The Curious Engineer

Seth's Blog

2008–2010

1,322 posts

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2010 443

December 2010

  1. Maybe next year…
  2. #YearInReview What did you ship in 2010?
  3. Sadly stuck with the status quo
  4. Folk wisdom and proofiness
  5. Bigger or smaller?
  6. Measuring busy-ness…
  7. Family day
  8. A paradox of expectations
  9. Three ways TV changed everything (and what’s next)
  10. Just looking
  11. The first rule of doing work that matters
  12. Do elite trappings create success? (Causation vs. correlation)
  13. Who’s on your list?
  14. What are you working on?
  15. Quote cards
  16. Weasel words are more difficult to get away with
  17. Lady Gaga and me
  18. How to organize a retreat
  19. High margins, Groupon and the magic basket for price differentiators
  20. The myth of the simple business plan
  21. Everyone and no one
  22. “The answer is simple”
  23. You will be misunderstood
  24. The appearance of impropriety
  25. Where’s your platform?
  26. The Domino Project
  27. The open road
  28. In search of accomplices
  29. Living with doubt
  30. The world’s worst boss
  31. Cliches
  32. The inevitable decline due to clutter
  33. Who owns Wikipedia?

November 2010

  1. Don’t just do something, stand there
  2. A few seats reserved for a fundraiser
  3. The one who isn’t easily replaced
  4. Unwarranted fear of claim chowder
  5. Your noise is still noise
  6. When you criticize my choices…
  7. A modern thanksgiving
  8. Where do ideas come from?
  9. The full day publishing seminar
  10. Reasons to work
  11. Linchpin meetup–The second worldwide event is December 7
  12. Our normal approach is useless here
  13. The market has no taste
  14. Groping for a marketing solution: TSA and security theater
  15. It’s one thing to hear it…
  16. Sure, but what’s the hard part?
  17. Embracing the upcycle instead of the downcycle
  18. Watcha gonna do with that duck?
  19. The Sally Field problem
  20. Unreasonable
  21. Arrogance is a bug in signal processing
  22. Crunchy
  23. The bright line of small differences
  24. Why we prefer live
  25. Worth a thousand words
  26. Hire an architect
  27. No knight, no shining armor
  28. Oxygen for ideas
  29. Seeking market resonance
  30. “I don’t have any good ideas”
  31. Problems and constraints
  32. Do more vs. do better
  33. Alienating the 2%
  34. Childish vs. childlike
  35. Laziness
  36. Helping the rejection committee
  37. How can you do it?!
  38. Invitation to join the triiibe
  39. Voting, misunderstood

October 2010

  1. Marketing Halloween
  2. Just because he’s angry
  3. Won’t get fooled again
  4. Pushing back on mediocre professors
  5. On buying unmeasurable media
  6. I spread your idea because…
  7. How media changes politics
  8. Last call for the Los Angeles road trip event
  9. Organizing for joy
  10. Change and its constituents (there are two, and both are a problem)
  11. Efficiency is free
  12. Avoiding counterfeits, building permission
  13. Two problems with whining
  14. The sales you don’t make
  15. The shipit journal is back in stock…
  16. Deliberately uninformed, relentlessly so [a rant]
  17. Killer apps now shipping (early days)
  18. Four roads
  19. You’re famous
  20. Hacking education
  21. Merchants of dissatisfaction
  22. N-1
  23. Heroes and mentors
  24. The book of the year
  25. Time to get off the brandwagon
  26. What does ‘pro-business’ mean?
  27. Getting smart about the hierarchy of smart
  28. Do you need a permit?
  29. When the long tail is underwater
  30. Beware the Nile perch
  31. Ubiquitous distribution is overrated
  32. Generous gifts vs. free samples
  33. Next
  34. The business of software
  35. Demonstrating strength
  36. Your ecosystem
  37. The buddy system
  38. Seek scarcity

September 2010

  1. Good stuff: 3 day free seminar plus LA and Atlanta
  2. Getting better at seeing
  3. Needs don’t always lead to demand
  4. Accounting for taste
  5. Five rules for your About page
  6. The problem with putting it all on the line…
  7. The market is not seduced by logic
  8. Cost reduction for high-end markets
  9. The Mesh is here (don’t miss it)
  10. “I need you to see things my way”
  11. Dissatisfaction guaranteed
  12. Do you actually care about privacy?
  13. The forever recession
  14. Questions or answers
  15. Are you responsible for what you market?
  16. The power of buttons and being normal
  17. Turning the tables on critical trolls
  18. Beyond crowdsourcing
  19. Rehearsing is for cowards
  20. What shape is your funnel?
  21. Self-delusion and self-loathing
  22. The myth of preparation
  23. Shipit Workbook back in stock for a while
  24. Why jazz is more interesting than bowling
  25. Pushing the spectrum
  26. Interpreting criticism
  27. Loyalty
  28. Three uses for a free Kindle book
  29. Marketing to the bottom of the pyramid
  30. If you want to learn to do marketing…
  31. Design with intent
  32. Whatever happened to labor?
  33. Your smile didn’t matter
  34. Sometimes, price is an attitude
  35. Check-in, Chicken
  36. Better than nothing (is harder than you think)
  37. Launching the ShipIt Workbook
  38. Responsibility and authority

August 2010

  1. Just launched: Linchpin on the Vook on the iPad
  2. The corporate conscience
  3. Professionals, amateurs and the great unwashed
  4. Don’t forget about color
  5. A little out of sync
  6. The blizzard of noise (and the good news)
  7. Senior management
  8. Sell the problem
  9. Little lies and small promises
  10. The secret of the Roush effect
  11. Moving on
  12. Monitoring your internal monologue
  13. Drop everything, we need you to perform in our circus
  14. Finding inspiration instead of it finding you
  15. Splitting wood
  16. Subtlety, deconstructed
  17. The road trip continues (announcing Atlanta)
  18. Avoiding momentum
  19. The fear tax
  20. How long before you run out of talking points?
  21. How big is your red zone?
  22. The right price the first time
  23. Resilience and the incredible power of slow change
  24. Foundation elements for modern businesses
  25. Exploration and the risk of failure
  26. When technology and tradition diverge
  27. The places you go
  28. Competition
  29. The decision before the decision
  30. Sleeping funny
  31. Choosing your customers
  32. Are you a bullfrog in a china shop?
  33. Train your customers
  34. Accept all substitutes
  35. A post-industrial A to Z digital battledore
  36. Intolerance and xenophobia as a (short-term) marketing strategy
  37. “I thought you’d be taller”

July 2010

  1. Sabotage!
  2. Every monster has a big shadow
  3. A few books for summer reading
  4. The power of sync
  5. Here comes the paperback Kindle… as promised
  6. It’s (always) too soon to know for sure
  7. The problem with unlimited
  8. Getting unstuck: solving the perfect problem
  9. 15% changes everything
  10. Running away vs. running toward
  11. But who will speak for the trees?
  12. The art of seduction
  13. Getting to scale: direct marketing vs. mass market thinking
  14. The paradox of promises in the age of word of mouth
  15. The new dynamics of book publishing
  16. Self marketing might be the most important kind
  17. Is everything perfect?
  18. The only possible response…
  19. The management of signals
  20. A hierarchy of failure worth following
  21. Information about information
  22. Upstream and downstream
  23. Two kinds of schooling
  24. The big sort
  25. So easy to talk about lunch
  26. Insubordinate… 50th anniverary free ebook
  27. It’s not my birthday
  28. Fans, participants and spectators
  29. Updates
  30. Low esteem and the factory
  31. Payola
  32. Betting on smarter (or betting on dumber)
  33. What’s the point?
  34. The theory of the case
  35. The non-optimized life
  36. The difference between running and managing a project
  37. The 200 slide solution

June 2010

  1. The sugar cane machine
  2. Winning
  3. BACO and your career
  4. Validation is overrated
  5. Do you have the right to be heard?
  6. A bias for scamminess
  7. What’s included?
  8. You’re already self employed
  9. A car is not merely a faster horse
  10. Don’t snowglobe me, bro
  11. A sad truth about most traditional b2b marketing
  12. Archetypes at work
  13. Gifts, misunderstood
  14. Slick
  15. Amplifying the lizard brain
  16. Goodbye to the office
  17. Benefit event/help wanted in Hyderabad, India
  18. “This better work”
  19. Trying to please
  20. Hope and the magic lottery
  21. Lula’s logic
  22. Fear of shipping
  23. The wrapper matters
  24. Cheating the clock
  25. Hourly work vs. linchpin work
  26. Spending money to (make/lose) money
  27. Paperback Kindle
  28. Six things about deadlines
  29. Organizing the unorganized
  30. Drill baby drill
  31. Seized of the matter
  32. Ism schism
  33. But you’re not saying anything
  34. Surely not everyone
  35. 16 questions for free agents
  36. Reminders
  37. Is this noise inside my head bothering you?

May 2010

  1. Redoubling to system failure
  2. But what have you shipped?
  3. The distraction, the tail and the dog
  4. We’re the same, we’re the same, we’re…
  5. Made by Hand
  6. iPad killer app #2: fixing meetings
  7. Pfffft, the danger of premature shipment
  8. Simple five step plan for just about everyone and everything
  9. The modern business plan
  10. Linchpins are everywhere (raise the flag)
  11. On finding referrals
  12. Multiple dumbnesses
  13. You can see the determination in his eyes
  14. Sort of private
  15. Good at talking vs. good at doing
  16. Hardly worth the effort
  17. Who is easily manipulated?
  18. The circles (no more strangers)
  19. Arrogant
  20. Who do you work for? (And who works for you?)
  21. Don Quijote didn’t ship
  22. All you need to know…
  23. Will you miss them if they leave? (Call for linchpins)
  24. Sentences, paragraphs and chapters
  25. Are you an elite?
  26. Surfing is the new career
  27. Where do you find good ideas?
  28. Becoming a bus company
  29. Mentoring, platforms and taking a leap
  30. Micro magazines and a future of media
  31. Consumer debt is not your friend
  32. All the news that fits
  33. Announcing first dates for the road trip (Boston, DC, MN and Chicago)
  34. No new customers
  35. Do you have a media channel strategy? (You should.)
  36. Odds and ends
  37. Bad behavior

April 2010

  1. David Byrne is angry with me
  2. The coming melt-down in higher education (as seen by a marketer)
  3. Carrying capacity
  4. “Powerpoint makes us stupid”–these bullets can kill
  5. The paralysis of unlimited opportunity
  6. Quid pro quo (santa math)
  7. Empty your library
  8. Deniability
  9. Who judges your work?
  10. 8 things I wish everyone knew about email
  11. The April Linchpin Session
  12. Sad Tim
  13. “I quilt”
  14. How to buy a house
  15. Giving away a magician’s secrets
  16. In search of a jealous chipmunk
  17. Incoming!
  18. When a stranger reads your blog
  19. The inefficiency of the all call
  20. Cannibalism and spam
  21. Expose yourself…
  22. Have you thought about your margin?
  23. There is no tribe of normal
  24. When in doubt, disaggregate
  25. Breaking news
  26. Rights and responsibilities
  27. The Levy flight
  28. Secrets of the biggest selling launch ever
  29. The Linchpin index is now available (free)
  30. Revisiting conspicuous consumption
  31. Accepting limits
  32. High praise indeed
  33. One in a million
  34. Road Trip!
  35. Failure, success and neither
  36. Are you rational?

March 2010

  1. Self-help
  2. Maybe you need new friends
  3. The reality of digital content (lose the cookie, lose the fortune?)
  4. Publishing books to make money…
  5. What teachers make
  6. Finding your brand essence
  7. Fear of philanthropy (avert your eyes)
  8. What you can learn from a lousy teacher…
  9. Telling a story on the label
  10. I’m mad at everyone
  11. Let’s spend a (very leveraged) week together
  12. Sfw
  13. Do you make slush?
  14. When a freelancer changes the game
  15. First and never
  16. Anxiety is nothing…
  17. Not for me
  18. Driveby culture and the endless search for wow
  19. But it’s better than TV
  20. Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find
  21. We can do it
  22. Naming tool of the week
  23. Wondering around
  24. Helping spread the word
  25. Creating the list
  26. The Wordperfect Axiom
  27. The factory in the center
  28. You rock
  29. Losing Andrew Carnegie
  30. Spring reading list–big ideas for idea people
  31. Pulitzer Prizefighting
  32. On self determination
  33. Open buying and open selling
  34. Try different
  35. “Be what losers call a loser.”
  36. Sprezzatura
  37. I don’t feel like it

February 2010

  1. Everyone’s model of work is a job
  2. Genius is misunderstood as a bolt of lightning
  3. It’s easier to teach compliance than initiative
  4. Two quotes and two links for a snow day
  5. Why are you apologizing?
  6. Once in a lifetime
  7. The doormat, the jerk and the lizard brain
  8. Pennies and dollars
  9. Last chance for bonus prizes
  10. Your most vivid fears…
  11. Moving the line (the power of a zealot)
  12. Jacqueline Novogratz on recognizing a linchpin
  13. more, More, MORE!
  14. The best reason for a big event…
  15. No more big events
  16. How to use clichés
  17. Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers
  18. Invent a holiday
  19. Phoning it in
  20. Friday Linchpin Bonus Video: Sunny Bates on passion, fear and balance
  21. The brand, the package, the story and the worldview
  22. The hidden power of a gift
  23. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it
  24. TEDthink
  25. Frightened, clueless or uninformed?
  26. The least I could do
  27. iPad app of my dreams: the digital talking pad
  28. The relentless search for “tell me what to do”
  29. Linchpin videos (first in a series)
  30. Shiny objects
  31. What’s expected vs. what’s amazing
  32. Hunters and Farmers
  33. Free inspiration and insight
  34. Who will save us?
  35. Modern procrastination

January 2010

  1. Random rules for ideas worth spreading
  2. Upcoming events
  3. Ogori (and generosity)
  4. Strangers, Critics, Friends or Fans
  5. Finding people who make a difference
  6. Quieting the lizard brain
  7. The difference between a bonus and free
  8. Jumping the gun
  9. The 2.0 media tour
  10. Why write a book?
  11. Making art
  12. The ubiquity of competition
  13. The false solace of vilification
  14. No, everything is not going to be okay
  15. Too much data leads to not enough belief
  16. In between frames
  17. Type tells a story
  18. Craftsmanship
  19. Unrealized projects
  20. Multiple minds
  21. Why you, why now?
  22. What the industry wants
  23. Update on the early Linchpin citizen reviewers
  24. Maneuverability
  25. Amplifying complaints
  26. Career fairs…
  27. The lesson from two lemonade stands
  28. Neat resource of vintage ads
  29. The future of the library
  30. The victim
  31. [SOLD OUT!] Last chance for January 15 talk in New York
  32. Why ask why?
  33. What every mass marketer needs to learn from Groucho Marx
  34. Bullhorns are overrated
  35. Now available as an iphone app
  36. Is there a fear shortage?
  37. Without them
  38. Evolution of every medium
  39. Welcome to the frustration decade (and the decade of change)

2009 426

December 2009

  1. Seven years gone
  2. Cheapest reliable alternative
  3. Put a name on it
  4. It’s not the rats you need to worry about
  5. How far away is your future?
  6. Represent
  7. Learning from bad graphs and weak analysis
  8. We were waiting for you
  9. The difference between hiring and recruiting
  10. First, organize 1,000
  11. It’s no wonder they don’t trust us
  12. Fear of bad ideas
  13. In search of customer intimacy
  14. You don’t have the power
  15. Think like me, agree with me
  16. Different kinds of work
  17. Save the date: January 15 in New York for the book launch
  18. Dancing with entropy
  19. 8 questions and a why
  20. It’s still too difficult
  21. What Matters Now: get the free ebook
  22. define: Brand
  23. A free supersimple to-do list tool
  24. Discover the truth about a site’s online traffic
  25. Who controls your media?
  26. The magic of dynamic pricing
  27. The reason social media is so difficult for most organizations
  28. Lead with your glass jaw
  29. Fallback for the 2%
  30. How to protect your ideas in the digital age
  31. What’s it like? (The sad story of the hot pepper)
  32. The first transaction
  33. Over the top
  34. Within reason
  35. Is it too late to catch up?
  36. Get a review copy of my new book
  37. How to be a great client
  38. Shocking Tiger Woods video (exclusive)

November 2009

  1. Watch the money
  2. Getting meta
  3. Boundary makers
  4. The people you should listen to
  5. The only holiday that really matters
  6. Thirsty
  7. What sort of accent do you have?
  8. Rupert Murdoch has it backwards
  9. Delivering blogs via Twitter
  10. How to lose an argument online
  11. The magic rule of seven (and the banality of alphabetical order)
  12. Benefit of the doubt
  13. The amateur scientist (that’s us)
  14. Embracing lifetime value
  15. Some books for November
  16. The reason they want you to fit in…
  17. Breakthroughs and drips
  18. Debt, equity and a third thing that might work better
  19. Learning by analogy
  20. Teaching the market a lesson
  21. Hammer time
  22. Can’t top this
  23. Worldview Neuralgia (don’t call your customers liars)
  24. Choose your customers, choose your future
  25. The why imperative
  26. Upside vs. downside
  27. Fabulous
  28. Take what you can get (?)
  29. Everyone is clueless
  30. The unclicking 84%
  31. When data and decisions collide
  32. Limited edition boxed set available today SOLD OUT!
  33. Ms. In-between
  34. Help your customers avoid taking responsibility
  35. Attention lust and Olympic craziness

October 2009

  1. Why celebrate Halloween?
  2. Opt in and opt out
  3. Big ideas…
  4. What you buy when you buy a lottery ticket
  5. Some people are better than others
  6. Dunbar’s Number isn’t just a number, it’s the law
  7. Begrudging
  8. The best podcast/radio show of all time
  9. Trolls
  10. The joy of quitting
  11. Consistent, persistent generosity
  12. Top this!
  13. Empathy
  14. True believers (and the truth)
  15. Fear of apples
  16. “Notice me”
  17. The Rule of High School
  18. The problem with cable news thinking
  19. Creating sustainable competitive advantage
  20. Make a decision
  21. Two seminars in November
  22. Apparent risk and actual risk
  23. Traction and friction
  24. When will the world make fun of you?
  25. The three elements of full employment
  26. “What do you need me to do?”
  27. The tacky techie conundrum
  28. Promiscuous dispersal of your email address
  29. Crowded at the top
  30. Less than zero
  31. Sinusitus relief
  32. Building books that sell in the digital age
  33. Sell like you buy
  34. “Hop in, I’ll drive.”

September 2009

  1. There isn’t one bestseller list
  2. Seminar for good causes
  3. If Craigslist cost $1
  4. The future is just like the past (but shinier)
  5. The problem with the transom
  6. Do marketers have assets?
  7. Adjusting as we go
  8. Cultural Wisdom
  9. The platform vs. the eyeballs
  10. Everyone gets paid on commission
  11. Launching Brands in Public
  12. Win the fight, lose the customer
  13. Understanding business development
  14. If TV ads were free
  15. The priority list
  16. Things to ask before you redo your website
  17. Chai Wallah
  18. Friction
  19. The problem with non
  20. The hierarchy of success
  21. The end of dumb software
  22. Flipping abundance and scarcity
  23. Taking the time to teach
  24. The big drop off
  25. Righteous indignation
  26. Bonus: a big week for books
  27. Achievable avalanche opportunities
  28. Clout
  29. Pay for stuff
  30. Square one is underrated
  31. The problem with positive thinking
  32. Help wanted: Squidoo is hiring a sales pro
  33. Organizing customers
  34. Enormity
  35. Magic beans, TV and the web

August 2009

  1. Who gets to decide what you want?
  2. The problem with doing it by heart
  3. Two ways to hire (and a wrong way)
  4. Spare no expense!
  5. “We don’t compare ourselves to other airport restaurants”
  6. Competing with the singleminded
  7. Add some {brackets}
  8. The massive attention surplus
  9. Thanks for leading
  10. Not so good at math
  11. Brands that matter
  12. Patient capital, markets that work and ending the endless emergency of poverty
  13. The modern talking pad
  14. The talking pad
  15. The long tale
  16. Education at the crossroads
  17. Drama
  18. Willfully ignorant vs. aggressively skeptical
  19. Free work vs. internships
  20. People you can’t live (work) without
  21. Critics that matter
  22. Lessons from very tiny businesses
  23. The scientific method
  24. Who spreads your word?
  25. The danger of vague claims
  26. Weirdest billboard ever (or brilliant targeting)
  27. When tactics drown out strategy
  28. Are we solving the same problem?
  29. The bandwidth-sync correlation that’s worth thinking about
  30. High Definition
  31. Bear shaving
  32. All storms are perfect
  33. Fidelity vs. Convenience

July 2009

  1. The initiator
  2. eBook design and motion graphics
  3. “All I do is work here”
  4. Win, place or show?
  5. Making it up as you go along
  6. Four videos about noise, social and decency
  7. The reason riding a unicycle is difficult
  8. Am I the only one distracted by apostrophes and weird “quoting”?
  9. Social norms
  10. Welcome to island marketing
  11. When you buy Zappos, what do you buy?
  12. Ishita’s here
  13. Death spiral!
  14. Winning on the uphills
  15. He’s doing his best
  16. Dashboards
  17. The law of the little shovel
  18. Walter’s lesson
  19. How to make graphs that work
  20. Mowing the lawn
  21. Graduation day
  22. Gotcha!
  23. Facts always win, right?
  24. The CPM gap
  25. Busking at the airport
  26. The art and skill of working with bureaucrats
  27. Quality, scale and the regular kind
  28. Best new way to make an internal sale
  29. The fan chasm
  30. Taking the leap
  31. The confusion
  32. Everyone else reads it
  33. What should I do on your birthday?
  34. What to do with special requests
  35. The purpose of a book cover
  36. The risk/reward confusion

June 2009

  1. Malcolm is wrong
  2. There’s always room for Jello
  3. How to be a packager
  4. The paradox of the middle of the market
  5. Fast in, fast out
  6. Can summer camp change your life?
  7. The difference between strangers and friends
  8. Priming the pump of efficiency
  9. Magicians, sausage makers and transparency
  10. Find your voice
  11. Learning from Singer
  12. Circling the big domino
  13. Spotto!
  14. On the road to mediocrity
  15. Spectacles
  16. Two ways to build trust
  17. Circles of Convenience
  18. Scalejacking
  19. What’s off the table?
  20. You matter
  21. Textbook rant
  22. Ruby slippers
  23. How big is your farm?
  24. Should Hugh swear so much?
  25. Direct and useful project feedback
  26. Guy #3
  27. Tough
  28. Graduate school for unemployed college students
  29. “Why am I here?”
  30. Harvesting
  31. You’re boring
  32. When smart people are hard to understand
  33. Learning from the MBA program
  34. Out of bounds
  35. Thinking about the compromise
  36. Why joint ventures fail so often
  37. Won by a walk

May 2009

  1. Deeper or wider
  2. The next Google
  3. The troll that hates yes
  4. The difference between marketing and sales
  5. Prizes, kindles, subscriptions, tweets
  6. Challenging convention
  7. Is marketing an art or a science?
  8. Saying ‘no’
  9. When the writer becomes the publisher
  10. On becoming a household name
  11. Nostalgia is a basic human emotion
  12. Your world vs. the world
  13. Want to contribute a story to the updated Purple Cow?
  14. Eternal September
  15. A clean sheet of paper
  16. Bravado
  17. “It doesn’t hurt to ask”
  18. Luxury vs. premium
  19. Trouble accessing gmail remotely
  20. The best billboard in New York
  21. Betting on the wind
  22. Marketing intolerance
  23. What kind of open are you looking for?
  24. Ignore sunk costs
  25. The TED Tribes talk is now live
  26. Do you have customers or members?
  27. What to do with people who aren’t going to go away quietly
  28. Two halves of the value fraction
  29. Too much free
  30. Strangers and friends
  31. Ten years of Permission Marketing
  32. The Houdini technique
  33. Thinking about business models
  34. Can you change everything?
  35. Friction saves the medium
  36. The banal brazenness of telescammers
  37. Mechanics vs. intent

April 2009

  1. A million blind squirrels
  2. Infinity–they keep making more of it
  3. Might as well panic
  4. The collectible totem
  5. Making commercials for the web
  6. I need more time
  7. Thinking big
  8. You’re nuts if you believe me
  9. Pick anything–the calculus of change
  10. What you say, what you do and who you are
  11. Whether or which
  12. This is broken
  13. Business rules of thumb
  14. Sixty to zero
  15. How to opt out of cookie sniffing and trading
  16. Snarky vs. earnest
  17. Blogs, books and the irony of short
  18. Making a living online
  19. Things to remember on a job interview
  20. What do you call things you disagree with?
  21. The hierarchy of presentations
  22. Imminent
  23. How to make money with SEO
  24. So exclusive, even you can have one
  25. It’s harder to hire great people in a tough economy
  26. Opening acts and rock stars
  27. Intentionally building communities (More hallway!)
  28. The first question every web site designer must ask
  29. Reinventing the conference call
  30. On becoming proactive
  31. What does better mean?
  32. The power of a tiny picture (how to improve your social network brand)
  33. Sugar-coated corporate speak
  34. Poisoning the well
  35. First, ten
  36. Exceeding expectations (or don’t bother)

March 2009

  1. Why aren’t you (really) good at graphic design?
  2. Share of wallet, share of wall, share of voice
  3. Ignore your critics
  4. Where’s the baxter?
  5. The high road and the low road
  6. Getting serious about your meeting problem
  7. The right size
  8. The pillars of social media site success
  9. A chance to join the online triiibe
  10. The myth of big salaries (it’s all marketing)
  11. License to stall
  12. Yeah, but he really knows his stuff…
  13. Fitting in vs. standing out
  14. Advice on equity
  15. The benefits of history
  16. Where have all the agents gone?
  17. Linear and parallel
  18. What’s your super power?
  19. What do you do when you read Kevin Kelly?
  20. Nothing
  21. Demonization
  22. Pivots for change
  23. In search of dolphin leather
  24. The difference between PR and publicity
  25. Slack
  26. Return on Design
  27. How far away is your emergency?
  28. Direct from consumer marketing
  29. The two elements of a great presenter
  30. Three kinds of meetings
  31. How big is your world?
  32. Looking for yes
  33. Beware of trade guilds maintaining the status quo

February 2009

  1. Personal branding in the age of Google
  2. The panhandler’s secret
  3. Three things you need if you want more customers
  4. Reinventing the Kindle (part II)
  5. Luckiest guy
  6. Is marketing evil?
  7. Get rich quick
  8. Like a dream come true
  9. Do you deserve it?
  10. Change
  11. Great job for the right marketer
  12. Sorry, you can’t be our customer
  13. The rational marketer (and the irrational customer)
  14. Authenticity
  15. Five tips for better online surveys
  16. Citizen Reviewer
  17. Music vs. the music industry
  18. Calling your bluff
  19. The power of an algorithm
  20. Make the world smaller
  21. Which parts are you skipping?
  22. Sprint!
  23. Learning all the time
  24. The customer is always wrong
  25. Bonus links from all over
  26. The difference between a show and a story
  27. Solving a different problem
  28. Which comes first, the product or the marketing?
  29. Grave new world
  30. I’m sorry, we’re out of time
  31. Email campaign case studies (one good, one bad)

January 2009

  1. What is school for?
  2. What are you good at?
  3. What would a professional do?
  4. Take the ball and go home
  5. Creativity and stretching the sweatshirt
  6. The goals you never hear about
  7. Jeff Jarvis’ new book
  8. Anatomy of a campaign
  9. Good guys finish…
  10. Lonely, scared & bitter
  11. Easiest cheap way to dramatically increase sales
  12. The London Session
  13. The five pillars of success
  14. That’s a special case
  15. What marketers actually sell
  16. The best middle name ever
  17. Rubbernecking
  18. Love (and annoying)
  19. Who you are and what you do
  20. National Day of Service
  21. What tools should Twitter add?
  22. You’re boring
  23. When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?
  24. Traffic magnets
  25. Don’t get sued
  26. Beauty as a signaling strategy
  27. In the mood
  28. How to send a personal email
  29. Cash money for social entrepreneurs
  30. The man who invented marketing
  31. Time to start a newspaper
  32. What to do when the new thing doesn’t work
  33. The thing about goals
  34. Boundaries
  35. Willing to be lucky
  36. Teaching people a lesson
  37. Is everything okay?
  38. When marketing goes nuclear
  39. Do ads work?
  40. Change your pricing
  41. Happy new year

2008 453

December 2008

  1. Why be good?
  2. Expertise and passion
  3. 10,000 hours
  4. Service worth paying for
  5. In search of competition
  6. A year’s worth of popular posts
  7. Predictions
  8. One Santa to rule them all
  9. Hubris vs. Humility
  10. What is viral marketing?
  11. If you could meet one person…
  12. Two ways to deal with “no”
  13. Confusing activity with action
  14. Interesting new media charity efforts
  15. The best and the brightest
  16. Best free subscription of the week
  17. Brands, social, clutter and the sundae
  18. The power of smart copywriting
  19. Selling ideas to a big company
  20. Set the agenda by showing up first
  21. When you notice it, it’s news
  22. Dewey defeats Truman
  23. You’re not going to win a Pulitzer Prize
  24. What to do with your ideas for other people
  25. Subscribe
  26. Warning: The internet is almost full
  27. Lesson learned from my biggest business mistake
  28. Pre-steal this book
  29. Building an albatross
  30. The noise
  31. The making chasm
  32. The high cost of now
  33. Interviews (radio, irony and a bonus)
  34. Making vs. Taking
  35. The seed, the pit and the cherry
  36. Gravity is just a theory
  37. If you could change your life

November 2008

  1. An iphone app that could change the way you get to work
  2. Creating a clearance sale culture
  3. Don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
  4. Thanksgiving
  5. Holiday shopping guide
  6. Death of the personal blog?
  7. The You Show
  8. How to answer the phone
  9. You will be misunderstood
  10. Watching the Times struggle (and what you can learn)
  11. “Just doing my job”
  12. What to do about Detroit
  13. Google gets jiggy
  14. How to make money using the Internet
  15. The edifice complex
  16. Don’t get fooled again…
  17. Blah, blah, blah, blah…
  18. We feel your pain
  19. Hungry
  20. The Tribes Q&A ebook is here and it’s free
  21. Do you know enough?
  22. The system doesn’t know what to do with a movement
  23. The number one secret of the great blogs
  24. Too good to be true (the overnight millionaire scam)
  25. Don’t sell to bar owners
  26. Good advice, easily overlooked
  27. The marketer’s attitude
  28. Seen it all before
  29. Off the record
  30. Three new jobs you might want to consider
  31. Tribal effects don’t disappear (even in politics)
  32. The sad lie of mediocrity
  33. The 90/10 rule of marketing a job
  34. A friend in need
  35. Marketing lessons from the US election
  36. Mobs rule
  37. Reacting, Responding & Initiating
  38. The economy, the press and the paradox
  39. The same cigarette as me

October 2008

  1. Build a beard for Kiva
  2. Easy to type
  3. Rethinking defaults
  4. How to lose
  5. Failure as an event
  6. In Defense of Raising Money: a Manifesto for NonProfit CEOs
  7. Waiting for the last drip
  8. Your brand is not your logo
  9. World wide web
  10. An interview
  11. Be careful of who you work for
  12. No one cares about you
  13. The sad truth about marketing shortcuts
  14. Signaling strategies
  15. This is not the time to ask for money
  16. Too small to fail
  17. Is that it?
  18. Do you have 16 boxes?
  19. A dollar or less…
  20. Best of one world
  21. Leadership is now the strongest marketing strategy
  22. The rapid growth (and destruction) and growth of marketing
  23. Free Tribes ebook
  24. Maybe you can’t make money doing what you love
  25. Do you know about twitter search?
  26. What does this remind you of?
  27. Rock stars
  28. Bowling 300
  29. Pithy quotes
  30. Waiting until the last hour
  31. The plight (and the pox) of the undecided
  32. The growing productivity divide
  33. Is effort a myth?
  34. Making it real by making it closer
  35. RSS, Twitter, email subscribers, please read
  36. Nine steps to Powerpoint magic
  37. Kinds of people
  38. Look for the guy with a hammer
  39. Taking photographs vs. giving photographs
  40. When you stand for something
  41. Raising money for charity

September 2008

  1. A memo to the sticklers
  2. It’s easy to be against something
  3. Get to vs. have to
  4. Politics!
  5. Random travel thoughts
  6. Looking for a reason to hide
  7. Irrationally committed
  8. Annoying business school professors since 1983
  9. Patricia Barber, Danny Meyer, art and you
  10. Probably not stupid
  11. How much extra for nice?
  12. Best of the blog
  13. What advertising can’t fix
  14. Thinking bigger
  15. But you’re not saying anything
  16. Non profit riffs
  17. Over the top isn’t…
  18. The small-minded vision of the technology elite
  19. In search of value
  20. The power of lists
  21. Firefox is missing the point
  22. Breakage
  23. Listening to the loud people
  24. Free ebooklet, free seats, live event
  25. [remembering]
  26. How often should you publish?
  27. A life-changing internship
  28. Spin
  29. Time
  30. Getting used to infinity
  31. Drip, Drip, Drip
  32. Getting reporters to call you
  33. Fixing the one big thing
  34. The myth of launch PR
  35. Your competitive advantage
  36. Learning from a summer intern program
  37. The new meaning of Labor Day
  38. Reaching the right people

August 2008

  1. Every Sunday is the same
  2. The uncanny valley
  3. Why cartoons work
  4. You get what you pay for
  5. The first law of mass media
  6. ‘Where to’ might not be as important as ‘how loud’
  7. More vs. enough
  8. Monkeys with megaphones
  9. The decision before the decision
  10. Beating the status quo
  11. Ads are the new online tip jar
  12. Who’s telling you the truth about your online personal marketing?
  13. The predictable lifecycle of the skeptic (or even better, cynic)
  14. Creating stories that resonate
  15. Destroying happiness
  16. The dead zone of slick
  17. Like your hair is on fire
  18. Policies, biases and conflicts
  19. Deep dialing
  20. Can you bully someone into a sale?
  21. The intangibles
  22. Old marketing with new tools
  23. Thoughts on popcorn
  24. The difficult choice
  25. The secret of the web (hint: it’s a virtue)
  26. The bitter taste of nickels and dimes
  27. When in doubt, (don’t) follow the money
  28. Is architect a verb?
  29. Two for two
  30. Complicit
  31. Should you ignore the n00bs?
  32. Inbox culture
  33. Sing it (please S I N G I T)
  34. “I call dregs”

July 2008

  1. My tooth doesn’t hurt
  2. The TV dividend
  3. Are you in the tribe?
  4. Marilyn Monroe, the Mona Lisa and Jackson Pollock
  5. Promoting the promotion
  6. Weekend reading and viewing
  7. I need to build a house, what kind of hammer should I buy?
  8. Bait and switch
  9. Little bits
  10. How (not to) pick a company spokesman
  11. Are they ready to listen?
  12. The web doesn’t care
  13. 12 proven ways to get your post to the top of digg
  14. The Long Tail and the Dip
  15. There it is again
  16. If you don’t want to get email
  17. Getting rigorous about viral video
  18. Should small businesses whine?
  19. Scarcity
  20. What do you do when your systems break?
  21. Worth a click
  22. Bar graphs vs. Pie charts
  23. The three laws of great graphs
  24. The limits of meta
  25. How to make everyone happy
  26. Let me see
  27. Wikipedia gets fictional
  28. Two seconds
  29. Joining the luck parade
  30. Two simple web businesses
  31. Who vs. how many
  32. The statesman, the lawyer and the marketer
  33. When you least expect it

June 2008

  1. Bravery and Wall-e
  2. The magic of low-hanging fruit
  3. How to organize the room
  4. Five easy pieces
  5. Learning from frustration
  6. One swell foop
  7. Saying thanks in a conference presentation
  8. Simple conference idea
  9. No such thing as price pressure
  10. Random thoughts about the Kindle
  11. The power of remarkable
  12. Is it worthy?
  13. Superheroes
  14. What Dave just did
  15. Silence is a virtue
  16. Authenticity and reality and intention
  17. All customers are smarter than average
  18. Thanks for your mail!
  19. Unanswered (random) questions
  20. Easter eggs and the Rick Roll
  21. Serial number marketing
  22. The marketing of fear
  23. Urgent personal finance advice
  24. Vivid stories
  25. The clowd
  26. The cure
  27. Email checklist
  28. Start with a classified
  29. Not so grand
  30. Do you own trees?
  31. 7 Tips for Amateur Type Designers
  32. Books worth your time
  33. Should you fire the voice mail guy?

May 2008

  1. Thinking about Danny Devito
  2. Recognition
  3. Links and subscriptions
  4. Tide needs your help!
  5. Let’s put on a show
  6. Angry people are different
  7. Magically delicious
  8. The spirit of the game
  9. Rough edges and attention
  10. A chance to be on the cover of my new book
  11. Double, double
  12. Never’s not such a long time
  13. How to read a business book
  14. Competition
  15. Proximity to pain
  16. The new standard for meetings and conferences
  17. Great post on the wienie
  18. Why word of mouth doesn’t happen
  19. Packaging for retail
  20. Lenore Godin’s son
  21. We specialize in everything
  22. Brand magic
  23. Working with Apple Tech Support
  24. What do you know?
  25. The power of the interface
  26. Marketing the charity auction
  27. Breaking the glass
  28. Four more words
  29. The Media markets
  30. All the News That Fits (do what you’re great at)
  31. More on passion and pop
  32. Avoiding the Passion Pop Gulf
  33. Four words
  34. The coming backlash over green marketing
  35. Inhaling
  36. Sucking all the juice out
  37. Let’s skip the meeting
  38. The first rule of b2b selling

April 2008

  1. Self promotion
  2. Wishing and hoping
  3. The fibula and the safety pin
  4. Signal to noise
  5. Ouch
  6. Nearly infinite
  7. Cool Squidoo tool
  8. Thanks, Greg
  9. Pretending that you care
  10. Would you do me a favor?
  11. The five step brand lifecycle
  12. Silly Traffic
  13. First, do no harm
  14. Better?
  15. You’re right!
  16. Henry Ford and the source of our fear
  17. Sometimes, the best part of buying something…
  18. The (stupid) diet
  19. George Clooney is not normal
  20. The Pope is coming
  21. What’s remarkable?
  22. What happens when we organize?
  23. Two seminars
  24. The wealthy gardener
  25. Catchers and throwers
  26. Drip, drip, drip goes the Twit
  27. Zappos wants you to return those shoes
  28. Drop the dot?
  29. Who answers the phone?
  30. Why downloading Firefox is like getting into college
  31. Last call for the April seminar
  32. Write like a blogger
  33. In and on and ‘a’
  34. Little scraps
  35. Would we miss you?
  36. Waiting until the last minute
  37. Free meatball call
  38. Which comes first (why stories matter)

March 2008

  1. When poets get angry
  2. Where do we begin?
  3. Getting vs. Taking
  4. Where to find great ideas and arresting images (for free)
  5. A dumb branding strategy
  6. The dark side
  7. Managing urgencies
  8. Things you don’t understand
  9. Sort of, just and Donald Trump
  10. Secret shortcut: personal vs. impersonal
  11. The bad table
  12. The world’s worst toaster
  13. What you can learn from Arthur C. Clarke
  14. Still a few seats left
  15. Before you buy your next ad…
  16. Why bother having a resume?
  17. Opportunity of a lifetime
  18. Persistence
  19. How many record execs does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
  20. The needle in a haystack problem
  21. “Do you have” vs. “Do you want”
  22. The next seminar (a fundraiser)
  23. Alphabetical order is obsolete
  24. The thing about ‘free’
  25. The summer intern program
  26. That noise inside my head
  27. Sunk costs, quitting and the value of your brand
  28. Change your clocks
  29. Weird dreams
  30. The dreaded asterisk
  31. The long slide to gone
  32. Chaos Theory
  33. Watching and listening
  34. The forces of mediocrity
  35. 1000 true fans
  36. Apparently, I invented the Everything Bagel
  37. How do I persuade you?
  38. The Boss
  39. The live music talk
  40. Recipes
  41. Not a trick question

February 2008

  1. Ordinary is cheaper than you
  2. Sorting out
  3. May I have your attention please
  4. Thinking about Dustin Hoffman
  5. That guy who saved my life
  6. Video presentation about the future of the music business
  7. The Boss
  8. Marketing in a recession
  9. Advice for real estate agents (quit now!)
  10. It’s too easy to criticize hope
  11. Marketing HR
  12. No user servicable parts inside
  13. Citizens
  14. Stressed
  15. The posture of a communicator
  16. You just know
  17. Color matters
  18. Profligate
  19. Obvious hotel tip
  20. The Placebo Affect*
  21. Take that, ferret face!
  22. New interactions, not just moved interactions
  23. Food = Fun
  24. Have to vs. Get to
  25. Smart advice from Pamela Slim
  26. Soggy
  27. Internal primaries
  28. Walkabout
  29. People with passion
  30. Lessons from voting
  31. Perhaps you don’t have to take yourself so seriously…
  32. Fear, hope and love: the three marketing levers
  33. Not Seth Godin
  34. Better than Free
  35. Subscription
  36. Permission Marketing

January 2008

  1. Linkbait
  2. Tribe Management
  3. The Hyping Point
  4. After the lawyers
  5. Don’t get fooled again
  6. Needle in a Haystack marketing
  7. If your iphone voice mail is silent (no sound)
  8. George, check your spam filter
  9. Who are these people?
  10. Just say it
  11. The last interaction
  12. Bad judgment
  13. Getting stuck in your head
  14. What’s a Blog?
  15. Help wanted: Software Developer–$3,000 bounty
  16. Layering
  17. Curious
  18. How much for digital?
  19. A shortage of digital coaches
  20. Bananas are underrated
  21. The problem with perfect
  22. A few more interviews
  23. Gimmicks
  24. Workaholics
  25. Polly’s best riff… ever.
  26. The more people you reach the more likely it is that you’re reaching the wrong people
  27. Customers that care
  28. Encyclopedia salesmen hate wikipedia…
  29. What does cheese say when you take its picture?
  30. Vestiges
  31. More marketing links than you can read in a weekend
  32. Crime
  33. Always easier to just say “stop”
  34. I gave at the office
  35. Dumbing down
  36. How to title stuff
  37. Music lessons
  38. Editors
  39. The truth about word of mouth
  40. Making promises
  41. Interview and seminar
  42. Who you know
  43. Blogs and self promotion
  44. The first thing to do this year
  45. Solving problems

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