Please stop french-kissing your site visitors

Please stop french-kissing your site visitors

I’ve begun to resent the efficiency of Web marketing. Specifically, I’m annoyed with how intrusive sites have become as they treat visitors like leads instead of people. I was talking to my friend and marketing expert Jeff Ernst about it. Here’s my problem, as I described it to him. Marketing automation now requires knowing and routing…

Donald Trump is no idiot; he’s executing the blowhard gambit.

Donald Trump is no idiot; he’s executing the blowhard gambit.

A trusted correspondent objected to my characterization of Donald Trump as an idiot. He’s right; I was wrong. Trump didn’t succeed by being stupid. Not only that, his blowhard gambit has been remarkably effective at shifting the debate. Donald Trump continues to make bunches of patently inaccurate statements. But in yesterday’s post, I forgot the first rule of analysis,…

On Donald Trump and when a politician shouldn’t tell the truth

It’s refreshing when a politician tells the truth. But what does that mean? And is it always a good idea? Donald Trump’s latest statements have me wondering. He said all these things recently: The Islamic State built a hotel in Syria. The Mexican government forces “bad people” into the United States. The Gross Domestic Product of…

Do we choose our future, or does it choose us?
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Do we choose our future, or does it choose us?

Do you choose your path? Or are you making choices with consequences you can’t imagine? I was thinking about the choices that got me hired at Forrester, a 20-year job that determined my career and my future as an author. I’d like to tell you it was a deliberate and intelligent choice, but it’s way stranger than…

Revenge, integrity, and my tiny role in the downfall of Henry Yuen
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Revenge, integrity, and my tiny role in the downfall of Henry Yuen

In the year 2000, when I was the top technology analyst in the television industry, I began to see the outlines of the transformation of television. TiVo had delivered a big shock to the television schedule. Video on-demand was another tremor. I could see the whole edifice shaking. I wrote a piece called “The End Of TV (As We…

5 bullshit things about television and the reasons behind them
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5 bullshit things about television and the reasons behind them

I studied the television industry for more than a decade. It doesn’t work the way you think it does. Since TV is a highly visible but stodgy industry ripe for disruption, it’s a great topic for #5BullshitThings, highlighting industries that work in incomprehensible ways and why they do. I’ll explain your bloated cable bill, why TV programs…

5 bullshit things about book publishing and the reasons behind them

5 bullshit things about book publishing and the reasons behind them

Today I launch #5BullshitThings, an industry-by-industry analysis of the whacked-out way the world works now. I’ll start with book publishing. When rapid change hits stodgy industries you get disruption. Disruption generates cognitive confusion and threatens power dynamics. That, in turn, generates hypocrisy, and incomprehensible behavior. In other words, bullshit. Let’s look at five bullshit things about…