My daughter Soleil loves Elmo madly. As much as the little red monster can annoy, I wanted to support my little girl in her crush. So I intentionally identified in with the online Sesame Street videos. While there is a golden nugget in every episode for kids, I saw a pattern of lessons about adult peer-to-peer relationships.
Please excuse my goofy cheesy Da-Da post (as Soleil calls me), but here are four things I learned from Elmo:
(more…)
Popularity: 1% [?]
Next Monday marks the six year anniversary of my first blog post. As I’m blogging less these days, I decided my final post of this year with six reflections based on my experiences over these years. Here are my observations about social media, blogging and marketing based on my journey:
When I began blogging, I believed in The Cluetrain Manifesto. Its raw message that businesses would be forced to act better thanks to social media spoke to me. Cluetrain inspired hope that conversations could change the very fiber of business in favor of people. I was full of passion for that change, and my first book Now Is Gone reflected this idealism.
Popularity: 1% [?]
You probably thought my Instagram post would be about the evils of Facebook, but instead I wrote a post with Jennifer Leggio on Forbes about how to survive a tech bubble. No matter what impact the Instagram deal has on my personal social media (and even on the fledgling network), what is becoming clear is a return to dangerous financial valuations for venture-backed tech start-ups.
Paying $1 billion dollars for a 12-person company with zero in-bound revenue makes absolutely no sense. Even worse, the acquirer Facebook is a company that expects a $100 billion IPO on $1 billion a year of net revenue. It’s clear we are in the midst of another tech bubble. That’s why Jenn and I wrote our somewhat cheeky survival guide.
During the .com era, I was in the middle of the boom as a mid-level manager. I remember getting laid off with the rest of the marketing staff at IPNet Solutions in 1999 (I served as media relations manager), just three weeks before our shares vested. The catch? It was done on my cell phone in two minutes flat while I was on vacation. Nice. Four years later, IPNet was acquired for an undisclosed amount (e.g. a mercy kill).
(more…)
Popularity: 1% [?]
Join Gini Dietrich and me for a Marketing in the Round training on integrated comm- unications strategy.
Geoff Livingston is an author and marketing strategist. His third book, Marketing in the Round will be released in May, 2012.
