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Why is it so fucking complicated for people to understand Apple’s success?

Apple's Success

This is a weird little personal statistic, but I’ve been in about 20 conversations over the last six months where someone mentioned Apple (the company) and tried to explain their success, and basically got some of it right, but otherwise… Continue Reading

Move from “storytelling” to “story-making” in your branding and marketing

Storytelling vs. Story-Making

Goes something like this, I think: Old idea: Everything comes back to storytelling; that’s what the brain resonates around. If you’re in marketing, that’s what you should do. That’s essentially the keynote of most every marketing conference since 2009, and… Continue Reading

“Loyalty company” and “company with loyalty program” = different

Customer Loyalty vs. Loyalty Company

This about sums it up. Here’s a story from a couple of years ago: when my wife and I were dating, we drove up the Mississippi from Jacksonville to Minneapolis. Ironically, two years after that trip, we ended up living… Continue Reading

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No CMO + listen better = $1 billion company in 2 years. Believe in this.

Lessons of Slack as a company

I wrote about Slack maybe a year ago; at the time, it was essentially a total throw-away post. I had seen something on a business website and decided, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” Broadly, these work applications really interest me —… Continue Reading

Super Bowl ads work (EDIT: if you’re Budweiser)

Budweiser Super Bowl Ads

Super Bowl ads are costing about $4.5 million for 30 seconds this year — highest-ever — which makes sense because each year seems to get another million in that audience column; last year’s game absolutely sucked and still, somehow and… Continue Reading

Valuable content is the job of the entire marketing team

Content Marketing Is Everyone's Responsibility

Here’s what we know, generally-speaking: If you read enough blogs and marketing sites, you’d think content marketing is all the rage. It certainly is in some respects, but 65% of B2C companies and 62% of B2B companies report NOT actually having any… Continue Reading

Want to change someone’s attitude? Get certainty with consensus, repetition, ease, and defense

Establishing Certainty

A big part of life — and a huge part of work — is the ability to change someone’s attitudes or beliefs when they seem entrenched in one direction (say, on a particular project or course of action). I wrote before about… Continue Reading

Voice mail is basically dead. Is e-mail next?

Will E-Mail Die?

Even 20 years ago, everyone opened their workday by checking VMs. Now that’s a relic. Could that happen with e-mail? Continue Reading