Marketing
Articles and ideas about digital marketing, updates on marketing projects I’m working on, and other technology-related ramblings.
Recent Blog Posts
Survival Of The Fittest For The Gallery Scene
A colleague of mine approached me with a very serious question: What can galleries do to acquire expected revenue? How does the traditional gallery adapt to 2013? The thought of a gallery having expected revenue is almost laughable. People just don’t buy art like they used to. The creative world has (arguably) suffered the most since the 2008 – 2009 economic decline. Hundreds of galleries across the nation have closed down. When the government needs to cut back on spending, they usually trim the creative realms first. What gives? The art world gives, and there’s danger to the decline. Gallery directors everywhere cringe and artists create in a silent kind of fear – the kind that says, “Yeah. I can’t make a living from my art.” It’s a quiet, barely noticeable identifying factor between artists when they get together at openings and other art-related functions. They all know the truth. Even still, there’s hope – at least, for the galleries who can keep up. The economy will bounce back, and while it may never be as great as it used to be, when the economy begins to sit pretty again, the galleries who hung in there (and became innovators) will be top dogs. Galleries who want to survive should attempt to clear at least a few of these hurdles: Social Media – participating in the art conversation online is an absolute must. There’s a new generation of art leaders coming up, and galleries need to be able to adapt to that. If a gallery features a younger artist, and if that younger artists’ generation will become buyers one day, why wouldn’t you... read more
Made To Stick Training
If you’re in an enterprise business, do me a favor.1. Take out a sheet of paper.2. Scribble on it for about 5 seconds without looking down.3. Look at your paper.You might be able to tell me where it ends, but can you see the path you took to get there? It’s a mess! That’s how muddling through big data works without a robust data analytics function. Marketing departments need to be able to produce great results based on big data and seamlessly work with the IT departments according to the IDC’s top CMO Predictions for 2013. The problem that many enterprise businesses have is that they collect tons of possibly relevant data, but then have no way of analyzing what they collect. Others collect no information at all.Imagine if you had the platforms in place to support a data analytics function that will produce the information you need to make better decisions.Imagine if you had the marketing technology talent to adapt to that change.For the enterprise companies that don’t, they risk being as lost and confused as that scribble I had them draw earlier. What’s worse, they’ll probably be crumpled up and thrown away by their industry much like they are crumpling their piece of paper to throw away right now. For anyone who watches HBO’s Game of Thrones, it’s the classic House Stark mantra: Winter is coming. Well, there’s a storm coming – a serious one if marketers can’t adapt. It reminds me of when I asked my grandfather Jimmy Hall what was the scariest moment of his life. He told me of a time when he was in... read more
6 Tips I’ve Learned From LinkedIn – For Young Professionals
I am one of the children of the present who managed to use LinkedIn to find my first career. What amazes me is how much I’ve grown because of LinkedIn. I want to impart this knowledge to young professionals like myself who aren’t using LinkedIn yet, but should be because of the unrealized opportunities available. What’s great about LinkedIn is that it pools all of the professionals for you. It doesn’t eliminate having to go to career fairs, networking parties, and sending out applications, but it does give you the upper hand. You can speak directly to the people who could hire you. There are also groups you can join on LinkedIn, so searching for a group in your industry will open you up to all sorts of networking connections. Imagine that – social media has done the hard work (of pulling all of these professionals together) for you. For those who are LinkedIn gurus, add your own advice to the comments section below! 1. The people with 500+ connections might know someone you need to know. I know few social-butterflies. I’m (to shock most of you) actually very introverted, so keeping social-butterflies around is quite the task when crowds of people naturally drain you. It’s those social butterflies, however, who know all the people you might need to know. The same applies to LinkedIn. If you’re connected to someone with 500+ connections, give their connections a sift! Who do your professors know? Who do your colleagues know? Look for people in fields you want to be in! You never know who you might find whom has your dream job.... read more
This TED Talk Will Change Your Life
I often associate TED Talks with that of the “blast learner”. Blast learners are the types of people who are constantly on the go. They make every single second of their lives count – which might mean not having enough time to sit down and read a whole book. They’re masters of multitasking and inhaling information. TED Talks are perfect for blast learners – their mantra being: feed me great ideas in bursts, and if I need more, I’ll keep diving. We all have those phases. A few months ago, I was in a blast learning phase because I was trying to get some paintings done for an exhibition in Louisville, KY. Imagine my surprise when I stumble upon a TED Talk called “Start With Why”. I wasn’t prepared at the time, but it reshaped the way I think. Simon Sinek created a sticky idea. It’s an idea that most people forget, but it is taught in schools. It’s the idea that every grade school teacher you’ve ever had has tried to behoove you to answer. It’s what college professors were trying to ingrain in our heads. Even our parents – no matter how young or old – compel us to struggle with this. Marketers and business gurus across the world are taught this idea. Artists also fight to understand it and best use it in their own artistic theories. It’s to start with why. Sinek starts with the Golden Circle. He says that everyone knows what they do. “I build computers.” “I paint portraits.” “I collect pink ceramic rabbits.” You know exactly how you do it. “I buy... read moreIf "Learning" Isn’t a New Year’s Resolution, You Might Become Extinct!
Let’s face it: you change, or you die. That might be hard to swallow at first, but it’s true. You evolve, or you become extinct. You grow, or you wilt. I’ve noticed that many people reach a stage in their life where they feel like there’s nothing new to learn, they can’t learn anything, or the world has simply left them behind. While the world will (hopefully) keep spinning, it’s time to re-think some goals and challenges coming ahead for yourself in 2013. While you are not doing anything to better yourself, thousands more of your competition are doing something to improve themselves. I personally know people who want to learn new things, but feel overwhelmed by the resources available or don’t know about them at all! I also know some fellow artists others who feel they are lacking in skills suited for the working world. My advice? Pick one from this list here, and stick with it! This New Year is sure to teach us new, wonderful things! Knowledge is power, baby. Lynda.com Lynda.com is for the designer, the programmer/developer, the artist, the animator, and then some. They offer a huge selection of courses you can take, and the subjects vary from animation to learning C# to mastering Dreamweaver. They also update their coursework – and as new technologies and programs are created/found, Lynda.com is there ready to provide information about how to harness it. It does come with a price – just $25 a month. If you’re dedicated, you can easily get in a few courses in that time span if you’re on the price-conscious side. Udacity.com Udacity.com has a different... read more
Made To Stick – A Book About Making Ideas Stickier
I arrive to work at Arke Systems this past Wednesday and I see a huge pile of magazines and a book on my desk. There’s a note from my boss, and it tells me to read the book by January 29th. Apparently, there’s going to be a class on it and they might send me. I know that anything my boss gives me to read is going to be a good one, so I immediately embrace the assignment. The book is bright orange – certainly eye-catching. It’s a color that I would never brave myself to use in a painting, but still pleasant to see. It’s a “happy” color. I pick the book up and thumb through it, unsure of its contents or its nature. I just know it’s called “Made To Stick” and these two Heath brothers wrote it. I decide not to read while I’m at work. (I’ll wait until I can take it home). I read the introduction – and the first story it opens with is the infamous kidney-harvesting story. I had never heard of it before – and if you haven’t I won’t spoil it for you – but it’s shocking. You find out later that it’s almost entirely untrue, but you don’t know that to begin with. The Heath brothers then guide you on a journey on the fundamentals of sticky ideas. Why do we hold onto sticky ideas? What makes them sticky in the first place? What are you doing to make your ideas un-sticky? They break it down into an acronym: SUCCES(s). Clever, right? It stands for: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible,... read more
Great Leaders Dive In
There was a moment the other day that I realized just how much retail lacks great leaders. Retail is an industry that sees a lot of turnover. It’s tough dealing with people everyday. The pay isn’t great. The hours can be unpredictable and rough – especially around the holidays. Everyone has their own walk of life and their own experiences – and not all of them are great. This becomes even more apparent when working in retail because you have to remind yourself of this fact. Everyone is different, so expect an array of shopper behavior. You can imagine just how much harder it is for businesses in retail to find great leaders, and keep them. But when they do find and keep, I notice that these leaders all have something in common: they dive. Great leaders don’t shy away from trouble. They don’t tiptoe around situations. They aren’t shy about taking charge. They dive in. Great leaders almost actively find trouble. Not the kind of trouble that puts them in the corner, but they search for problems they can fix or guide. I think of the elegant diver: poised, confident, twirling, and falling so beautifully before penetrating the water – separating it, parting it. There’s a moment of decision and determination. A moment where the diver thinks, “Alright. I’m doing this. Remember your form.” Am I saying you have to twirl around while helping an angry customer at the register? No (but it might be pretty funny). Have you ever watched an Olympic diver? It’s stunning, and swift. That’s how leaders should be – and some are. Olympic divers don’t... read moreIf You Build It, They Will Come
read moreCatering to Digital Ego
Digital ego is the beast you encounter when no one likes your statuses. It’s what provokes people to post every gritty detail about their day on Twitter or Facebook, even when the Internet doesn’t seem to care. It’s what keeps people coming back to SecondLife. It’s what has teenagers saying, ” I deserve to be recognized and applauded for my online efforts” in more or less words. It fueled the “like my status if you like my status” phenomenon (apart from a particularly viral video). Digital ego, in a sense, keeps people coming back. It’s also why many of your friends have tried – and failed – to quit social media. When Facebook re-invented social media (remember LiveJournal, AIM, MySpace?), it created a new way for humans to interact with each other. What makes Facebook different is that it caught on with the world. Since October, Facebook hit 1 billion users. That’s 10% of the world’s population, and its popularity is growing. I remember when Facebook blew up. Now, my entire family is on Facebook, and some of my younger family member will have spent their whole lives on social media, assuming something else doesn’t come along the way and beats Zuckerberg’s brainchild into the dust. Even still, children will literally grow up with a separate version of themselves on the Internet. A whole new ego to cater to. Am I saying that its bad? Not at all! At least not yet. The problem with ego is that it has to be fed. Ego is great – it gets you places, brings you drive when you need it most,... read more