Reading Time: 2 min Over the years, I’ve tried to make the slides for talks that I give have fewer and fewer words on them. Generally speaking, that’s a good thing to do. For example, here is a slide from a typical Apple presentation: Or Google: Or someone like Seth Godin: Funny enough, one of Seth’s talking points about […]
Marketing
Word of mouth dominates marketing
Reading Time: 2 min As a partner in a digital marketing firm, I can appreciate the value of various digital marketing tactics. Search engine optimization, email marketing, digital ads, social media, and many other techniques can do amazing things to help get the word out about your company. Ultimately, though, the best marketing for most consumers is one that […]
Empathetic Marketing
Reading Time: 3 min The single best thing you can do with your marketing is to always keep the end user in mind. When we build websites for our customers, we frequently remind them that the site is not for them — it’s for their customers. A common joke among web designers is that clients always seem to want […]
As automation speeds up, relationships will reign
Reading Time: 2 min I recently shared a glimpse into the “bad side of AI“, where I’m starting to get some automated comments on social media and it’s likely to get much worse. The side I fear a bit more is the coming glut of AI-personalized email spam, at huge scale. Microsoft has unveiled Viva Sales and Salesforce announced […]
Powerful systems that work come from simple systems that worked
Reading Time: < 1 min Nearly 14 years in, our process for building websites and digital marketing strategies is pretty fantastic. The outcomes, both visually and financially, are a winner for everyone involved. 14 years ago the process wasn’t nearly as strong or detailed, but it worked, and helped lead us to where we are today. In his book “The […]
Negotiate with more questions
Reading Time: 2 min I always find it interesting when the data shows the opposite of what I expect. It could be something like Simpson’s Paradox, which is just so weird, or the idea that expert poker players fold 3x more often than an amateur player. In Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take” he shares a study from Neil […]
Everybody has a personal brand
Reading Time: < 1 min Some people choose to spend time developing their personal brand, and some don’t, but everybody has one whether they want to or not. The question is whether you want to own that brand or just let it default to what others have to say. As we’ve been looking at potential candidates for a few roles […]
The future of AI
Reading Time: 6 min We’re at a fascinating point in the history of computing, as most people think that we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to artificial intelligence. While everyone (myself included) has been stunned by the quality of tools like ChatGPT, the software has already become incredibly better in just a few months […]
“I like it.” Thanks, I guess?
Reading Time: < 1 min A few weeks ago, I shared my thoughts that feedback is a gift, and it really is. In that post I mentioned that the key is for feedback to have positive intentions behind it. However, good feedback also needs to have some meat. Around the same time I wrote that post, my friend Brandie wrote […]
A trusted partner?
Reading Time: 2 min I get a lot of spam in my inbox every day, and I’m sure you do too. Most of it is just blatant spam, but there is still a subset of it that thinks that it’s just “cold marketing” — which I still categorize as spam. I think a lot of that comes from folks […]