Last night, I went to the local grocery story, and purchased a shaving soap cup, brush, and a razor, and back at home, helped my son with the shaving of his eiderdown beard and mustache.  This rite of passage reminded me that 15 years ago, this lad had come into the world with measured perfection, at least according to the Apgar test. (According to his father, he required no such test. He was perfect the moment I laid eyes on him.)

In 1953, Dr. Virginia Apgar published the scoring method in which nurses examined the condition of babies at birth, and rated their condition on a scale from zero to ten. Read the rest of this entry »

In general I look on our company’s website with pride. Every now and then, however, I wake up and feel that something is out of place or outdated, not unlike the feeling I sometimes have gazing around my living room, in fact. In the case of our home page, the plaid couch is nothing short of the central phrase describing what we do: “Internet marketing.” We fall back on “online marketing.” Many years ago, in one of the first iterations of our website, I recall the heated debate about how to describe what we do, and how finally, appeal was made to keyword research.  Read the rest of this entry »

Fear and Loving in Social Media

Why Social Media Changes the Way Brands do Business

Ric Dragon urges marketers to accept that the locus of control over brand identity has shifted.

Today, brand entities are becoming cooperative concepts owned and maintained by companies and consumers. Rather than view this shifting social media landscape as loss of tactical turf, Ric envisions a vast landscape of opportunity on which companies and consumers can build a future together.

Ric Dragon: an Introduction to Social Marketology

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Sometimes I’m utterly amazed at how some large businesses are unable to fix bad customer experiences. I’m sharing this story, not to browbeat my cell phone company, but to talk about the root problem. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight I’ll be speaking with the Poughkeepsie Chapter of the Association For Computing Machinery.  I’ve spoken at one of their meetings before, and thoroughly enjoyed it. You probably won’t find a room full of more powerful brains in the Hudson Valley. I’m taking the opportunity to discuss one of my favorite topics, the history of engineering and marketing.  Here in the Hudson Valley, we’re in the historic stomping grounds – or at least the vicinity of a great deal of the history of the American Industrial Revolution. Read the rest of this entry »