Music, Art & Engineering
About eight years ago, I started to notice a bizarre phenomenon. I was paid by people to make things look “professional,” yet I repeatedly noticed that consumers were suspicious or oblivious to much of the visual language that was established by the past century of professional ad design. I looked around for some theorist to … Continue reading Professional Advertising Is Dead. Long Live Advertising.
Jumping off of bridges, wearing your pants below your underwear, investing in any stock with a .com in the name, credit default swaps, the atkins diet, asking people to follow their business on facebook out of nowhere — there are a lot of things that people do in great numbers because everyone else is doing … Continue reading Social Media Marketing Genius In Ten Minutes
The biggest challenge for businesses of all types these days is greater competition for dwindling market share. Unless you have a completely exclusive product or service that has an uncontested monopoly, you probably find yourself having to take less for what you sell. As a friend said during lunch the other day, “people just aren’t … Continue reading To The Maverick Go The Spoils
Determining the value that people place on what you do or sell isn’t easy. Setting a price that is too high helps your competition, yet setting your price too low leaves money on the table and possibly a LOT of money — a 5% increase in price can be huge in many businesses. Recent research … Continue reading Is Your Pricing Leaving Money On The Table?
There are few deadly traps that almost every business falls into on their web campaign, and your developer may not steer you clear of them. Even though I’ve produced or collaborated on hundreds of websites, I still like a good reality check to keep me on my toes. The web development community has been playing … Continue reading Three Common Traps For New Websites
Ive’ officially changed my opinion on web advertising: it’s time to set the record straight. Ok, you are probably thinking, “of course this guy is going to suggest that I move my ad budget to web: he’s a web consultant!” Well, I may be a web developer, but I’m also a businessman and a pragmatist. … Continue reading Why Move Part of Your Ad Budget To Web?
Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s high time that Hank Paulson gets his act together or steps aside before the next administration chooses his successor. The US markets are gyrating wildly to the hastily cobbled together ‘bailout’ that was supposed to dampen things down.
If I were a head of state in a western style “free market democracy” right now, I would probably secretly resent constitutional clauses that would restrict my government’s ability to censor the media. Faith, which is the essence of our financial system, had a fighting chance before our media outlets doggedly reported that we were … Continue reading When The First Amendment Is The Poison
The future of the American energy crisis is clean electricity. With clean electricity we can power our current interstate infrastructure, keep our car culture, and continue to enjoy our transportation independence. We can move goods around the country, and actually do it cheaper than ever before.
My brother, Adam emailed me this morning about a whopping hospital bill he received for a recent visit to the ER… “Eighteen-Hundred freaking dollars for an IV and a gurney???” Absurd, isn’t it? We all know horror stories like this. A simple visit to the hospital because of a real emergency (like severe dehydration, in … Continue reading Health Care: Why is it so damn expensive?
After feeling like such a brooding nag in my last post about a cliff-notes depth look at the sacred texts in Islam, I thought I’d follow up with a nice 1-2 combo on something equally dour and that matters to you and just about everyone you know: the future of your economy. Yeah, I know, … Continue reading It’s A Bubble Bath…