Social Technology from the Mean Streets

The web, from a technical perspective, is orders of magnitude more complex than it used to be. What used to amount to the creation and layout of graphic files and text on a page has blossomed into a network of websites that look more like applications than publications. Most of this complexity is due to [...]

MorphMonkey: Social gets viral on Facebook

My reaction to the new MorphMonkey marketing campaign on Facebook is… well awkward. It just makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Yet that’s the point. A press release from the American Social Health Association explains the campaign: “In an unusual creative move, a team at Duval Guillaume (DG) has agreed to spread an infectious disease [...]

Marketing 2015: Where everybody knows your name

Whether it’s Google’s fault or not, the web is getting smarter. The technology itself is moving toward a place where it understands more about who you are as a user, and what it’s showing you inside of your browser. Years from now these developments will have a profound effect on web experience for users, and [...]

25 Online Whacks to Boost Your Creativity

Roger von Oech’s classic “A Whack on the Side of the Head” just turned 25. I used this book a lot in college and at my first agency job. We’d do a few of the exercise to kick start our creative sessions. This led to numerous fresh ideas. The 25th Anniversary Edition of this creative [...]

ANA 2008 Brand Innovation Conference in NYC

“Brand Building 2.0” is the manner marketers use to effectively reach and relate to their audience in today’s world. This method employs more than just digital media, such as the Internet and mobile devices. It requires consumer empowerment. This was the topic at last week’s ANA Conference at the Hard Rock Café Times Square in [...]

How Blogs & Social Media Are Changing Crisis Communications

Flight cancellations from American Airlines created a lot of news coverage and consumer angst this week. The result of wiring problems on MD-80 airplanes, this situation got me thinking about how the involved communications teams are responding. Are they holding cards close to the vest or communicating openly? Are they leveraging the Internet and social [...]

The Gratitude Effect: Building Consumer Loyalty

Powered recently updated our web site. This update includes a series of videos detailing things such as social commerce, consumer engagement and the gratitude effect. These videos can be viewed on the Powered web site or at the Powered page on YouTube. Here’s a sample video about the Gratitude Effect. Learn what the gratitude effect [...]

SxSWi hits Austin. We hit back.

The South by Southwest Interactive festival is starting up in Austin today and continuing for the next few days, with a host of keynotes and panels that will appeal to web designers, developers, and businesspeople alike. Powered will be rolling out some folks that fit in all of those various categories to attend the proceedings, [...]

Outspend or Outteach?

This classic 2005 article on the Creating Passionate Users blog contains some great thoughts about how marketing has changed and how “education has become the killer app in a newer, more ethical approach to marketing.” It also contains a lot of good links, trackbacks, and comments to good educational marketing resources to explore. Worth a [...]

The Two Voices of Social Commerce

Steve Rubel defines Social Commerce as “utilizing the power of many to help us find and buy products and services. It involves the creation of new collaboration technologies that shrink the research and purchasing cycle.” Voice 1: The People’s Voice Steve is talking about the fact that online collaborative tools now allow us the ability [...]