Category Archives: Thoughts

10 Challenges Digital Marketers Will Face in 2012

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At the conclusion of the recent New York City Digital Collective, PepsiCo’s Bonin Bough – Global Director of Digital & Social Media and the other hosts closed the day with a recap of the biggest issues the group shared they will be facing in 2012.

iMedia Connection covered the event and gathered ten of the challenges they voiced.

1. How do we “talk digital” with the C-Suite? How do we help them have a better user understanding of today’s platforms, devices, and services?
2. How do we find the right talent?
3. How are we keeping open communication between digital teams and business teams?
4. What do we do when guidelines and restrictions are slowing down processes? (How do we build trust?)
5. How do we go from innovation to experimentation?
6. How do we make sure advice from both inside and outside the organization is equally weighted?
7. How do we counter an organization’s cultural fear of innovation?
8. How can we develop better dashboards, so we can see real-time innovation progress?
9. How do we best manage project ownership?
10. How do we continue to put consumers ahead of the brand when planning content and campaigns?

How many of these will you face? What else would you add to the list?

Marketing Infographics – Are They More Than Pictures and Words?

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As I was updating my Pinterest board on Marketing Infographics, I got to thinking…..if a picture says a thousand words and then you add to it, does it say a thousand and one words now?

Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly.

Modern practitioner Edward Tufte describes the process of incorporating many dimensions of information into a two-dimensional image as ‘escaping flatland’.

Nigel Holmes calls them “explanation graphics” – dealing not only with the visual display of information but also of knowledge – how to do things.

How are you using them? Or are you over them? Want to create one? Here’s an infographic on making infographics – I think I hear the space-time continuum folding over on itself.

Doesn’t Everyone Have a Nickname? What’s Yours?

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Was writing yesterday about Music Memories when my cousin Maureen commented about one of her’s that involved us jumping around and singing “9 to 5″ through out our house. I remember that like it was yesterday even though it at least 25+ years ago. I’ve been told before that I’ve got a memory like an elephant (although I don’t remember who told me that *grin) but I think it’s a bit of cued recall because I’ll hear a song, a smell or something and the memory comes flooding back. So what does this have to do with nicknames?

When I was thinking about dancing along with Maureen, I started thinking about another time she was at our house for the summer and was giving everyone nicknames (her nickname has been Reeny for as long as I can remember). I got a nickname, my brother Terry, my mom & dad along with most of the people in our neighborhood did too. For some reason she couldn’t think of the “perfect” nickname for my best friend Pam, she went through a long list over a few days and one night in the kitchen while my mom was cooking she started going through the spice rack over the stove for ideas. Connie Cumin, Mary Marjoram, Allison Allspice….wait I know PRISCILLA POPPYSEED! There is was. Right out of nowhere and of course the name stuck with a variety of different incarnations: Cilla, Popperseed, Popper and ultimately landed on just plain Seed which is what I called her for many years to come.
Picture By Jack Dorsey My own life has been filled with nicknames, you can almost associate a time to what name a person calls me and plot out them out to create nickname timeline. If they call me Scumby then we probably went to camp together in the early 80′s. Any variation on Michella, Unchell, Misquelle or Squelle and it was late 80′s or early 90′s.

These days my daughter calls me Mommy Dee, hubby call me Shellers and without fail my dad starts every phone call with “hey Augie Doggy”. In return about everyone of my friends and family members have a nickname I’ve given them or someone else has – Mommy Da Jommy, Mr. Scobadee-be-bop, Daddy Doggy, Roonie, Bunners, Bully, Queenie, Nuke, Foofa and the list goes on.

This got me thinking do people with nicknames tend to give other people nicknames? And how do they stick? Of course trying to create your own nickname or make people call you something new rarely stays around long. Am I more likely to give nicknames because I’ve always had them myself? How about you – do you have a nickname? What is it and how did you get it?

A Look Back At Riverside Park

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This is an exerpt from the Massachusetts New Media Magazine where Susan E. Slattery recalls her last trip to “Riverside Park”. Since this article was written in 1997, the park was sold again and rebranded “Six Flags New England”. It was one of my favorite places as a teenager.

The last time I visited Riverside was in 1977, just after the installation of its one-loop steel coaster, The Black Widow. It had looked monstrous to me then, being the first loop I’d ever seen. I didn’t ride it; at that point in my life I had a poor understanding of centrifugal force and believed I’d be launched right out of my seat.

I rode the classic wooden Thunderbolt instead, with its neck-jerking camel hump hills and treacherously timeworn (the paint was peeling) construction. The Thunderbolt featured the added thrill of potential carnage ascribable to complete collapse.

It’s 20 years later, however, and the face of Riverside has changed. Not only are the rides bigger and more spectacular, (Riverside now has five adult coasters — including the large wood-frame Cyclone, which claims one of the steepest angles of ascent in existence), but the park is more colorful. New paint jobs abound, and things are greener. Grass and trees are making a comeback.

“Riverside used to be an asphalt jungle,” Sevart noted. Premier Parks bought the 170-acre theme park earlier this year from the Edward J. Carroll family, who had owned the park since shortly after the Great Depression. Premier, the fourth largest regional theme park company in the United States, owns and operates 11 parks throughout the country.

In the few months since the buyout, Premier has given its newest acquisition a dramatic facelift. The company launched a three-year capital plan that has pumped $20 million into the park so far; equally large investments are planned for coming years.

The biggest changes have been made right at the park’s entrance plaza, where Riverside’s famous 1909 M.C. Illion’s carousel, with more than 70 hand-carved horses, is now the gilded centerpiece. The carousel, valued in the millions, has been restored to its original condition, and is now housed in a specially designed structure that resembles a turn-of-the-century gazebo.