Featured Writers

Re-syndicated from MENGonline.com I love and hate the word why. I was a journalism major in college and helped put myself through school working as a reporter, so I learned to use those classic journalism questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?  Note:  I’ve added one more since I’ve been in business: How much? I think that Continue Reading →

1.    Groupon’s IPO: We’ve wasted too much time, writing about Groupon’s problems, challenges, opportunities and internal machinations. I’m as guilty as anyone. The IPO filing moved the conversation from pundits to the market. As it should be. 2.    Google+: Since we don’t have to focus on Groupon anymore, Google+ gave marketers more fodder to discuss Continue Reading →

There are few brands that fail to recognize the power of social media on their businesses. But it appears that many brand teams choose to outsource social media to minimally empowered internal or external teams instead of making a genuine commitment to listen, participate, and respond to social discussions online. I’m not suggesting that assigning Continue Reading →

At RBM we’ve always believed there is magic in the data. Companies that have dominated the online space – Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yelp – are successful because they realize that through data lies the pathway to better digital interaction. Many experts now predict that the proliferation of Big Data will eventually create the opportunities that Continue Reading →

Although halfalogue was one of the Words of the Year according to the New York Times one year ago, I didn’t hear about it until this week when I looked at the 2012 Old Farmers Almanac. You probably already know what I just learned: Halfalogue is half of a cell phone conversation heard involuntarily. I Continue Reading →

Facebook is a terrible tool to build communities outside of your immediate friends and family. It’s a good platform to maintain existing relationships. It performs badly when it comes to creating new communities based on shared interests. I’m still active in many forums and stats show they tend to build powerful, long-lasting communities. The emergence Continue Reading →

Re-syndicated from New York Videogame Critics Circle Back in April, I was scheduled to speak on a radio station located in a small town in the Midwest. Crown, the publishers of All Your Base Are Belong to Us, had arranged the interview, one of about 60 I did during that month. One of the questioners Continue Reading →

Re-syndicated from KellerFay.com In Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson talks about the seven industries that Steve Jobs revolutionized:  personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, digital publishing, and retailing. As we approach Thanksgiving and “Black Friday,” the most important day in retail, let’s consider how the Apple Stores changed business retail, which is the topic Continue Reading →

Every time a subordinate, peer or potential vendor asks me to agree to do something, my mind quickly races through a list of eight questions: 1. Do I believe this could be important? If not, why would I do it? 2. Do I believe this will be successful? If not, is there anything I can Continue Reading →

Note: This column was published in the most recent Shift Age Newsletter. You can sign up here for a free subscription. It was one hundred and six years ago that Albert Einstein stated that the speed limit of the cosmos was the speed of light – 186,000 miles per second. The speed of light, the Continue Reading →