We tend to speak of democratization as though it were unilaterally good. The democratization of media means that anyone can become a journalist. All you need is a blog or social media account. The democratization of photography means that anyone with a smartphone can become a photographer. The democratization of education means that anyone with…
Hope isn’t a feeling. Hope is an action. Hope is choosing to believe that there is more than this. This is what hope looks like: The young lady pictured above is Haineyehya. She’s 6 years old, and you’re looking at her living room: a burlap cloth on top of rough gravel. There’s a famous saying:…
If you’re anything like me, you probably have a personal Google account. You probably have a work Google account. If you work with any partners, vendors, agencies, or clients, you probably even have Google logins for them. The uncomfortable reality of multiple accounts is that disastrous mistakes are merely a click or two away, from…
We live in challenging times. There are so many opportunities for us to make ourselves sick with worry, so many ways to fill our days, nights, and Facebook feeds with anguish. Some of the worry is vicarious, and some of it is incredibly personal and firsthand. All that anxiety takes a tremendous toll on ourselves,…
Over the past few weeks, as 2015 ramps down, many marketers are deep into 2016 planning. I’ve had the chance to see many plans, large and small, from companies that are household names to companies you’ve never heard of. A fair number of those plans have the same flaws, the same lack of structure that…
Creativity is much like any other form of working out, be it physical or mental. If you do very little on a regular basis, you have very little to draw on when you need it most. If you work out at high intensity every day, you become far more capable. Creativity is no different. If…
A number of industries are predicated on the idea of a gatekeeper: Education is predicated on the idea of the teacher as the gatekeeper of knowledge. News media is predicated on the idea of the news outlet as the gatekeeper of news. Information technology is predicated on the idea of the IT department as the…
Content is no longer king. It hasn’t been for some time, ever since we realized as a marketing community that Content Shock has hit us hard. Between an ever-increasing abundance of content and algorithms designed to reduce the effectiveness of unpaid reach, content has been dethroned. Is it still important? Absolutely. Is it the most…
