From the category archives:
Very good reminder here about the way words get diluted, and then useless. In my early days in the PC industry all software was supposedly “user friendly.” And that phrase ended up mocking, humorous, a caricature of hype.
In this same vein, Steve McKee writes Five Words to Never Use in an Ad in BusinessWeek. And [...]
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You know who you are. You hate selling, but here you are, making your way as entrepreneur, having to sell or sink.
Me? I’m a terrible salesperson. I’m also bad at networking, cocktail parties, and small talk with people I don’t know. Do I seem stuck up, aloof? Not really, just awkward.
I’m probably still scarred from [...]
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What’s wrong with having some fun with labels and packaging? Nothing that I’m aware of. Although BusinessWeek doesn’t seem to like it.
My wife and one of my daughters came home one Sunday afternoon with a bottle of Shiraz from Virgin Vines. This is what it said on the label:
Dare to enjoy this wine without dashes [...]
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I picked this up while browsing Seth Godin’s recent post over the weekend. He had it here, as part of a riff on the new world of commercial advertising on YouTube. Good post too, but I ended up thinking this Dove commercial on YouTube deserves special attention.
(If you don’t see the video, click here for [...]
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Blogs are supposed to be personal, right? So allow me to personalize. Let’s consider the plight of one Megan Berry, 22 years old today, graduating from Stanford in two months with close to straight As.
Megan wants a job. More specifically, she wants a job related to social media and Internet marketing in the Silicon Valley.
In [...]
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I’m amazed at what some people put forward as ideas and proposals and suggestions. I can feel your pain, I think, if you’re trying to drum up business during this recession. Don’t make it harder for yourself.
Technically, start your letter with “You.” Start your email, start your phone call, start your tweet with “You.” As [...]
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Almost 20 Years ago I developed a software product called Forecaster. You start with an empty chart. Then you assign values to vertical and horizontal. Then you draw a line with your mouse, and Forecaster generates the numbers that correspond to the line.
It was built as something you could use in a business plan. [...]
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Are you in the business of teaching? Or guiding, or coaching, or consulting? About 40 years ago a guy named Jack taught me his job in a sugar processing plant. He ran two enormous liquid vats that used acid and…
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I was facing a Sunday afternoon by myself, middle of a three-day weekend, when I saw a link to this and started watching. I couldn’t stop. Seth Godin does this extremely well. It’s worth every minute — and it’s 109…
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