My youngest grandchild, Samantha, will turn two at Thanksgiving She's just starting to speak words adults can recognize. Of course, the first words were "Mama" and "Dada," but the word she now says most distinctly and emphatically is This is her first four-letter street word. Or maybe she learned it ... more

I launched a years ago to support my book The Startup , and eventually let it go dark. Or dim, I It just got too hard to write frequently, and I lost sight of what the site was meant to do. This month I've been more regular, as it were, ... more

Whirlpool has just launched an effort to pull together single men and women, especially second-time singles (a new-to-me term, otherwise known as divorced) and singles over 30, around their In partnership with the relationship-connecting site , they are hosting "Spin Cycle" starting today that will include laundry-themed games, karaoke "Duets" ... more

My two kids went back to school yesterday. And the Chex Mix of their unique genetic makeup revealed itself again in their very different approaches to school My teenage son pulled his messenger bag out from somewhere deep in his closet yesterday morning, tore out the used pages in a ... more

In marketing circles, we focus on brand-building by effectively reaching customers, and getting their The business intelligentsia has been preaching about the need to connect with customers on both intellectual and emotional levels. Most of us would readily agree with that. But as marketers, we ought to ask ourselves which ... more

I received a resume today from a guy who's a former NFL player with the NY Jets and Oakland Raiders. I freaking love that. Why? Because it shows that ...the guy understands the Law of the   You can't cram on the farm.  Plan.  Sow.  Nurture.  Reap.  That's the deal.  Season after season.  ... more

Trying to keep up with who is linking to your site or mentioning your company or name can be quite a I can use my own server logs to spot a new referrer, but this isn't accurate, since that only happens if someone actually clicks on the link. There are ... more

In a cost-cutting move, many companies are selling real estate holdings, consolidating corporate campuses and encouraging employees to work from Marketing, unlike a job in manufacturing, seems to be one function suitable for telework. Is this a positive or negative trend for A recent Wall Street article titled, "When Working ... more

The Web has encouraged a belief that things can be free, or at least very cheap. It seems everyone is looking for a deal on the When the recently-leaked 20 million America Online search queries were analyzed, it was found that a great deal of people wanted free sex, free ... more

Last month I left a post on The Viral about a promotion that T-Mobile was using in the UK where they sponsored free concerts for their I wrote that I thought that the promotion was a 'step in the right direction,' but that it could be a bit better, and ... more

This week's profile of Mack Collier reveals a little about Mr. the man behind the Top 25 Marketing list as well as his 100 CDs for 100 Bloggers This series of mini-interviews is an attempt to bring you the personalities behind this blog, to connect a bit on a human ... more

But it sure helps differentiate oneself. Having recently tasked myself with mapping the very uniform search engine marketing agency landscape, I have come to realize that marketing firms are the least likely to know what makes them Take a look at these recent press [Company Name] Distinguished as 'Largest SEM ... more

My 14-year-old son, born in 1991, is certain he was born two decades too late. So, lately, he's been bringing himself up to speed on the culture of the the music (The Doors, Grateful Dead), the literature (Gore Vidal), events that defined the decade (Vietnam, Woodstock) and Dick Admittedly, Cavett ... more

Hi Daily Fix aFIXionados. I've been hunting around online for giant We're " foam fingers, but surprisingly our super-competitive culture doesn't extend that far into the numeric Regardless, the cause for foam-finger wagging is that Collier was finally able to update his list of the Top 25 Marketing , and ... more

What would you do if someone (say a known blogger) picks up your advertising campaign because he thinks you've done a good job, puts it on YouTube and spreads your message to his audience ? Would you send him a box of chocolates or a letter from your While to ... more

I've been accused of having marketing foresight. Here's On September 19th, the entry on my George Carlin daily calendar pad will "The worst thing about e-mail is that you can't interrupt the other person. You have to read the whole thing, and then e-mail them back, pointing out their mistakes ... more

This work week prior to Labor Day is understandably ...as many of us head to our favorite vacation spots to squeeze the last few juicy drops out of summer. But for those of us who are in the office, this week can be a good time to reflect and prepare ... more

As a business writer, I've always cared as much about writing as I do about business. In fact, I took the discipline of writing seriously long before seeing the practice of business as a dynamic activity. Today I care about And so, when looking for good business writing in other ... more

As a #0000ff;" marketing , increasingly I am seeing resumes in Word format that contain testimonials about the candidate at the end of the document.  Great The most effective testimonials have live to the profiles of those people providing the These same testimonials are also embedded into the candidate's Linked-in ... more

The lure of selling internationally is What easier way to expand your marketplace than to move beyond the United States? The numbers speak for themselves - a market of billions rather than millions. As the late but oft-quoted business guru Peter Drucker "E-commerce does not merely master distance, it eliminates ... more

This is Zoë Goldring here, one of the #0000ff;" over at #0000ff;" with the honor of posting for Harry this The big kerfluffle made by Apple and Google recently to protect their brand names (thanks for the #0000ff;" #0000ff;" ), got me thinking again about personal brand and protecting your ... more

At a local PR seminar this week, the speaker discussed a few of his company's corporate case studies, most of which focused on new technology and communication It isn't the first time I've heard marketers refer to their PR activities in podcasting, online social sites (like MySpace), and other new ... more

Last night, I saw a 30-second TV ad called on Visa's new "Life takes Visa" Maybe my brain has been cramped these past few days, but I reacted as negatively to this pitch as I did to seeing yesterday the marcom materials for Jeffrey Gitomer's new . (And I'm a ... more

MarketWire has announced that they will give the option of distributing press releases to social sites like Digg, Newsvine, and other related My friend B.L. Ochman doesn't like the (at all, in the least, I'm not so sure. Will the users of those sites just rebel?  Will they ignore them?  Who ... more

I'm back from the All Things conference and it was very The panel I was on discussed best practices in online political advertising. On the panel with me was Ben Katz, from completecampaigns.com (a web site in a box solution) and a woman from a Washington based-buying group who pinch-hit ... more