The Rentership Society
The classic American modus operandi: owning a car, a house with a white picket fence, and having 2.5 kids. Renting: the Anti American Dream (no hyphen intended). Or, is it? Wired recently published an article asking its readers to abandon ownership for services such as Netflix and now the Kindle Lending Club, where Amazon users can lend their...
An historical perspective on how to verb yourself
If you eat beef, then you’ll relate to this article. Let me explain. When one sits at the dinner table, we take the time to eat beef and not cow (or pork and not pig). A little thing called history comes into play. Back in the day, there was a lot of fighting. And, I...
Podcast: Why all the warfare in marketing?
Terms in marketing have a war-like connotation and there are reasons for that: Click to listen: Why all the warfare in marketing?History Pre-rennaissance (Dark Ages) Merchant class Perceived competition from aristocracy Charters were set up for corporations Marriage between kings and corporations began a conquest that has not ended Terms Targets (extracts value from the...
Why cool can’t be bought (or faked)
Ever been to a shindig and the popular, Nickelback-lovin’ rock ‘n roller dude walks in and tries to fit in with the cool kids, only to make himself look like a fool because his fashion is about 2 years old and probably got his coach to negotiate his grades? Yeah, that guy. I really don’t...
Marketing the medium
One thing that really upsets me is the way marketers view digital media. It really does. I don’t mean to go to negative-town, but I really need to explain it to those who just don’t get it. If Philo T. Farnsworth , the inventor of television, were alive today, he would tell you about all...
The Hacker Generation
In order to understand how we got here, we’ve got to understand where we’ve been. While Generation X was the Slacker Generation, I’ve deemed ours the Hacker Generation Below is a algebraic representation of how the controllers (the elite) beckoned new media capabilities to the masses. Put simply, if all you could do is believe,...
Individualism is an out of touch PR term
It usually goes like this: X&Y brand is bringing you the latest [insert contest or promotion here] for you to express your individualism and creativity. I’ve been forced to write this false sense of a term in a press release before, even after I persistently fought against using it, especially because of the demographic. First...
Data + Art = Epic
I’m starting to get more into infographics (“information graphics”) for a couple of reasons: I love data. I’m a researcher at heart for truth and consequences. I love beauty. Aesthetics matter. Put those two together and something epic comes out. There are two blogs I’ve discovered that put these together. Cool Infographics Transparency from Good...
