Every year as part of my trend research and idea gathering, I go through more than a hundred business books and select my shortlist of 15 best ones published in 2016 to share with you. These are all profiled in a short presentation along with a review of each and my selections for the Most
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This week the Internet went crazy talking about how Brangelina split. Despite how important that “news” might be – it’s clearly not the kind of “non-obvious” story I have to share today. Instead, this week’s underappreciated marketing stories feature YouTube’s desperate plan to fix their longtime problem with comments, a glimpse into what Netflix might do
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Social media has always been the home of meaningless indignation. What do you do when you’re angry about something no one else cares about? Share it on social media. So as we started to each find our own voices on a platform that could reach micro-audiences, the easy thing to do was to use it
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Facebook has brands worried … again. A recent article headline from Ad Age magazine summed up this concern perfectly, announcing that “Facebook Cuts Brands’ Reach Once Again.” Of course they did. One of the biggest issues facing the largest social media platforms today is how to monetize their offerings. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are all working
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I have suffered through reading more social media books than you can imagine. Thanks to ten years of blogging and writing several marketing books along the way, I’m clearly on the “official” list of potential book reviewers. Unfortunately after reading dozens of these hastily published books over the years, I find it hard to recall
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Marketers love to celebrate forgettable things. Every week I read magazines covering the most popular marketing campaigns of the moment. Reading about creative campaigns is fun. Yet it is easy to underappreciate the brands who take a long term view. The brands that choose to skip the quest for momentary results can be forgotten in
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After two days of conversations about social media with 25 of the world’s largest brands, perhaps the nicest benefit is that you don’t hear the same conclusions or experiences over and over. For the third year in a row, I had the chance to moderate and lead the Corporate Social Media Summit in NY – which
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If I said I never used anything I learned in algebra class, I’d be lying. In my career as a marketer and communicator, I’ve never had much use for sophisticated math. But I have had plenty of use for the life lesson that algebra offered – of being forced to do something uninteresting simply because
Continue reading »There is an under appreciated difference between a story and an idea. A story is captivating and memorable. It entertains and often stays with you for longer than you thought it would. An idea, in contrast, is a spark. It happens in a moment and then it’s gone. And if you missed it or if
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There is a wonderful feature on the new Amazon Kindle to help keep children from becoming too dormant. The feature, called Kindle FreeTime, lets parents measure and limit “screen time.” Given the amount of time many of us spend on social media, the feature does inspire an interesting thought … What if someone offered the
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