Click Your Heels

Click Your Heels

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...
The Cult of Personality

The Cult of Personality

Cults of personality are defined as arising from the use of mass media to create idealized images. But that definition is incomplete because it neglects our agency in the process of idealization; that is, without our consumption of mass media — and without our...
Deep Thoughts

Deep Thoughts

Matilda: Do you think Bigfoot is real? Sammy: Some guy in Texas says he has pictures of him. Matilda: Those turned out to be Photoshopped. Sammy: How do you know? Matilda: I studied photo re-touching in Obedience School. Sammy:  I thought that was just for sitting and...
Hype Dreams

Hype Dreams

Dow Jones hasn’t updated its list of the top gobbledygook terms since 2008. But the world hasn’t changed all that much over the past few years. The business lexicon has changed even less. Buzzwords are like Pit Bulls with ankles: Once their jaws are clenched, it...
Land of Confucian*

Land of Confucian*

First I would straighten out the language. (Confucius, asked how he would restore order to the world) I’ve worked for three of America’s major insurance and financial services organizations. Those are the terms by which those companies chose to describe themselves,...