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Fact: writers rarely get trained for B2B technology writing, it just kind of happens. You deliberately or accidentally fall into a tech company, breath in all their communications, the bytes and bites, brand style guide (if they even have one), and somehow it all comes together. Rinse and repeat for next company. But no matter how much writing experience under your belt, it doesn’t mean you’re cranking out good, compelling writing – that task requires a more Herculean effort.

Familiar with the tiny house, declutter, and downsizing trends? Then you may have heard of the “Minimalist” movement too. The concept has taken off, with more than four million followers of its books, podcasts, a documentary, and tons of media attention. But what the heck is this minimalist thing and why does it matter to marketing? First some backstory: the Minimalists idea emerged from two 30’s, corporate worker bees who walked away six-figures jobs in the throes of typical

And make no mistake: it’s been difficult to find positive aspects of this grueling election season, but marketers take heed: we’ve been given the gift that keeps on giving. Witness all the branding, advertising and other dos and so-do-not-dos we’ve seen this election cycle. Here are five stand outs. They also speak directly to the candidates’ values and vulnerabilities. Hillary Clinton’s unpopular logo Remember that less-than-stellar debut? Everyone was suddenly a graphic des

This is not a top 10 takeaways listicle. Or a shameless crop of speaker quotes to get retweets. This is a story of a thrifty writer who went to Content Marketing World in Cleveland, the apparent “Capital of Content,” thanks to doubling down on promo codes.  It was everything—and nothing I expected. Cult of Orange Kool-Aid If you didn’t know this by now, the Content Marketing Institute LOVES its orange. A lot. I urge you to bring shades if you go to CMW. Be prepared for hordes

Think fast: what social networks do you expect girls in bikinis, political statements, and religious rants? Facebook…Instagram…LinkedIn. Wait what?? Insert screeching brakes sound here. These types of posts are becoming more and more common on LinkedIn. In fact, a war is being waged in the LinkedIn community upon itself. Newsfeeds are filling up fast with complaints of personal, off-color or racy images, mixed with those defending it. And it’s gotten downright nasty, taking u

#1 Get off the training wheels articles Dear content experts: We know that images are processed 60x more than text. We also know that tweets with images get tons more shares than those without. We get it. There are hundreds of articles on these basics. If you want more SEO, be less of a sheep and more of a leader. Got an interesting take on why Twitter sucks for certain businesses? Or an argument to do long-form blogging instead of 500 words? Bring it. Make us think, provoke

It was a much different story five years ago when I moved to San Francisco. Though only 50 miles separated these two bustling tech centers, the business landscapes were a tale of two cities. While Silicon Valley gravitated toward older tech like semiconductors, hardware, and software, SF was all about social media, apps, and the sharing economy, inhabited by scrappy startups. Picture the days of rents just beginning to climb to ridiculous rates, the sight of cranes a bit more

Sponsored Content, aka Native Ads This kind of promotion has been around for ages in other forms (corporate advertorial in trade magazine, anyone?) But online sponsored content is a bit more dangerous in such prolific quantities. Why? It’s more than a hoodwink; it confuses consumers expecting unbiased articles, whether they care or not. Sponsored content has seen explosive growth in the past few years due to the expansion of digital publishers, coupled with news outlets despe

Labor of love Everyone who has ever started a business has a story, myself included. Maybe corporate life was becoming too much of a grind, there was an unexpected lay off, or that Next Big Idea just wouldn’t go away from our brains. Whatever the motivation, the end result is to be a small business owner. It is a core part of our identities, and we want more than anything is for it to be successful. The alternative? Not much. This is our lifeblood and doing something differen

Buying from brands we hate: For me (and millions of others), Comcast is No. 1 when it comes to brand loathing. Unsurprisingly it’s honored on the 10 most hated companies in America list. The majority of the top 10 are popular and profitable, including McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. Ironic or par for the course? For me, I’m a hater of Comcast’s horrible customer service, erratic connection, and dominance on an industry, yet I still pay that hefty “Triple Play” bill each month. Admit

Let’s start with the content marketing trend for companies. We know thousands of companies are doing it, but who actually gets it right, and why? I’m happy to say a lot of brands are doing it right. General Electric, Whole Foods, Home Depot, to name a few. They are going beyond Facebook and social across multiple channels. People are turned off by seeing the same content on all platforms. Take Home Depot, for instance: With 160K followers, they are continually updating and ma

Research shows that getting a deal has no financial or social status boundaries—it’s a human thing. We love the thrill of scoring savings, especially for something with higher perceived value or item we crave—cue the dopamine. According to Mark Ellwood, author of “Bargain Fever,” consumers should never pay full price for anything anyway. Nowhere is that living proof more so than on daily deal sites like Groupon, Living Social, and the myriad of me-toos, now a staple of our on

The Advertising Industry is Stronger Than Ever (But Still Inefficient) To begin with, the number of exhibitors at ad:techSF nearly doubled this year from 2013, a clear sign of growth in the digital ad space (worrisome though on how many companies had the words “spy” or “facial recognition” staring back at me from booth graphics). eMarketer kicked off the event with some industry stats: Advertising is anticipated to be a $50B business in 2014—that’s a whole lotta media buys. A

“Marketing should be an effortless act of informing, conversing, and engaging with your customers, not selling to them.” Do you agree with this statement? Judging by the presentations at New Media Expo (NMX) earlier this month, the answer should be a collective “yes”. Here’s why non-marketing is the new black, and the time to adopt is now. Real. Human. Interaction.: The rise of consumer democracy born on social media is now being raised on all the tent poles of marketing. Whe

It’s OK to Be A Generalist One thing you’ll hear often when you go into consulting is “pick a niche”. In marketing, luckily, there are many paths: Public relations, writing, event planning, advertising, or maybe all of them. It’s a risky move to do all, but an attractive path to weather any storm. If a client needs a product launch, I am here, or web site copy, call me—or has an event in a hurry. You get the idea. The downside, of course, is that your skill-set can appear wat

About five years ago, I participated in a focus group on sports drinks and bars. When asked to drink and taste these new products, I was struck by how many had pink ribbons on the packaging. I commented: “Wow, that’s a lot of pink,” which was met with a loud silence by the group. Did I say something wrong? Was it taboo to talk about marketing and breast cancer in the same sentence? Perhaps then, but these days, not so much. The Pink Ribbon is under serious fire and there are

I have been wanting to write about BlackBerry for a long time and figured the only way it would happen is when Research In Motion, otherwise known as RIM, went out of business—a “remember when”, R.I.P., or marketing case study type of thing. And even though the name RIM is gone as of earlier this year (hoping to erase the sins of the past?), BlackBerry is still standing, at least for now. In fact, it just released the BlackBerry Z10, their version of “catching up to the rest”

Consumers Now Own Company Brands: Social media has forever disrupted business-as-usual for companies that want to shape market perception of their brand. Consumer is king not only because collectively they will share their opinions about you on social media—be it positive or negative—but also through their own blogs and forums. The playing field has been democratized like never before, which cuts both ways for companies: Brand advocates will do your work for you with zero mar

Fast-forward to September 2012: Consumers still love saving money (DUH) and deals are here to stay, but in different incarnations. Groupon has become to online deals what Kleenex is to tissues, but there are major shifts in the landscape. 1) Groupon went from a rock star to has-been: As the deals market became more crowded with me-toos, combined with the “thrill is gone” from consumers. the daily deal concept itself became stale. Groupon tanked after its initial IPO at $20 a

“No pink for my child!” said my sister Sondra before her baby shower. “OK OK” I said. And this was just the beginning of motherhood consumerism angst for her beautiful daughter and my niece. Sondra, fulfilling her lifetime dream of having a  child, was knee-deep into the new world of “Mommy Marketing” a whole universe to her and Auntie Janice too. Before Barbaraciela—or BC as we fondly call her—was born, I had also heard the term “Mommy Blogger” once or twice, but just as my