Lightning Rod

by | Oct 30, 2014

We once consulted with a company that had developed a new software application for revenue-cycle management. Their initial target market was large hospitals and medical centers. Justifiably jazzed, the company got its sales team revved up. It hired a telemarketing...

Number, Please

by | Oct 29, 2014

Jonathan Spiliotopoulos, one of my O’Brien Communications Group partners, a friend, and an estimable thinker, wrote this note to me one day after he’d read a blog post in which the author was beefing about web-based ad blockers: Companies complain about...
The Science of Best Practices

The Science of Best Practices

by | Oct 27, 2014

Though we’ve written about best practices before, we still hear references to them and read articles about them with disarming frequency. That frequency is disarming because it reflects stasis — a kind of settling for inactivity or unimaginativeness, rather than...
Dracula’s Choice

Dracula’s Choice

by | Oct 22, 2014

Here are two direct quotes from real companies, spoken to me in face-to-face conversations: Company #1: We have to suspend marketing because revenues are tight, and we have to cut expenses. Company #2: We’re not going to continue marketing because all of the...
In the Minority

In the Minority

by | Oct 20, 2014

I saw a LinkedIn update the other day notifying me that the enterprise of one of my professional connections had just qualified as a woman-owned minority business (WOMB). Needless to say, the acronym struck me as apt, since it’s hard to imagine anything more...