest notion of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don’t. I still haven’t...
by Mark O'Brien | Aug 1, 2016
The other day, I saw the LinkedIn profile of a person who’d given himself the title, Freelance Conceptor. When I saw it, I thought, as Robbie Robertson says, “Oh, this is sure stirrin’ up some ghosts for me.” Contemplate that for a moment. For...
by Mark O'Brien | May 23, 2016
After recent revelations about the homogenization and routinization of everything, I suppose it makes a bit of logical sense that we should now be on to trivialization. But this latest revelation seems somehow more dire than its predecessors in that it has the...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 11, 2016
Attention brand managers: In case you haven’t yet gotten the memo, you now work for your social-media person. That’s right. According to the social-media person who authored this gem — “Branding isn’t dead, but it’s no longer in your...
by Mark O'Brien | Mar 4, 2016
Some syntactical constructions are a little harder to penetrate than others. The following snippet requires a hammer drill with a diamond bit to permeate, after which it could still stand some explication. The snippet comes from an article entitled, “Why The...
by Mark O'Brien | Jan 29, 2016
This may seem premature. But I’m wondering if you’re confused yet. Good. So am I. Since I’m in the marketing and advertising businesses, at least to a certain extent, I’m always curious (Wow! What’s that?), intrigued (Hey! That’s...
