I received two lessons in the Gift Economy back in the mid 1990’s that have stuck with me ever since. Back when The Cluetrain Manifesto was new, the concept of the Gift Economy was hard to wrap one’s mind around. …

Unless, of course, that you were there and didn’t miss it — in which case you know who you are — but I can’t share who was there because the Chatham House Rule is in play. I can, however, tell you what you missed. WHAT IS ANALYTICS COHORTS? Analytics Cohorts…

What happens to brands when personal AI agents seek the best deals on behalf of their consumer owners? Into a cocktail shaker, mix today’s focus on privacy, advances in machine learning and voice response systems, and consumers’ overwhelming desire for convenience. Shake vigorously. …

All the dictionaries show What all the diction-wary know Data are Data the whole day long And to say that “it is” is linguistically wrong To give the datum its due respect, “Datums” is prodigiously incorrect That data is plural is demonstrably true But “these data are” just won’t do It all starts with a bit…

Leave it to Tim Wilson to casually, quietly, and in the most gentlemanly way possible, let me know that my world view is too simplistic to believe. I had spelled out the Marketing Data Literacy Spectrum along a scale that denotes corporate culture as running the gamut from anti-data to…

From the Data Deniers to the Data Forward, your organization is on this chart. The marketing race will go to the most data-enriched organizations. Time for a look in the mirror. There are some who can read well enough to navigate a cookbook. Some can write a lengthy treatise on…

Customers’ bots and agents will work on their behalf… 5 Steps to Avoid Being Blindsided Pardon me, Sir. Yes, Jeeves? The Air Bag light is now lit. Yeah, I saw that. What’s that about? Of the 63 things that could be wrong, the most common is a misconnection in the wiring harness. It will cost $150 for a diagnostician to determine if that’s the case…

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are at the top of the hype cycle. To keep you in the conversation on the Slack channel, at the company retreat, or while heading to the airport with your boss, you will be well served to keep these three Needs and Deeds in mind: …