There are two seemingly diametrical trends taking place right now: dark social and live everywhere. This post looks at the first one. Dark sharing was a term coined to describe the shares we can't track -- e-mailing an article to a friend, texting a URL, DMing a video...
Independent Thinking Blog
Technology
How the Brainbelts Will Save America
Welcome to the era of brainbelts. A brainbelt is a term coined by Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker to talk about the transformation of traditional rustbelt cities in the U.S. and Europe into centers of global innovation. van Agtmael said in remarks at the Brookings...
Millennial Entrepreneurs Are Diverse, Digital, & Green
Who are the millennial entrepreneurs? That's a question the Business Journals sought to explore in a report released late last year entitled, Millennial Business Owners: Optimism Abounds. The report surveyed over 1,300 millennial and boomer business owners and...
The Age of Snapchat
I’ve been playing around with Snapchat. By “playing around,” I mean that I set up an account and started watching how various brands are creating content for the medium. I’m looking at stories. I’m exploring how live stories can offer fresh perspectives on a place or...
Blogging on the Lazy River
I was in Orlando last week for a conference. It was a last-minute decision to head south. And I didn't actually attend the conference. I really went to see some SoloPR PRO friends and colleagues who were at the conference. To hang out. To network. And to get energized...
Finding Fresh Voices 2
I wrote a post a couple of years ago about finding fresh voices. It was all about how you need new perspectives to be creative. I'm taking a Coursera class right now on Internet Giants: The Law and Economics of Media Platforms. It's a fascinating look at Microsoft,...
What to Do When Your Site Gets Hacked
You know you’re in trouble when you’re hoping the email you’re staring at is spam. I woke up on December 24 to a notice from Google’s Webmaster Tools that my site was infected. It read, in part: Unfortunately, it appears some pages on your site may infect visitors...
Tools and Technology Only Get You So Far
Hello, Ello. Ello calls itself “a simple, beautiful, and ad-free social network.” It wants to be the anti-Facebook. It’s invitation only (for now). It’s hip. It’s getting a lot of buzz. This post isn’t about Ello. FOMO (fear of missing out) doesn't have to be a thing....
2014 Digital Trends, Un-trends, and Other MAM Summit Highlights
The Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit is one terrific conference. And I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to conferences; a lot of the time I find myself in sessions doodling or diving into my reading backlog, or outside walking the halls talking with other stragglers. In...
What You Need to Know About Cryptocurrencies (Think Bitcoin)
I'm fascinated by Bitcoin. Not the currency per se, but rather the "why" and "how" of it. I'm excited, for example, by initiatives to create a more-transparent financial system. Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams talked about this in their 2010 book, Macrowikinomics,...