A good year.

  Ah, 2010. Judging by the time capsule, it was a busy 12 months. I was given the opportunity to present at a number of pretty fly conferences all over the world. I got to spend my first real European vacation (or vacation of any kind) in over a decade, reconnected with two of my [...]

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Artifacts of Influence: grassroots movements, familiar strangers and the power of the social media daisy chain.

On Grassroots and cracking the notion that power influencers drive product acceptance in the market: “Why have Google and Apple done so well in the last [few] years? Because the grassroots love them. That’s the power root of the industry. Ideas here don’t come from the big influencers and move down. No, they start on [...]

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The danger of not doing what you love, and other wisdom.

No talk of social media today. Instead, let’s turn our attention to slightly more interesting topics that might come in handy as everyone is busy putting the finishing touches on their 2011 planning. On innovation, grabbing life by the horns, and not pissing your life away: “Do things that are gaspworthy.” That was one of [...]

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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noël à tous. Have a safe and wonderful weekend.

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A simple question.

Question: What would the social media world be like if I stopped doing what I do? Answer: It would be exactly the same. Judging by what I see happening in “the industry,” I am failing. What’s worse is I have been failing for the last 2 years. ROI is still a question-mark for most social [...]

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Personal Branding Preys on Self Esteem Needs – with Geoff Livingston

By Geoff Livingston and Olivier Blanchard. The Personal Branding Trap by Geoff Everyone in life wants to be loved on a personal basis, and received well professionally. When feelings of inadequacy arise — self esteem — it’s natural to look for solutions to improve a sense of worth. The most disturbing (and the least talked about) [...]

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How Marketing is choking the life out of social communications and social media – Part 1

Back in the day, social activity was a handshake on the sales floor. It was a beer after work. It was a cup of coffee or afternoon tea. It was a tennis match or a game of chess. It was lunch. It was a conversation at a party. It was a friendly hello on the [...]

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How to manage an enterprise Twitter presence: Avatars, account structure, and basic response methodology

  (From the vault but as valuable today as it was then.) Keith Burtis asks a pretty interesting question on his blog sometime ago: I have been working with a few brands of late that have told me that they prefer to have their logo over a human face as their avatar on twitter. At [...]

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