Archives for communication
I say potato, you think Vichyssoise. Let’s talk.
In my 10+ years of managing projects, teams and client expectations, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most common threat to the success of relationships and projects is simple lack of communication. Why simple? Because usually the simplest misunderstanding at the outset of an engagement is where it all starts to skid downhill. For example, [...]
We Want a Traffic Jam
Everyone wants more site traffic. More traffic means happy client, and happy client means happy agency. Marketers invest huge amounts of money to pay for methods of generating traffic to their microsites and applications like SEO, social media and the all-encompassing category: viral. Even though all these methods exist, several sites fall by the wayside never to be [...]
How to Do Something You’ve Never Done Before
As a technologist, I’m often asked to do something that I’ve never done before and have no specific competency in performing; tasks which I’m completely unqualified to execute. The more palatable way of saying the same thing is: As a consultant, technical lead, solutions engineer or a business analyst, I’m given challenges that require me to identify [...]
Interactive Shopping: Nordstrom’s 2: Macy’s 2
Interactive Shopping, Social Media and Customer Service — these topics are closely related, because the most critical elements of success for a brand are: Relevance: Do you matter to your customers? Can your product or service create superior value for them? Engagement: Do you reach out to your customer? Do you have methods and platforms for marketing, [...]
CMO Leadership: Putting your agencies to work for you!
As an interactive agency, Pop Art works with many other agencies. Sometimes we are agency-of-record for a client, but most often, our clients employ 2, 3 or sometimes dozens of marketing agencies and consultants, and we are just some of the actors on the stage. Having multiple agencies can be very expensive because of the necessary [...]
Mozilla’s “Ubiquity”: User-Generated Mash-Ups and the Semantic Web
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo. Here is a neat little video on Mozilla’s new Firefox extension: Ubiquity. Some of the future digital trends it highlights, include: User-generated Mash-Ups: Allowing users (not just developers) to quickly combine information and services from multiple sources. The Semantic Web: Allowing machines to understand language to better understand human requests. The value [...]
Benefits of Agency Collaboration
Last week I attended a Portland Ad Federation seminar where the topic was “Integration Collaboration”. The main conversation surrounded how to get agencies and vendors to work together better to serve their customers needs. Ultimately this will create a more successful campaign when talent from print, interactive, event marketing, etc. come together. I thought I’d [...]
Why Clients and Agencies Need to Take a Holistic Approach to E-Business
The most successful e-business implementations excel, not just by being great in one area, but by being good in all areas and great in some areas. Critical E-Business Success Factors Clear business vision and measurable goals A marketing plan that drives your campaigns and programs Scalable and diversified advertising channels A technology framework that is secure, reliable, [...]
Communication the Old Fashioned Way
The world is busy. The agency world is even busier. The client services team spends a lot of time communicating goals, constraints, and timelines of projects across departments. We have lots of great tools in place to help manage the workflow: Project websites, Basecamp, Microsoft project, emails to the team and clients, etc. All of [...]
10 Years Ago
Ever since Pop Art’s first year in business (1997-1998), I have held onto a magazine advertising insert published in the March, 1998 version of Wired Magazine. The piece is the “Encyclopedia of the New Economy” written by Browning and Reiss and published by Wired and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). The “encyclopedia” is loaded with exuberant consultant-speak, [...]
