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Can an App Help you Meet Your Goals?

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Everyone has goals. Whether they're personal: floss more, exercise regularly, learn to code, etc. or professional: be on time for work, earn a promotion, start a new career path, etc. The problem is (obviously) achieving them. And if you're like most people, your goals pile up faster than you can accomplish them. What's more, the longer you go without working toward a goal, and the more goals you add to the list, the harder it becomes to make progress on any of them. 

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Friday Candy: 80s Movie Montage Homage

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Happy Friday! Check out this video a Local Boston musician and friends made, consisting of a sweet montage homage to those wonderful '80's movies set to his own pop song. And he got national attention. Congrats Marco!

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Branding: When is it OK to be Boring?

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In preparation for my presentation on branding for the Hydrogen Fuel Cell association event in Canada later this month, I’ve been researching the brands of various companies in the category, looking for the ones that stand out. The one that struck me as the most viable is actually not very exciting – Ballard.  The look of their logo, with its slanted letters and lightning bolts, is straight out of 1982.

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How Market Research is Fundamentally Flawed

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The Captains strategy team has a blog post on market research featured on The Content Strategist, a blog run by the folks over at Contently. Their thesis is that market research that doesn't provide context is fundamentally flawed.

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When a SNL "Fake" Commercial is as Good as a "Real" Spot

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I barely watch Saturday Night Live actually "Live" anymore. I mean, SNL is like the KFC of late night TV. In the nature of great content creators like Jimmy Fallon and Ellen, the bits aired during their regularly scheduled time slots are only the beginning of their online digital longtail lives. Such is the case in the recent slightly skewering New Balance video featuring guest star Zach Galifianakis and not-ready-for-primetimers Tim Robison and Bobby Moynihan.

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Making the World's Smallest Movie

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Just watched the world’s smallest movie. It’s an animation made by some folks at IBM where each “pixel” consists of 12 atoms. First of all, it’s kind of mindblowing to watch. But make sure you watch the making of as well. As they move each cluster of 12 atoms on the surface to create the next frame, they can actually HEAR the atoms scraping over the surface.

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How Big Ideas Become Spreadable Content

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This week, General Motors signed the Climate Change Declaration, which states that tackling climate change is one of America’s greatest economic opportunities in the 21st century – and the right thing to do. They joined a growing list of global companies who have put their brands behind this, including including Levis, Starbucks, eBay, and Intel.

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What's Wrong With This Picture?

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The April 8 issue of Adweek  celebrated “Wired at 20”.  I love Wired, and I’ve been reading it since it launched.  But a picture in AdWeek’s article caught my eye.  Within the sidebar article “Still Connected” about how Wired has maintained its relevance over 20 years, there is a full spread photo on pp 24-5 with the caption “a bird’s-eye view of the Wired HQ”. 

wired at 20 adweek

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What Does Brand Planning Look Like From a Content Marketing Agency?

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We recently finished a mega-positioning exercise for a life sciences company. A few days before the presentation a team member—a recent hire—asked me, "is there a template we use for delivering positioning findings to clients?" Err….no. 

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What Our Manifesto Says About Content Today #2

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Our manifesto poster that states  “Fun and business are not mutually exclusive” was originally written to describe the value of a fun company culture. Companies that make time to have fun and socialize end up being more innovative and productive.  That's as true as it ever was, but the concept of fun and business going together like fondue, wine and Bert Bacharach is also highly relevant for today’s content marketing.

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