Greetings  dear readers. I’m not sure if anyone is out there. Seems like most are cramming in their holidays. Those of you in the good ole USA are most likely preparing to work-hard-play-hard so you can get out and enjoy a long Labor Day weekend.
I myself have recently had a major life change. I’ve […]

During a recent conference, I heard Lee Siegel ruminate on the relationship between humans and the digital world. In a discussion on his book “Against the Machine,” he and a moderator covered questions of how and why we engage online and across emergent electronic platforms. The theme of the book, “being human in the age of the electronic mob,” plus the topics of the conference — the onset and optimization of social media, engaging with the blogosphere, reputation management — kept the conversation on a particular tension.

What keeps promising start-ups from turning into great companies? What keeps them from flopping after a series of otherwise early successes? Having just returned from a company strategy offsite, I’ve been thinking a lot about those questions. Of course, all companies are different, and there’s no universal formula for success. All we know is that most start-ups fail. However, there’s one characteristic I’ve seen present in the companies that made it; and lacking in the promising companies and managers that didn’t. It’s the instinct and conviction to confront friction and risk head-on. It’s to do so with urgency, persistence, precise diagnosis, resolution and flawless execution.

Think about consumer decisions for a moment. Who do you think makes the bulk of them? Right, it’s women. According to a recent American Marketing Association newsletter, the economic power of women is a whopping $3.7 trillion (USD) representing the greatest economic force the world has seen in the last decade.

Even to people who have not spent a day of their lives as “professional” marketers, it’s common sense that purchases don’t just happen — and the purchase process has been refined to a near-science amongst marketers. Depending on what book you read, the purchase process funnel runs from awareness, to perception, to preference, to consideration, to purchase. Yet a disproportionate share of online marketing budget is dedicated only toward bottom-of-the-funnel activities, specifically measuring the click-through to purchase. Why?

I want to take a moment to write about a topic that gets little to no coverage anymore… I want to write about non-rich media. I want to write a column this week that tells you all how great a campaign can be when you run old-fashioned, three-frame GIF ads and you measure them based on click-through. Why not, right? With all the buzz in our industry about over-the-page ads, in-unit video and Flash vs. Silverlight, is it really possible that we’re overlooking the simplistic beauty of an ad that says “click here if you like X product”?

We all know that the dynamics of consumer marketing perpetually shift. They just do, as marketplaces mature. And, within Digital, as we have gotten clearer about those shifts, the conversation has changed. In a manner of speaking, it’s gotten downright scintillating. As I have been preparing talks and lectures recently, it dawned on me that I am simply addressing two, count them, two, principles that are much more soulful. I extol them here.

US News and World Report thinks “the Facebook future is now” and released “The Seven Best Jobs for Facebook Addicts” (though I only counted six ). The jobs include recruiters, tech reporters, product managers, and photographers. What about other social media sites, though? Here are some jobs that could benefit from other social media skill sets.