A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (Recovery Losses Momentum) stated that consumers have seen little growth in their wallets and remain skittish about the economy’s prospects. Of course, if you own a business that depends on people having jobs and disposable income you didn’t need research from the U.S. Commerce Department to tell you that consumer spending is sluggish. Economists are currently cutting forecasts for the second half, and your calls and foot traffic ar... [More]

There is a story that is told of Henry Ford about a breakdown in his assembly line that no one on his staff could fix.  As the story goes, his production lines were down for hours; hours turned into days, and Henry was frustrated.  In desperation he called an electrical engineer friend whom he trusted to come to his plant, diagnose, and repair the problem.  His friend promptly arrived and after spending about ten minutes the Ford lines were up and running.  A most grateful He... [More]

Remember playing “Rock, Paper, Scissors?” The basics of the game consist of each player shaking a fist a number of times (priming) and then extending the same hand in a fist (rock), out flat (paper), or with the index and middle fingers extended (scissors). Each of these is referred to as a throw, and which one wins is dependent upon the opponent’s throw.   · Paper wins against Rock (paper covers rock) · Rock wins against Scissors (rock smashing scissors)... [More]

“I’ve been in this business for 30 years and I’ve never seen it like this.”   I can recall hearing that statement three times over the course of my career. The first time I heard it I was in my 20’s. My boss at the time had been a part of the Texas oil field service industry for over 30 years and the mid 80’s oil crash was taking its toll. What once had boomed was now busting, stripper wells that had been profitable were being plugged and new drilli... [More]

Most people will agree that practical experience is a good thing. In fact, if you’ve been around the block a time or two, the old adage “experience is the best teacher” is probably anchored in your mindset. When I reflect on my lessons learned through practical experience I always find Will Rogers’ perspective insightful, but also at times, troublesome:   “The trouble with using experience as your guide is that sometimes the final exam comes first, then the l... [More]

In November 2009 Twitter launched an interesting feature called Twitter Lists.  In short, Twitter Lists allow you to organize the profiles you’re following into groups.  The filtering aspect of this feature is helpful if you are trying to zero in on something specific, such as Twitter users based on location, employer, or any other relevant categories.   Creating a new Twitter List is a simple process.  In fact, the first thing you’ll be asked is to provide a na... [More]

Are you friending, linking, tweeting and blogging? Social media is driving a wave of human interaction around the world.  My @AlanSee twitter page currently references over 4,300 tweets and nearly 7,100 followers. Those are fairly low numbers when compared to many avid twitter users; although high enough to rank in the top one percent of users according to Twitter Grader.  But what does it all mean? Do social media sites encourage people to concentrate on their number of connections ra... [More]

I’m fortunate to be able to reflect on the role of marketing as both a CMO and educator.  In my role as educator my student’s first assignment is always a short interpretive paper in which I ask for their personal definition of marketing; as well as their perspective on marketing’s importance in helping organizations achieve success. Over the years, I’ve discovered that these papers provide a glimpse into the mindset of individuals who are generally not focused on co... [More]