January 2013 | Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Blog

January 31, 2013 9:48 PM

Do Shopping Centers Have A Future?

Retail, consumerism and how we buy has changed in the past few years, like never before. If you speak to a brand that has retail as one of their primary transactional channels, they are nervous. How we buy has so... Read more

January 31, 2013 4:25 PM

On Death And Dying Brands

The new art of branding. How many painters do you know in your city or town? Not the kind with dropsheets and white overalls who will refresh your old basement bathroom with a splashy buckland blue over a long weekend,... Read more

January 30, 2013 5:35 PM

The End Of Permission

Thankfully, Seth Godin is alive and well, otherwise, he'd be rolling over in his grave. In 1999, Godin wrote the seminal marketing business book, Permission Marketing. In short, don't assume that your consumers want your marketing pap, get their permission... Read more

January 27, 201312:05 PM

Media Hackings On The Internet Of Things

Episode #342 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. Does anyone remember Media Hacks? It was a semi-frequent podcast within this podcast that was a roundtable conversation... Read more

January 26, 2013 8:22 AM

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #136

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and... Read more

January 25, 2013 8:48 PM

To Sell Is Human. To Be A Marketer Is Human

You have to watch this conversation. Daniel H. Pink is one of the best business book authors and thought leaders on business out in the wild. He's written some of the most compelling books including, A Whole New Mind, Drive... Read more

January 25, 2013 8:20 AM

The Thing About Facebook And Brands

What should a brand do on Facebook? That question above... the one about brands on Facebook... yesterday, I got that asked that question three times. Yesterday. The pressure that brands feel to make connections on Facebook is tremendous. They're reading... Read more

January 24, 2013 9:42 PM

Overcoming Stage Fright

Whether it's a boardroom or a convention center, it's common (and normal) to have stage fright. Volumes of books have been written about overcoming stage fright. These include books that have been written by psychologists, neuroscientists, performance coaches and more.... Read more

January 22, 201312:27 PM

Why I'm Proud To Be A Dummy

A true story... The other week, I was on a busy flight out to the West Coast. It was a cold, winter's day on the east coast and as the plane started to board, the flight attendants were already making... Read more

January 21, 2013 3:40 PM

Three New(ish) Trends In Digital Media

Life after Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube? Can't imagine it, can you? There are a handful of new social media tools, channels and applications that could be giving way to newer ways in which consumers connect. Not just to one... Read more

January 20, 2013 1:02 PM

What Mark Zuckerberg Knows

Episode #341 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. My first thought, when I heard about the book, Think Like Zuck by Ekaterina Walter, was, "wow, I... Read more

January 19, 2013 4:55 PM

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #135

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and... Read more

January 19, 201311:04 AM

The Empty Cup Strategy

A fictional situation (that is all too real)... Imagine this: you have an amazing day at work. A big project got completed, you were called out in terms of your excellence and other moments of pride and distinction from your... Read more

January 18, 2013 1:23 PM

Bring Your Brain To Work Day

There's a line that has been marinating in my brain for close to a year now. One of the speakers at the TED 2012 conference in Long Beach was Jim Stengel. Stengel is a legend (of sorts) in the marketing... Read more

January 17, 201310:59 PM

The Ambiguous Brand

Branding is no longer a zero-sum game. Back in my music journalism days, I had the chance to interview Gene Simmons from KISS on several occasions. It was always an "experience," and he always spouted off quotable little sound bytes... Read more

January 16, 2013 3:29 PM

The Permanent Brand

Have you ever read a book about branding? When you study the art of branding, any good book on the subject will - at some point early on - turn to the neologism of the word "branding" in terms of... Read more

January 15, 2013 9:37 PM

Great Design Removes Technology

Pushing that idea further: great design removes technology. Great design removes all friction. Here's my thinking: we have finally arrived at this magnificent moment in time when technology has removed the technology from technology. No, that is not a typo.... Read more

January 13, 201312:34 PM

Flying High Again (With Seth Godin)

Episode #340 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. Seth Godin is an institution. Normally, in this short paragraph, I do my best to introduce the guest... Read more

January 12, 2013 3:08 PM

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #134

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and... Read more

January 12, 2013 8:46 AM

A Beautiful Business... And Mind

The constant battle of business ethics... Can a business make a ton of money and do the right thing? At first blush we would say, "no way... it doesn't happen." When Tony Hsieh took over at Zappos (selling shoes online)... Read more

January 10, 2013 9:32 PM

The One Screen World - Take Two

How many screen are there? You've heard of the three screens? The four screens? The companion screen? The three screens are: television, computer and mobile. The fourth screen became the tablet (it's debatable). The companion screen is whatever other screen... Read more

January 10, 2013 7:49 AM

Robots And Makers And Drones... Oh My!

Something new about something new. At the beginning of this year, I started a new blog. Shhh, don't tell anyone ;) It's true. It's on tumblr and it's called: We, Robots. It's not a blog like Six Pixels of Separation... Read more

January 9, 2013 8:54 PM

Maybe Nobody Knows Nothing

Consumers are fundamentally ahead of brands when it comes to technology and social media. You may have heard this line before. I use this line in my presentations, in articles and in past blog posts. It is the battlecry by... Read more

January 8, 2013 9:01 AM

The Future Of Marketing: You Connected To Your Toaster

What can media do? I was driving on the highway and spotted a billboard. It was your average, run of the mills, type of billboard. It could have been for a local restaurant, something from the tourism council, a car... Read more

January 6, 2013 5:31 PM

Marketing Is Dead (Again)

Episode #339 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. When the Harvard Business Review posted the article, Marketing Is Dead, by Bill Lee, my heart sunk. I... Read more

January 5, 201310:42 AM

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #133

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and... Read more

January 4, 2013 9:21 AM

The Drone Wars... Business Style

Drones are everywhere. Less than a decade ago, The Pentagon had about fifty unmanned combat air vehicles (known as drones or uav). It is estimated that they currently have about seven thousand of them (Congress asked for about $5 billion... Read more

January 3, 201310:03 PM

Build A Platform

There is one true, defendable thing you can do to avoid unemployment. What do you think it is? Take a guess. A better education? Work for a secure company? Start your own business? Move to a more prosperous area? I... Read more

January 2, 2013 9:49 PM

The Elusive Digital Promise

Traditional media is getting it all wrong (again). On December 31st, 2012, MediaPost ran a news item titled, For Traditional Media, Digital Remains Elusive Promise, that looks at the conversion of traditional advertising dollars into digital ones. From the article:... Read more

January 1, 201311:17 AM

My 3 Words For 2013

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2013. What's the plan? I was never a fan of goal-setting... and even less of a fan of New Year's Resolutions. For a long while, I was working within a framework called The Goal Cultivator... Read more