CES, the consumer electronics show, is the apotheosis of overblown technology demos and promises. Exuberant press releases abound. Kohler’s bathroom products are now fully digital, connected, and interactive — so it must compete on hype with the likes of Facebook and Samsung. Let’s just say that after reading the company’s latest press release, I’m flush…
Your business sells something that helps people, right? Give away free content that helps those people. They’ll appreciate it, share it, and find you. There is a mass of knowledge about how to do this well and effectively. But if you have to explain it to your boss, those two sentences ought to do the…
When you pitch business, what do you do when you lose? I make sure that every sale I lose is a win. This question came up again this week when a lead — a guy who heard about me on a podcast — contacted me about improving some prominently placed copy on his Web site….
Venezuela’s financial implosion is devastating. People are starving. The government is printing money to cover budget gaps. And the IMF estimates that inflation will top 1 million percent. But what would it take to get 1 million percent inflation? Before reading on, take this poll. (If you know the formulas for compounding, please don’t use…
Rock Holdings, parent company of Quicken Loans, has acquired Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com. The resulting press release is a perfect example of how an idiot uses a thesaurus. I know this press release was supposed to be funny. Funny is different in a press release. I salute that. And it worked: Google News shows 7,570 articles about…
Columbia Gas workers made a mistake that led to dozens of injuries, one death, and more than 60 house fires and explosions in communities north of Boston. Then the utility shut off service to over 7,000 homes. Now, while many of those homes are still taking cold showers and freezing, it has issued a press…
Your job is to get tourists to visit Nebraska. What would you do next, assuming suicide or changing identities aren’t viable options? I like what the Nebraska Tourism Commission did, even though their choice of tagline is upsetting people. The question is, what do they do with it now? As the Washington Post reported, the…
I am one of the most egocentric people you ever met, because I am so talented. (Modest, not so much.) It’s always been this way. So how did it feel to participate in a somebody else’s party for a book I helped write? More than a year ago, Dave Frankland and Nick Worth asked for…
According to CONCURED, an artificial intelligence platform, the perfect length for promotional video is 3 minutes and 54 seconds. This may be the silliest “fact” I’ve read this month. CONCURED, which calls itself “The world’s first AI-powered Content Strategy Platform,” issued a press release about its new insights. Here’s the whole thing: Artificial Intelligence Names…