Category: Rant
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A baseball parable about politics
Once upon a time, there were two baseball teams, the Red Sox and the Yankees. Each team did its thing, and the owners made money, the players made money, the advertisers made money in the stadiums and on the televisions, and all was more or less well. Fans got to root for their teams and…
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Passwords are not enough
How secure are your digital assets? With the massive database compromises of sites like Gawker and its associated properties, both individuals and groups are finding that passwords aren’t enough. But what’s a realistic alternative or supplement? Here’s one. Do you see this little gadget attached to my keychain? It’s a World of Warcraft authenticator. It’s…
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Lighting mediocrity’s darkness with personal branding
Much has been said about personal branding, about establishing an unmistakeable identity in the online and offline worlds. Some judge it to be essential, while others call it the height of narcissism. That said, there’s an overwhelming tide racing to the shore now that only things like personal branding can endure: a tide of enforced…
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Public service message: ScheduleAPickup.com
Yesterday, I was walking along the streets of Boston, and noticed the biannual dumping of perfectly good stuff by college students on the sidewalks and streets. Mind you, this isn’t just the dorm room poster collection or something – we’re talking furniture in like new condition, clothing, lights, etc. – things that people with less…
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More customers doesn't make you a better company
I’ve been shopping around the past few days for a terrific lead automation system for the day job, looking at all of the different vendors out there. One thread that’s been common among all of the comparison discussions on LinkedIn, on blogs, etc. that baffles me is this argument: “We’re better because we have 42x…
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Does your company care? Do you?
While in the airport yesterday perusing a variety of marketing materials (aka billboards as I walked to my gate), I saw a bunch of different advertisements by companies about how much they care, from facility maintenance to oil to the airlines themselves. This inspired a late afternoon tweet: If all your marketing materials insist that…
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There is no secret sauce
There is no secret sauce If there’s one expression I’ve heard over the years that demonstrates an executive’s lack of understanding about how business works, it’s the idea of secret sauce, the concept that your company has some secret methodology or recipe that makes you incredibly successful and powerful. Everyone’s questing for this sauce. What’s…
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Two literary pet peeves
I read quite a bit of feedback and writing on a daily basis, from moderating forums to emails to blogs, and there are two word misuses that top my list of minor annoyances: 1. Ironic. 2. Tragedy. Just as quick review, in case your mom wasn’t as diligent about English as mine was… 1. Ironic…
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How to fix the SxSW voting problem
South by Southwest (SxSW) is a fairly large conference that offers attendees the opportunity to learn more about movies, music, and interactive (online) content at its weeklong festival. It’s become something of a giant party and simultaneously for a lot of people, a way for them to validate their projects and causes by being selected…
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How much did that ad just cost you?
The following post is rated PG-13 for adult language. I went looking for some decent affiliate marketing blogs to read and subscribe to this morning. Being the Googling sort, I searched for affiliate marketing blogs and popped open the top 20 results in a series of tabs to see what I’d found. Of the top…
