Forgive the self-promotional tone of this, but I have a story to tell about where I work.
In January of 2007, Todd Spencer was named successor to Dave Wilkins as CEO of Doe Anderson. Spencer, who still hasn’t turned 40, worked his way up from an account manager (I’ll go out on a limb and report [...]

There’s a lot of theoretical chatter online these days about building online communities. The people that are actually doing it are few and far between it seems. This week, I kick off the strategic and technical planning for an online community, so I’m moving from philosopher to doer in this space. It certainly feels good [...]

 ”We’re really interested in building community!” brand managers enthusiastically say. “We’re hoping a social network, perhaps a CEO blog and, um, er, widgets! We must have widgets. Then we’ll have a community!”
The question is, did I hear an actual person say this or is it hypothetical based on the general misunderstanding of social media in [...]

Because I’m one of few advertising agency folks playing vocally in the social media space, several friends have asked for my reaction to Forrester’s “The Connected Agency” report released Friday. I’ve also had a few ask what I thought about Jeremiah Owyang’s ear-flipping of the agency world with his post on Sunday.
My reaction? I’m surprised [...]

There’s a consistency in what CEOs, CMOs and brand managers are saying these days. “We want to create a community around our brand.” More and more of them are saying it to social media practitioners and champions since advertising agencies can juice your messaging up on “buzz” or craft a catchy video that “goes viral” [...]