As we close 2012, did you (Mr./Mrs. executive) make bold moves? Did you (Mr./Ms. Manager) get your company to make bold moves? Or did you (Startup CEO) get your clients to innovate with your technology or service? Whether you’re trying to drive a big change from the inside, or selling innovative technology or service from the outside (such as SaaS), it’s challenging to get companies to do something new. To accelerate innovation, at some point you need executive buy-in. They can make bigger moves...

I just read a fascinating global study on what CEOs think of Marketers, by the Fournaise Marketing Group. Some of the interesting findings for me are: They keep on talking about brand, brand values, brand equity and other similar parameters that their top management has great difficulties linking back to results that really matter: revenue, sales, EBIT or even market valuation (77%) They focus too much on the latest marketing trends such as social media, because they believe they represent the...

1) Build trust you can ‘handle’ projects autonomously 2) Take initiative on opportunities/gaps.

I asked my Twitter / Facebook friends what the best restaurants were in downtown austin for SXSW. Here’s what came in: Lamberts BBQ Moonshine La Condessa Ranch 616 Chez Nous Haddington’s Peche Second Kitchen Trio Congress Restaurant Driskill Thai Passion Uchi Gueros Casino El Camino Enjoy!

For the last couple years I’ve thought a lot about where user generated and social content are going. It’s valuable, but growing exponentially, more of it is real-time, and there’s a difficult-to-manage fragmention of customer experiences. I’m excited to announce a company my co-founders and I have formed to go after a big market problem. Today we announced the launch and funding of my new company, Mass Relevance, co-founded with Brian Dainton and Eric Falcao. You can see...

“What are you doing now?” That is the question facing you every time you open Facebook, Twitter or other social networks asking for a status update. Through follows, fans and likes, you are connected to people, brands and content. Web and mobile devices ensure you are constantly connected and empowered to create your own content. Brands are starting to display their Facebook URL and Twitter names at the tops of their sites. And thus, the explosion of social experiences is about to hit the...

In social strategy there is always something missing and something to improve. But there’s one area where I see a big gap. First, the good news. Brands are starting to ‘listen’ to what people are saying. There are great listening and social media management platforms available, such as Spredfast (plug disclosure…I’m an advisor). However, it’s typically a few people inside the company that are paying attention to user generated content. There’s still a long way to go to make this listening...

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about the strategy of group buying sites (or daily deals, flash sales, etc.). Groupon is the leader in this space…so much the word is becoming a verb. The questions I often hear are: How do you know if Groupon (and group buying deals) are right for a type of business? What are the factors that make Groupon a profitable strategy? How do you evaluate and analyze the profitability of Groupon? Already there are a lot of competitors with Groupon, and more several...

I used Keepstream.com to curate the ‘meatiest’ tweets from Shop.org Summit 2010, which just ended today. It was another great show. Over 3,000 attendees! Social, mobile, and local are still hot themes as they were last year…because few retailers have figured them out. I led a couple roundtables on social commerce and social media ROI. However, other discussions around the show suggest there’s a lot of money to be made getting the basics right…email, SEO, SEM, content,...

I’ve been in digital marketing and ecommerce my entire career. As such, I recognize that online marketing is about balancing the creative with the analytical. In the case of my Dell career (managing Dell.com) it was heavily analytical. That’s what I love about online direct marketing, you can justify investment and grow a business through learning what works and what doesn’t. Here’s the problem though. The cycle of learning what works, of failing fast, of cycling through tests...