Note: A version of this essay appeared in EE Times. Beleaguered. That’s the word that seems tethered to Huawei these days. Yet, “beset with difficulties” doesn’t quite capture what the telecom giant is experiencing. As a student of communications — the type with words, not satellites — I’ve been observing Huawei from afar since …more
By Mandy Heiser, Account Executive Let’s take a look at the top Google results for the recommended search “china and us”: What about “us and china”? Let’s pull out a few phrases: “high-stakes trade”, “far apart”, “fail to reach agreement” “fighting for global power” … The story these search results …more
Imagine that. I’ve railed over the years that most prepared quotes have the stiffness of plywood. A couple of years ago I randomly selected 50 news releases from the wire services and extracted the quotes for study. The following cross section of samples captures the essence: “We are very proud of the inauguration of our …more
What does a shovel have to do with storytelling? Everything. Many of our clients come from the B2B tech world where hearts race from inventing a way to increase the spin-torque efficiency of a memory device. While these types of stories hold great importance to the people who use a given technology, they typically aren’t …more
A few years ago BuzzFeed proved what everyone has always believed in theory. If you stretch enough rubber bands around a watermelon, it will eventually succumb to the pressure in one glorious Kodak moment. Not exactly the journalism practiced by Cronkite or Woodward and Bernstein. Still, Seedgate attracted almost a million people who …more
The battle between New England and Los Angeles in the 2019 Super Bowl didn’t exactly turn out to be a humdinger (old-school adjective fits the style of play). I found the ads to be a letdown as well. Maybe it was an unrealistic expectation, but I was hoping to watch 60 seconds of storytelling that …more
I don’t smoke. My one and only experience with cigarettes was sneaking some coins into a vending machine when I around 14 to buy a pack of Marlboros. I don’t think I got past the first puff before I concluded coughing wasn’t fun. Still, the professional side of me has paid attention to Juul’s communications …more
Yes, President Trump capitulated last Friday, and the U.S. government is once again open for business. But his quest for a wall isn’t going away, and it has nothing to do with securing our borders. Instead, Trump is looking to establish a symbol of his legacy that works better on Instagram than a presidential library. …more
We live in a world that correlates speed with business success. Often, it’s not about inventing the best solution. It’s about getting there first and then fending off competitors parallel to trying to get the product right. But building a brand is not a transaction or a campaign. It requires time. Those same fast-twitch muscles …more
