When several teenage girls wearing leggings attempted to board a United Airlines flight in Denver, the airline blocked them for “inappropriate dress.” As the airline explained on Twitter, the girls were “pass riders” — dependents of employees using free standby tickets — subject to a more stringent dress code. United’s policy is wrong, and it…
One day, about 40 years ago, I found myself in a group of people doing something that scared the crap out of me. As I look around me now, I feel the same way I felt then. I went to college at Penn State, a burgeoning mass of 30,000 students sequestered in the heart of the mountains…
Salesforce and Disney have given up on acquiring Twitter, citing its troll problems. To succeed in tech you need either profits or growth; Twitter has neither. So somebody’s going to buy it that doesn’t care about the users. As a result, if you’re a user, you can expect a very scary future — scarier than any ghosts…
Do you think that the news media favor sensation over substance? The evidence shows the opposite. So why does it seem that way? Because sensation is what we, as readers, want, and social algorithms give us what we ask for. The two most newsworthy things that Donald Trump did in the last two days were these: He…
From southern courtesy to corporate bullshit, you had lots of questions after last week’s webinar for Higher Logic. I’ve answered them here. (Questions edited for length and clarity; some questions are from multiple listeners.) Q. Isn’t this all things that we should have learned from “Elements of Style” by Strunk & White? How is this different? Strunk…
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey suggested that he might allow long tweets — up to 10,000 characters. That’s fixing a bug, not fixing Twitter. It won’t change much. Twitter has limited Tweets to 140 characters since the start, a limit that arose out of length restrictions on text messages. Short tweets defined the service. Nobody tweets by text message…
If you want a great book launch, your focus after completing the manuscript should be on promotion and relationships. Great books sell, but they don’t sell themselves. The traditional publishing process has three stages. In the first stage, you create a proposal and pitch the book to publishers. In the second stage, you complete your research and…
While I don’t believe Donald Trump will win the upcoming election, he has changed American political marketing forever. Successful politicians like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama all changed the rules of the game. Trump’s innovative political brand will change how politicians market themselves. Put aside your perspective on the morality of his positions and analyze…
I am strongly, deeply, and clearly opposed to the terrorist attacks in Paris. Sounds strangely flat, doesn’t it? Why state what everyone knows? Shouldn’t I be writing about thoughts and prayers, or the causes of terrorism, or vengeance, or something? As I watched the flood of messages on social media this weekend, I became fascinated by…