For more than twenty years, I have had the privilege of working with a lot of very talented agency owners and executives. These are individuals who excel at the creative process and delivering superior client service. They have built teams that help their clients achieve important business objectives. As good as they are with clients,…
A little over 3 years ago, I sold CustomScoop to CARMA. That closed a 15-year chapter that began in 2000 when I co-founded one of the first online media monitoring services, but opened a whole new one with the acquiring company. Today, I’m marking the end of that chapter and will soon begin another new…
I went to the local farmer’s market this morning, and just about every stall was selling piles and piles of tomatoes. Now, I wasn’t all that interested in tomatoes since it was 58 degrees out (hints of fall are finally in the air here in New Hampshire). But that’s not what really struck me. What…
I constantly receive emails from GoDaddy. Part of that is because they are one of the most persistent emailers of all time, but part of that is because I own a lot of domains. Many of these domains are unused. Just sitting there, registered but not home to any website. Don’t get me wrong. I’m…
Why must we always make the perfect the enemy of the good? The drive for Artificial Intelligence to solve a world of problems for communicators will likely result in failure—at least for the foreseeable future. Computers can make our lives easier, but they won’t relegate PR pros to a life of sitting in a La-Z-Boy…
When I was 25 years old, I thought I knew it all. I was a hotshot young political operative in Washington who had been given far more responsibility than someone with so little experience should ever possess. During the 1998 election cycle, I worked for an organization that sought to promote the Republican agenda as…
University of South Carolina men’s basketball coach Frank Martin went on an epic rant recently about youth sports parents and how they yell and scream from the bleachers. He chastised parents for coaching from the sidelines and not letting the coaches do their jobs. But he also made an excellent point about sports officials. He…
If I knew anything about batteries, other than how to drain them through excessive use, I’d probably spend all of my spare time trying to figure out how to build a better one. It’s hardly an original thought, but better batteries remain the key to so much innovation. Electric cars. Smart watches. Mobile phones. Laptops….
I’m a big fan of checklists. There’s a reason why pilots and others in life-and-death roles rely on them to ensure things get done right. In business, we often develop processes to deal with repeatable activities — things like on-boarding clients, promoting events, and publishing content. Many times we will get a group together, think…
Our industry typically likes to refer to itself as purveyors of media intelligence. This stems from the fact that we grew up out of media monitoring and analysis and continue to uncover valuable insights from the public media. Yet that’s not really the most accurate description of what we do and the value we offer….