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What scares you?  What keeps you up at night, and nags at the back of your consciousness?  There are few things that frighten me, one of them being that I have stopped learning and, like old bread, have gotten stale.

Can you imagine waking up one day to discover that your capacity to take in new knowledge has ended?  That everything you are going to learn has already happened and that your brain, now filled to capacity, was blinking “hard drive full”?  It can happen.  I have experienced it.

One thing that occurs when you are the custodian of a marketing budget is that everyone wants to meet with you.  If you allowed every new vendor to come in for a pitch, you could literally spend every day watching Power Point slides.  To better manage your time you set up protocols and processes–your staff and agencies screen new opportunities and vendors and only highlight those that they feel are right and likely to interest you.  This frees you up to focus on running your marketing programs, driving your business, and managing your time.

But all those protocols and layers are traps.  They isolate you from the marketplace and insulate you from innovation.  Your ability to compare and make decisions on new opportunities based on your firsthand knowledge/exposure diminishes… you are going stale.  So what can you do to stay current and in-touch with new options and changing landscapes without being capsized by solicitation?  Here are some fuel for thought suggestions:

• Trends/Data/Marketing News
• Brands on Twitter
• Marketing & Advertising

John Battelle shares his insights and offers suggestions on Social Media Marketing.

Related posts:
All Media Is Social. Now What? by Fuel for Thought

John Battelle & The Conversation Economy by C. B. Whittemore

Last week, marketers from all around the tri-state area converged in New Jersey at our Fuel for Thought conference to learn, share experiences and develop ideas to get a handle on social media marketing.  There’s a lot we covered/learned from each session and we’ll be sharing key highlights and materials here on our blog.

We’ll kick-off the first conference recap with John Battelle’s (CEO/Founder, Federated Media) keynote on “All Media is Social.  Now What?”  John’s keynote was brilliantly right-on-topic to get us all kindling new ideas.  Here are four key areas he covered:

1.  The Rise of Conversational Marketing: First we declared our intentions (what we want) through search.  Then we declared our relations (social graph — who we are as defined by how we are connected to other people) on sites like Facebook.  Finally, during the past year we declared our utterances (what we are doing, what we are interested in, etc.) on sites like Twitter.  When you put all these declarations together — intention, relations and utterances, you have an economy of conversations. (more…)

A year ago, we launched the Fuel for Thought Series with the goal to create a forum for marketers where we could share the most relevant trends, insights and smart practices that would fuel growth and innovation for their brands.  We made a promise to keep all content unbiased and free of sales pitches to ensure an authentic, no-strings-attached environment for marketers to engage.

Our first event last year focused on finding the optimum digital marketing solutions.  Geoff Ramsey, CEO/Founder of eMarketer shared his Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn and it sure got our attendees engaged in various discussions to help them jump-start planning in the right direction for the coming year.  Today, we’re thrilled to see that many of the attendees have implemented steps built from those insights/conversations into their marketing programs.  We as an agency also applied those insights and it helped us innovate and grow during the downturn. (more…)

Oscar Wilde said that “to expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” He was right.

The reality is that things never go as planned. But when you think about it, is that a bad thing? Those shaping the world make a difference by going beyond the expected. They figure out ways to capitalize on the unexpected twists and turns that come their way. They relish in the opportunities that are presented when unexpected things happen and as a result make great strides in the economy, environment, society, etc.

Business owners and entrepreneurs…the best bubble up when they expect the unexpected. They plan for the unexpected. They know that nothing should be taken at face value. And even further, it’s their ability to capitalize on unexpected opportunities that really makes them superstars. (more…)

What kind of person would think about using a tree as a musical instrument?  I was amazed by what Diego Stocco was able to compose using an ordinary tree in his garden.  Shuffling leaves, tapping bark and strumming and bowing on twigs.  By considering the tree from a different perspective, Diego transformed it into something completely different.

Diego Stocco – Music From A Tree from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Discovering new and unique ways to create something different from a common object or idea is a challenge for all creatives. We often set our own boundaries and expectations of what something “should” be, defined either by the project parameters or personal preferences. Overcoming these limitations opens up a world of new experiences and fresh inspiration for our work. (more…)

In our line of business, we interact with many different businesses, from start-ups to Fortune 500 international conglomerates.  It’s always interesting to hear them apologize for not being as educated as they should in the area of emerging media. They often tend to get disjointed or siloed. The truth is that as we get deeper into the diverse, converging landscape between digital media and marketing, many of the old rules of marketing no longer apply.  Whether you are big or small, deep in resources or entrepreneurial in spirit, the landscape can be intimidating.

During a roundtable at our Fuel for Thought event, we discussed on a topic we often get asked by clients.

How can marketers incorporate the consumer’s point-of-view as a regular part of strategy sessions, extending beyond consumer-generated content, consumer-created advertising, corporate blogs and focus groups? (more…)

We launched the Fuel for Thought Series last week, a morning event hosted by Sigma Group, our trusted partners eMarketer and IncBizNet to present an overview of the current digital media landscape and provide clarity and insights on best practices for optimizing interactive programs.

Our thanks to Geoff Ramsey, CEO/Founder of eMarketer, for an enlightening presentation and sharing his Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn.

It was a pleasure to meet and greet our distinguished guests. The dynamic Round Table Discussions could have extended well into the afternoon if time permitted. (more…)

Businesses both large and small face similar challenges in today’s highly competitive marketplace: how to gain visibility, grow, innovate and connect with consumers — but do it all with less, with minimal risk, while bringing in fast results.

The convergence of digital and emerging media offers exciting new possibilities to connect and converse with consumers and stimulate brand awareness. But at the same time, it brings new challenges: with media fragmentation and brands being unleashed into unfamiliar frontiers, success depends on employing new marketing approaches and strategies. (more…)