Brands in 3 Dimensions

Why is your company in business? Let’s consider three drivers that shape any business, and see what they say about your brand.
Every company or individual goes into business with the goal of Doing Well. This is the baseline level of commerce. At the very least, you want your revenue to exceed your expenses, and to [...]

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A Trip-up at Vanity Fair

I have no girls, and so the whole Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus phenomenon has, up to now, passed me by. However, just last week, I read through a magazine article expressing appreciation for how this young lady has managed to keep a relatively pure image, and avoid the scandals of other tween/teen starlets.
Unfortunately, with fame and [...]

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A Whine about Twine (and other platforms)

I was intrigued by the description of a new social web platform called Twine, so I accepted an invite to the Beta, and started exploring a bit this morning.
Twine is digging into some concepts of the semantic web, and its purported approach mirrors some ruminations I’ve had about Web 3.0/4.0/5.0 whatever-you-want-to-call-it (long post brewing for [...]

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Municipal Marketing

Who wouldn’t want to live in a town that had a sense of humor?

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Cheerful Brand Ambassadors

While traveling on business, a stream of unknown and soon-forgotten people flows past. In airports, on the plane, in buses or trains, on the street – nameless individuals pass at arm’s length, or engage in perfunctory  social or commercial exchanges.
Once again experiencing a flight delay this week, I shuffled forward in my normal travel shell, [...]

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Contact Manglement

OK, I’m finally doing it this week.
Recently, I bought an iPhone in order to try to consolidate cell phone, calendar, contacts, music, and whatever into one device. It’s a very cool machine…but I’ve been putting off one very painful task.
I have contacts scattered through at least 3 main applications – my Yahoo mail program, a [...]

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Putting the “We” in Social Media

We have a branding challenge.
Those of us involved in social media are breaking new ground, and with that, there’s a certain degree of messiness. As in, a proliferation of terms used to express this new world where there is no barrier to entry for any and all of us to publish and participate.
Social Media. Web [...]

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300 and counting!

I just noticed on my WordPress dashboard that THIS is my 300th post on the Stickyfigure blog!
And what is foremost on my mind when I think about that milestone?
How thankful I am to be so much richer, as part of this marketing/blogging/Twittering/socializing community.
I never anticipated what would happen following my first missive (How to Waste [...]

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Consider it…Solved?

While browsing through Forbes magazine, I came across a series of 3 full-page ads, taken out by Emerson (tagline: Consider it Solved).
Boy, do they have a marketing challenge to solve.
Emerson, like conglomerates such as United Technologies, Siemens, and GE, are into just about everything. The three Emerson ads I viewed talked about wireless plant operation, [...]

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Marketing: a long-term, steady commitment

Seth Godin nails it, right here.
Why blog, Twitter, and otherwise communicate over time? Because trust takes time to build. Ad campaigns tend to aim at the short-term. Those of us seeking to create a robust and bond-building brand over time see the long-term benefits of social media tools.
It ain’t a whole lot more complicated than [...]

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Alone again. Notreally.

(with apologies to Gilbert O’Sullivan)
Being a solo entrepreneur/consultant can be – at times – a lonely venture. So can being out on the road working on client projects. But of late, I don’t feel quite so isolated.
Why? In a word – Twitter.
After all of the intense interactions of last weekend’s Blogger Social, bonds with my [...]

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Some Blogger Social ‘08 Fun Pix

I’ve uploaded a bunch of pix on Flickr here. (Here’s the huge and growing group BS08 Flickr photo pool)
This group below, however, is the “unpublished” set. Bootleg. Except it just got published. (Here’s the initial group of shots from Friday night).

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Social Media – Where Are We Going?

For a moment, I was going to write “Where is it going?” But after a weekend of intensive interaction with 80+ bloggers at Blogger Social ‘08, “Where are we going?” seemed far better.
Why? Because it’s not about a technology movement. It’s about people using technology to be…more complete people.
Now I freely confess that I am [...]

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Blogger Social BBQ is on!

For those Blogger Social attendees still socializing today, the Boonton BBQ is ON no matter what the cool, cloudy weather. We’re an indoor/outdoor environment here!
The ribs are smokin’; the burgers and chicken are waiting for the grill; fruit, vegetables (and vegetarian) are all lined up, and American micro-brews (along with Australian wine) is chilling.
Anytime after [...]

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Blogger Social ‘08 Friday Night – Fresh Pix

It was a rockin’ night at The Perfect Pint for the Blogger Social ‘08 Kickoff. CK did a fabulous job organizing the event, with a huge assist from Lori Magno and many others. For many of us, it was the first time actually meeting after many on-line interactions, and how easy and natural it was [...]

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I’ve Gone Social!

In NYC with blogging colleagues for the first annual Blogger Social preunion!!

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