I know namedropping isn’t proper etiquette. But I can’t help myself. Alexander McCall Smith – yes THE Alexander McCall Smith who created Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series – was kind enough to send the following e-mail my way: If you missed the Word Craft post last week, a little bit of background – …more
Government entities have always recognized the benefit of media-like qualities. Heck, the U.S. military publishes “Stars and Stripes.” One could argue the White House jumped on this bandwagon during the Hoover administration when it created the position of White House press secretary. But the Obama administration takes the “every organization is media” mantra to the next …more
I must have missed the memo. Late last year The Wall Street Journal added a column to its weekend lineup called “Word Craft.” Lest you find the above sentence on the understated side, consider the October “Word Craft” contribution, “Block That Adjective!” by Alexander McCall Smith. If you’re going to pen a column about concise …more
Everyone pays attention to Google. When Google announced that founder Larry Page will take the CEO reins, virtually every media property in the world automatically reported on the news. The company’s PR machine doesn’t have to lift a toe (even less effort than a finger) to create demand. With that said, if you reverse engineer the fireworks from last week, one …more
Perhaps 2011 will go down as the “Year of Storytelling.” Peter Guber’s much anticipated book “Tell To Win” officially comes out on March 1 (book review in the works). Plus, I’ve noticed more dialog within the business community on storytelling – more specifically, does it work? That’s really the ultimate question and one that inevitably surfaces when I’m …more
One benefit from 20+ years of operation is the amount of historical information allows you to see clear patterns. Along this line, I went through the exercise of scrutinizing what causes a client relationship to end. Obviously, some variables are out of our control. In this era of consolidations, a merger or acquisition typically causes one …more
A good friend passed away last week. His name was Dud Daniel. Steve Fowler, who I grew up with in Tucson, wrote the following tribute to Dud. Steve and I both attended the University of Arizona and joined Phi Psi at the same time which deepened our friendship (truth to be told, I thought he was a …more
Technorati lists over 24,000 tech blogs. I think I’m on safe ground in saying that only a few were started by 10-year-olds. Now at the seasoned age of 12, Max Swisher sat down with me at Great Bear Coffee in Los Gatos for an on-the-record discussion of his blog, “Good Morning Geek.” I published the …more
There are thousands of tech blogs out there. Few are manned by a 12-year-old. But “Good Morning Geek” from Max Swisher isn’t a gimmick that challenges child labor laws. Max knows his stuff and has developed his own voice. If you watch the video and say “I could totally imagine this on dolby surround sound!,” …more
