Category Archives: Word of Mouth

The Elephant and the Fruit Fly

There are a lot of allegorical references to how speed is the answer to ruling your market. It is true that being first to market is a powerful positioning tool. We have flipped the story of the tortoise and the hare. We have accepted that faster equals better. But what if the key indicator of

On Being Patronizing

I rented and watched the movie The Soloist the other day. I want to buy it now. My wife asked me if I really thought we would watch the film enough to justify buying it. I don’t. I just want to support a good film and have it as a reminder of its message. This

Thanks

I just want to give thanks today: Thanks to you for reading my blog.  I’m grateful for my audience, no matter how small. Thanks to David Walker and the folks who put on Tulsa Techfest this week.  They did a great job organizing a very impressive event. Thanks to those who came to hear what

Top 5 Ways Advertisers Use Camouflage

The military spends tons of money to make something blend in and then loses it. Sounds pretty stupid when the army does it, yet advertisers do something even more inept. They spend an insane amount of money buying ad space to get attention, but then camouflage their ads. They still remain invisible because of clutter,

Conspiracy vs. Collaboration

There are two models of communication at play today. Conspiracy or Collaboration There are times when conspiracy is a necessary evil. Most of the time though, conspiracy is a detriment to our relationships. It limits us and pits us against one another. Which do you use in your business? … in your church? … with

Moving to The Frontline

Some dreams are lived. Some die. Others change. For almost two years, I’ve been the creative director at Beyond Marketing & Advertising. I started that endeavor with high expectations for what I could accomplish and what we could create as a company. Some of those expectations were met, others were not. Overall, it was a

Communers and Commuters

A friend of mine was considering a position as pastor of a church. The church is an hour or so away. He declined the position because of the distance. My wife said the church probably would want someone who lived in their community anyway. She’s right. Not only is proximity an issue, but there’s something

What’s Your Story(line)

Great article by Guy Kawasaki explaining Lois Kelley’s Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing. I would probably add one more story line… Leaving Ruin. These are stories of the pheonix rising from the ashes. How a person, group or organization survived certain peril. How they turned the ship around when all seemed lost. This story

SnapThoughts (6/29/07)

As a fun little riff, I thought I’d share with you a variety of snapshots from my cell phone and a few thoughts on each: This is called a Whisper Phone. Our daughter’s elementary school teacher showed it to us at a parent/teacher conference. Children use the whisper phone so they can hear themselves read

Wanna Be Lucas?

If you ever wanted to create your own Star Wars movie, now’s your chance… kinda. In celebration of their 30th Anniversary, Star Wars has unveiled mashup.starwars.com.  It contains about 250 clips and an online editor, allowing fans to mix and match clips together… creating various scenarios. It’s not perfect, so you have to use your

Hollerin’

Here are a few tidbits from my presentation yesterday. I spent most of my blog time (and more) preparing to speak at Entrepreneur’s Day, so this might be my only post this week. The Marketing Proverb If this is a marketing proverb, what is the moral? or, some ad agencies prefer to …simply entertain. Do

Follwoing Direcitons

I was talking with a friend yesterday and he mentioned how his real estate tours website uses technology not recommended by the experts. He should be using video-streaming servers and paying thousands of dollars a month in hosting. They told him his technology wouldn’t work… but it does. I used to be the marketing director

The Baton

I just got this email from Staples today.  My wife and I are trying to organize our home office, so I thought I would foward it to her.  There’s no “forward to a friend” button.  I could forward the email myself, but these HTML emails never look right when I send them. There was link

Polarizing Cupcakes

I was recently reading about the new Apple Mac Pro computers on digg. What’s most interesting is the reaction Apple gets from any announcement. Apple fans usually love it. Apple haters hate it (go figure). Reading their comments on digg is not for the faint of heart. Why does Apple alienate these people? All they

Here It Goes Again…

Nearly 2.5 million views in two weeks. I can’t stop playing this video. I think the beauty of it is how a big, polished production doesn’t get in the way of the even bigger idea. The music’s pretty good too. Send a link to your friends. Bloglines viewers click here: Hat tip: Bill Kinnon