Random Thoughts

A few weeks ago I gave a different kind of presentation to what I’m used to giving. It was to a room full of young professionals from all kinds of industries. Not a marketing group or even people who’s careers had anything to do with marketing. The event was through a group called NetSAP, which … Read more

Every once in a while, you see an example of a campaign or product that demonstrates a little too clearly the negative side of marketing and makes you just a little embarassed about your career choice. If you spend any amount of time watching ads during cartoons on Saturday morning, you’ll pretty quickly see what … Read more

This is a post about three things going on right now that I’d like to ask for your vote for. The first two are panel sessions that I quietly proposed for next year’s SXSW conference which are now online and ready for voting. For those of you who were there this year, you might remember … Read more

There is a myth in marketing today that many people blindly believe about sponsoring events … that you always need exclusivity. The benefits of being an exclusive sponsor are easy to list, but there are some less considered negative aspects that could end up doing more harm to your brand than good. Let’s look at … Read more

I spent the morning today at a press event for a handful of Lenovo’s athlete bloggers all talking about their experience of blogging during the Olympics. The three participants we had were Peter Lopez (a Peruvian Tae Kwon Do athlete), Carissa Gump (an American weightlifter), and Seth Kelsey (an American fencer). The event was slightly … Read more

The one thing I always relearn every time I return to Asia is the art of bargaining. It is one that is strangely missing from most people’s daily lives if they live in America. Perhaps that is the reason many Americans are so bad at it. When you live in a culture where bargaining is … Read more

If you are one of those people that gets in front of the television every evening with a box of tissues to get ready for the melodramatic overload that is the American television coverage of the Olympics, then you’ll be thrilled to know that as part of their sponsorship of the US Olympic team, Kleenex … Read more

Today I’m at the Olympics and I’m very proud to be Indian. You might have heard the story of Abhinav Bindra, the Shooter from India who just won the country’s first Gold medal in over 25 years and first individual Gold medal ever. To say he is a hero to more than a billion people … Read more

When I boarded my flight to Beijing, I didn’t have a single ticket for any Olympic events and I wasn’t worried. To understand why, I need to tell you about my best day during the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000. I was living there and had one night where I was heading out to … Read more