The most successful marketing campaign I ever created promised to save people money. It did the opposite. Today, America's cellphone carriers are using the same marketing trick on YOU. I knew it was evil when my partner in the boutique marketing agency we ran introduced the campaign idea to our credit union client. It would … Continue reading You Are Getting Screwed
Why Tech WON'T Fix Your Business A while back, a friend asked me what I thought about him taking a job offer at MIX. “They’re the reboot of StumbledUpon,” he’d told me. “They want me to improve their recommendation engine, to keep the users they have with better recs, and to get new users by … Continue reading What Happened at MIX
Need an IDEA [that will likely SELL] to Startup? Many want to be entrepreneurs, but most people lack product ideas, or can’t think of a service (or app) that isn’t already available. For over a decade, I taught entrepreneurship at Stanford and Cal Berkeley/Haas. I designed a course to teach the process of turning an IDEA (or … Continue reading How to Generate Product IDEAS
What motivates people to RESPOND (click, like, share, comment), and CONVERT (buy, try, sign-up, subscribe) from your marketing efforts? This is a very important question, because the point of marketing is to get people to [think or] do what our campaigns [suggest or] direct them to do. At the foundation of all marketing is Psychology. … Continue reading Marketing Data Science
Your phone is a tool you're using, or a tool that's using you... I’m watching The Politician on Netflix while working out. The scene is on a teen and mom in their kitchen, arguing about which state senator to vote for in the upcoming New York election. Teen is a first-time voter, just 18. She’s … Continue reading R.I.P. Information Hwy
Marketing 101: How to motivate people to DO what you want them to do… An entrepreneur recently asked me: “What specific skills or knowledge do you believe will be most crucial for aspiring entrepreneurs in 2025 to navigate this complex and dynamic environment?” My response: “The greater understanding one has of what motivates people, individually … Continue reading Engage in Learning About People
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2mZnXeKz2I9AwrAugpTtQF?si=xbDknxyRRw2dxhlhT2am0w My second job out of college I was the Art Director for 1928 Jewelry Co. The company is still alive and vital today, quite a monument to startup lore. My boss, Fred Burglass, was the best boss I've ever had. Funny. Kind. Patient. Smart. I really loved that man. He was like a father … Continue reading On Networking
I had a conversation with my former financial advisor when the markets were crashing back in ‘08. I asked him to give me an estimate, his best, ostensibly educated guess when the market might turn around or at least stabilize. He assured me it would be soon. The credit default scandal had already been exposed. Real estate foreclosures … Continue reading The 5% Factor in Finance
