Craig Kelly, the EVP & CMO at SunTrust Bank delivered a fine keynote on Monday. 
We were at the 5th Annual Financial Services Symposium, which was pretty much a dud overall.   Some of the speakers I caught were very good, though:  Sylvia Reynolds from Wells Fargo and Jenny Powell from U.S. Bank in particular. But, for being a small conference, it […]

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My favorite tree is the one I’m lucky enough to look at almost every day, pictured above.  It sits just outside my office window.  I’ve been told that this tree is a ponderosa pine and is over 100 years old. 
100!  That’s amazing to me.  Think of the vast changes that have happened in our world […]

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At the Graphing Social Patterns conference on “the business and technology of Facebook” (yes, that conference does sound ridiculous) Jason Calacanis went into a short, but fairly accurate rant about why Facebook is not close to delivering the ad value of Google.  My favorite line:
“Social networking is second only to chat rooms as the worst place to advertise.”
He’s […]

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I was taken by the quick response of UK security yesterday when a security alarm was set off by an acrid cloud of smoke in downtown London. UK and London security forces cordoned off several streets. Suspecting a chemical attack of some kind, chemical detox units were set up and ready to go
As it turns […]

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I had these thoughts while reading Lisa’s account of Google’s Jaiku purchase.    

If your first thought is, “what’s a Jaiku?” then congratulations, you have a life that doesn’t require knowledge of the latest tech fad. 
Lisa referred to Jaiku and Twitter as “life streaming” platforms.  Didn’t sound like she coined it, but that’s a pretty apt description of both.
Why […]

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Today Mark Simon of Did-it raised another bubble alarm in his post “Is The Online Ad Industry Partying Like It’s 1999?”
Unlike stock analyst Henry Blodget, Mark is a search industry insider who is highly respected within the online marketing industry.  So, when he rang the bubble alarm it certainly raised my eyebrows.
On a few of Mark’s […]

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“I wrote this song two hours before we met.
I didn’t know your name or what you looked like yet.
Oh, I could have stayed at home and gone to bed.
I could have gone to see a film instead.
You might have changed your mind and seen your friends.
Life could have been very different but then,
something changed.”  - […]

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Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim recently announced a contest – write about why you read Marketing Pilgrim and you will be entered to win $500.  I thought I would take that as an opportunity to write about the other blogs I read and why.  If our number comes up in for the $500, it will be donated […]

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If you’re like me and you loved Buffy, that’s a huge statement, I know.
But Reaper is very, very good.   The premise is that a young man finds out on his 21st birthday that his parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born.  Like Buffy, the show plays it straight.  In Buffy, Sunnydale […]

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The light posting lately was due to a trip out to Northern California.  It was a fantastic trip.  Karla and I were even able to spend a few days without the kids for the first time in 3 years!   We headed up to Sonoma County wine country for a friend’s wedding at the Trentadue Winery.
We […]

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