a thought-provoking ramble on the state of life, clients and the universe at large
He’s been called many things ranging from positive—”The Reformer Pope”—to the not so positive—”The Dictator Pope.” But no matter your take on this pontiff, one thing remains certain: Pope Francis is unafraid of bucking tradition and has, in the process, created a personal brand that transcends one of the most historical and traditional roles in…
One performed the first successful face transplant in the U.S. and is the youngest alumna of both the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and University of Wisconsin Madison School of Medicine. Another is a Harvard Law graduate running for Attorney General of the State of Illinois. And another graduated from Stanford and hosted a hit cable-news show, before…
Irrespective of political alignment, most would agree that there is a leadership crisis in the world. As an antidote to this perceived lack of government guidance, citizens are looking more and more to private companies for support. BAV ®, Y&R’s proprietary brand measurement data tool, recently quantified this trend, finding that 82% of people around…
The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2018 has come to a close. The streets are empty but for locals and tourists, who can now get a seat in any restaurant, and the window-shaking beach music is absent, returning quiet tranquility to the nights. Yet even as the final stragglers pack to leave, there remains unfinished…
Eight people were murdered by a terrorist in New York City, who in a choreographed attack copied from online forums, used a truck to mow down pedestrians at a time and place chosen to maximize destruction. At the same time, in Washington, DC, the so-called Tech Giants were testifying before a committee of the United…
Fake news, in all its glory, is once again permeating our social discourse. It inundates popular culture and confuses the hell out of all of us as we struggle to understand: What is fake, and can we stop it once we know? A thousand years from now, assuming humanity manages to hang on for another…
Question: What is a tech company? No doubt, if I asked you to name three tech companies, most of us, or even all of us, would include Amazon, Facebook and Google…not to mention Uber and Airbnb somewhere in the mix. Certainly, the financial analysts and industry pundits would—and do—include all of the above. As do…
It was the photo of a colony of Fire Ants balled together into a protective unit, floating amidst the debris and devastation of flooded Houston, that caused me to wonder about the notion of “nature vs. nature” and “technology vs. nature.” You see, these Fire Ants began evolving in Brazil, where wet conditions forced them…
What can marketers learn from the recent solar eclipse that so consumed so many of us in the United States last week? Here are some links that may offer a hint: Netflix US Hey, just wondering why 10% of you chose to watch a giant rock cover a giant ball of gas when I HAVE ALWAYS…
MILLENNIALS!!!! String Millennial mania with other Digibabble and you get requests like the following: We need to create viral immersive mobile experiences in a digital-first environment in order to reach the powerful, elusive, unreachable Millennials who are just so different from any other generation…anything we have ever seen. In the last week alone here is…
So who’s in charge, as in who’s really in charge? For way too long we have been caving into Google and Facebook, lamenting the loss of control that advertisers and advertising has. The Digibabble narrative went like this: Digital media has killed all else because of their vast and magical powers controlling pricing, access, supposed…
Maybe it’s the Trump effect and the focus on job creation or it’s the resurrection of jobs (once lost to technology) and the obvious cynicism that predicates a return in mass numbers to an old state. Perhaps it’s the financial analysts touting AI (artificial intelligence) as the new frontier in order to create the next…
Radio is dead! Cinema is dead! Television is dead! Restaurants are dead! Retail is dead! And, of course, we know that PCs and desktops are as dead as a doorknob! I leave most of the obituaries to you to decide on. Sadly, the knee-jerkers will jump in to prove that all are in fact dead……
WMDs. Remember that term? Weapons of mass destruction…a catalyzing fear of the Bush US Presidency and the driving force behind the Iraq War. The fear of WMDs was so deep and primal that an almost unprecedented bi-partisan group of US politicians supported the war to find them. “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam…
Imagine if the torrent of tweets we have become inured to disappeared after 10 seconds. One can only wonder what the political climate of the United States might be like today… Or, say you were a mega-diva like Madonna and you chose to launch your latest collection of songs with a video that was ephemeral……
Amazon is opening a book store at The Shops at Columbus Circle, right across from my office. I see the banner from our windows every day and I smile. Jeff Bezos gets it, he understands the time is ripe…but more on that later. Warby Parker continues to build out its physical presence, as does Bonobos….
“[What information consumes is] the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” -Herbert Simon, Nobel winner, Economics (1978) Think about that for a moment. Since the advent of movable type heralded the evolution of readily accessible information, our senses have been assaulted with ever-growing, ever-changing sources of information…
“I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.” —December 11, 1936, King Edward VIII abdicates the Crown of the British Monarchy in an address directly to the British…
Oscar Wilde, ever one of my favorite sources for inspiration, once said: “In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.” Now, while I hate to be partisan in my writing, I do believe that while I will be primarily quoting US sources and focusing on recent events in “Lower…
So what was it that made it so hard to predict the recent US election that caught the data scientists; the media; the pollsters; the pundits and the bettors by surprise much like Brexit did in the UK a few short months ago? Could it be as New York Times (who got it dreadfully wrong…
It doesn’t matter where in the world you live. It doesn’t matter what your politics are. The negative, nasty and vindictive tone of the US presidential election—from all sides—has affected us throughout the globe. Saturday Night Live, the famous US comedy show, has been skewering both presidential candidates for the past few months…so well, in…
How do I begin 2016? Big Data? Drones? IOT? Need it now? More mobile? Post-digital? Pre-apocalypse? More on Star Wars and Adele? Nah… Instead I opted for a great story. One that encompasses everything that I love and admire about the age we live in and an age that is past. 2016 begins the sixth…