On Wednesday, September 9th Brandon Uttley and I will be at Julia’s Cafe & Books from 9:30-11 a.m. to offer free advertising, marketing, and start up advice to anyone who wants it. Click our names to view our qualifications and you’ll see that we’re no spring chickens. We’ve both amassed some pretty valuable information over our careers. And on September 9th, this vault of knowledge is free to anyone who wants it. It’s our way of giving back to the town that has given us both so much…
Before we left for vacation, I spent an afternoon at a men’s rehab talking to the guys who were all part of a 90-day program to get clean. It was my anniversary date. I talked to a few guys about getting sober, but mostly they weren’t receptive to the message that “it gets better.” It’s hard to fathom 24 years sobriety when you’re just trying to make it through the night. Anyway there was one guy, Adrien B., who was…
(I originally published this post on LinkedIn, and it’s been met with a bunch of solid feedback. Click on over there for the good stuff.) Last month, I used LinkedIn to reach out to ten marketing directors of mid-sized companies in Charlotte about the idea of sustainable marketing. I invited them to connect, and offered to buy them coffee or lunch to discuss how they might integrate the concepts I developed while building the Boxman Studios brand by over 3000% between 2009-2013. Concepts that rely less on traditional advertising, and more…
You don’t expect to be old. But then you start to spy glimpses of someone who is only vaguely familiar. You’ve changed. You’re thicker now. Not overweight, just sturdier. It’s ironic. Then there’s the hair. What you do have is turning silver. When you smile in photographs you see deep lines on your face. Trenches, really. Mental note: Don’t smile in photographs. These changes are not fair. You’re physically stronger and more intellectually capable than ever. Yet you have less…
They call it social media for a reason. Only now, some of the platforms are a lot less social. No matter what anyone tells you, there’s no “right” way to use Twitter. Twitter is a platform of authenticity. Your Twitter canon reveals everything about you. If all you tweet links, you look less human and more robotic. Back in the day, skeptics of Twitter would say, “I don’t care what someone is having for breakfast, why would I use Twitter?” Except…
“Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance. Everybody thinks it’s true.” – Paul Simon There’s an active set of railroad tracks that run within a mile of our house. It’s a freight line that often stops traffic as we make our way through our busy days. And when we’re not out and about, we can hear its whistle blow from our house. When my daughters were young, and trains would pass by, we’d stop and give a…
