One thing I appreciate about WordPress (besides its UI simplicity): They aren’t afraid to try. Last week, their new dashboard upgrade created a hiccup in the community. People loved it. People hated it. Change is liberating. Change is hard.
WordPress (like Blogger) at free is beyond a bargain. The March stats for the global WordPress community [...]
During a appointment yesterday with a dental specialist, I noticed a waiting room sign. It said turn off cellphones.
Why?
Because — the sign explained — they are disruptive to others in the waiting room, to the staff, and to the practice.
As I quietly surfed the Web, exchanged emails and responded to TXT messages on my BlackBerry, three [...]
Are you afraid to mention a competitor in your customer-facing materials?
This used to be considered a major marketing Faux pas. In today’s climate, though, customers who are talking about you are probably also talking (and hearing and reading) about your closest competition. It’s too easy.
So why pretend you’re the only one doing what you do, or making [...]
One of the best books on telling a good marketing story is Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars. Upshot: If a company’s messaging doesn’t match its product or customer experience, there’s confusion, distrust and lost opportunities for repeat business.
Which leads me to Mission Statements, those historical bedrocks of company stories and marketplace positioning. When authentic, they are powerful because [...]
Remember when music concerts by successful artists were stadium-style events? I mean Rolling Stones-thank-goodness-we-have-a-Jumbo-Tron-to-see-what’s-going-on productions? Sure, summer “tours” that combine several popular acts remain so fans can have a quasi-Woodstock experience.
But they are rare.
I took in an Angels and Airwaves show at the SOMA last night in San Diego. Just two doors over from the aging San Diego Sports Arena, a [...]
It’s too easy to be critical of Microsoft, to point out what’s wrong with Vista and why people still like XP.
For more than a week, I’ve been in a game of email tag with technical staff offshore somewhere (hard to know since they don’t provide a telephone number). And over the smallest of things. My Office 2007 [...]
Marketers talk a lot about engaging conversations with customers. But short of focus groups and customer satisfaction surveys, do many marketers talk (in the same room) with customers? I mean themselves (not a hired firm) spending time one-on-one and face-to-face to hear and see customers’ likes and dislikes? There’s nothing like being criticism in person.
Here’s where Pareto’s principle of 80/20 comes in. When I’m in the [...]
Flying can be a drag if you’re buckled in a back row, middle seat on a full plane. It’s a disconnect.
We have technologies and websites to help guide us through the flight process. Online boarding passes. Price shopping. Plane layouts and seating charts. Frequent flier portals. Business traveler social networking when email or Twitter is not enough to arranged that lunch with [...]
Slacker, the San Diego-based personalized Internet radio company, has made good on a promise to deliver its portable listening devices according to revised schedule. The company missed its original target during the critical holiday shopping season and had to push delivery dates into late January.
It’s now ramping up PR to tell its unique story of [...]
I had my first Rubio’s fish taco when the only Rubio’s restaurant was a microbrand right across the street from San Diego State University. The company got its start when founder Ralph Rubio decided to bring a new product to market in the U.S. It was a simple recipe that he (and hundreds of other [...]
