If We’re So Smart: Lately, there have been many articles on most media platforms about how we humans are purposely manipulated by other humans. On the surface, that seems a bit crazy. After all, we are the most intelligent species on earth, right? Yet, we see suckers being born every day. The Silly Season Let’s start with the misleading and …
Book Review: 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib
Persuaded: I will admit that I picked this book up with grave misgivings. I was asked by the author’s assistant to review the book but declined to do so. Coincidentally, a week later, one of my clients was looking for a way to get his leadership team on the same page when it came to marketing and sales. So, I …
Monkey Business
Capuchin Economics: M. Keith Chen (now at UCLA) studied the economic activity of Capuchin and Tamarin monkeys. What I find fascinating is that he first taught the monkeys how to use money (in this case, metal washers) to trade. It took a while, but they learned the value of money for trading. They learned to act mostly in their own …
To Sell Is Unethical
Well, I suspect that the title got some emotional responses. I am sure to see many emails from my friends in sales. So I might as well get started. Sell: to deliver or give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty and especially for personal gain Betray – often used with out <sell out their country> (a) to give …
Rip-off?
A Bit of a Rant <rant> I’m doing my usual thing of reading an e-book. I am annoyed by Amazon SPAMing me with an ad to purchase the audio files to go with the book. Really? I understand how convenient it is to have an audio version of books and newspapers. I listen to podcasts and The Economist all the …
Advertising is Almost Always Irrelevant
Advertising Sucks I try hard to find differing views on topics of interest to mitigate confirmation bias as much as possible. Still, it’s a good feeling to have someone like Jeff Jarvis agree with me on a hot topic such as advertising! Over on his Buzz Machine blog post, Advertising Sucks, he goes to great lengths to explain why advertising …
What If?
There has been much talk about the efficacy of advertising. It seems folks are especially questioning the “old line” stuff like direct mail, telemarketing, and print advertising. I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past several years. So I’ve developed a bit of a bias. I believe that advertising is in a fairly steep decline in efficacy. So …
This Blog Post Brought To You By . . .
Sponsored? Nobody. That’s right, NO sponsors, advertisers, or interested third parties. You see no ad banners, no links to products (other than links to the books I review), and I can assure you that nobody is paying me to adjust my opinions to their advantage. And only rarely do you find a post mentioning (let alone “pushing”) my services to …
The Ad-Man Dieth . . .
There was a “spot” on the technology podcast I regularly watch which indicated that a company was going to make new software available for cell phone providers. What was interesting is that this new software is designed to strip ads out of content before it is delivered to the user. One telecom company has already signed up. Of course, there …
How Not to do Your Blog
As some of you may know, I “publish” a monthly e-newsletter. It comprises blog posts I’ve written as well as a column of the more active posts I’ve made on other social media sites — LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The social media posts go out every day — at least three each morning. I try to mix up the sources, but …