The Sights and Sounds of Internet Week NY
A host of us at Horn are attending Internet Week NY this week. Here's a quick snapshot of what we've experienced on-site at the main area. Need oxygen? Demand Media (client) has the set-up for that. It's great for hangovers, I hear. Want some time in the spotlight? Yahoo is making... Read full post »
Cyborgs and Crossroads: Lessons from SXSW
Having spent 4 days at SXSW in soggy Austin earlier this month, I wanted to share some overall takeaways. We Are All Cyborgs Dictionary.com defines a cyborg as "a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device." A common theme to Amber Case and... Read full post »
In 2012, There Will be an Ad Tech-pocalypse... Maybe
Many ad technology companies will fail in 2012, or shortly after that. Ok, that may be too harsh, and may be too specific. The reality is many businesses, in general, will fail in 2012. However, the reason I point to ad tech companies is because of what happened in 2007. According... Read full post »
"The Way"
What is it about "The Way"? In the last few weeks I have heard a lot of people talking about "The HP Way". There's the "Horn Group Way". And then there's “your way or the highway.” But seriously, what is "The Way"? It’s a series of processes. A culture. An approach... Read full post »
Facebook Ad Unit Kicks Off Advertising Week
It's 10 am, I've had two cups of coffee and two pieces of pandesal. I am ready for Advertising Week. Inevitably, this is a big news week for advertising technology, and kicking it off is Facebook with its new premium ad unit that will be sold direct. ClickZ points out, from... Read full post »
Relationship Advice for Bloggers: 7 Ways to Engage Your Audience
Ever noticed the best pick-up lines are about the person you’re trying to pursue and not about yourself? The same is true in the blogosphere; just talking about yourself or your company can be a turnoff. Read on for 7 proven ways to better engage your readers online. Read full post »
What CMOs (Don't) Want From Their Agencies
Last week at our annual company offsite in SF, we hosted a CMO panel to get right to the crux of what it’s like to be a chief marketer – what they really want from us, and what drives them nuts. The panelists were Joelle Kaufman from Clarizen, Natalie McCullough from... Read full post »
20 Thoughts for 20 Years
...I've actually had more than 20 thoughts in 2 decades but here are the ones that have come back the most often as friendly reminders and occasionally, to haunt me. Enjoy. 1. If you don't have a plan, you don't know where you are going. Have, and share a vision, make... Read full post »
Can Austin Sustain SXSW Interactive? Please, I Hope So…
I’m recovering this morning in Austin, Texas, coffee in hand, after spending the past several days hiking downtown Austin to soak in as much of the South by Southwest Interactive experience as possible. And I’m exhausted. SXSW celebrated its 25th anniversary this year with another 30-40% growth in Interactive attendance. That’s... Read full post »
Fred Wilson hates marketing
For those of you who haven’t read it, Fred Wilson’s original post about marketing and his follow-up bug report are required reading. Two posts generating over 800 comments show that Fred clearly struck a chord. Personally having spent the last 15 years in the advertising industry and recently having made the... Read full post »
Digital Communications: An Agency Model for Today's CMO
Communications today is as alive and interactive as we are ourselves: verbal and visual, connected anywhere and everywhere, and moving fast. Just look at The Daily for iPad. It’s the future of publishing, and by extension, the future of what kind of content we, as communicators, need to deliver. Communications is... Read full post »
Trends in the Magazine Publishing Industry
Two trends in the magazine publishing industry from Horn Group on Vimeo. If you'd like more information on these trends, I suggest checking out this recent article from Advertising Age. It's also worth noting The Daily's launch this month and how iPad only newspapers and magazines will affect the publishing industry. Read full post »
Watch Out PR People, the iPad-Only Paper is Here
The buzz has been building and PR people have been wondering…when will News Corp.’s iPad-only newspaper, The Daily launch? The answer arrived today. Read full post »
Did Somebody Say Bubble? Bring It On!
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was working in the tech industry during the first dot-com bubble... and it was AMAZING! There were tons of parties, opulent offices (some with shark tanks), companies getting funded and awesome giveaways at tradeshows. However, something this good... Read full post »
C’mon FTC, What the Problem At? – Part 2
Last week, I took a look at why it was fallacy to compare the FTC’s Do Not Track recommendations with Do Not Call. This week, USA Today outlined how this could “revolutionize” the industry. Looks like the issue continues to boil as the Commerce Department is now jumping into the fray... Read full post »
Changing Reading Habits Mean New PR Tactics
PR pros should recommend their clients add “like” buttons next to coverage their company hosts in the online newsroom. Read full post »
C'mon FTC, What the Problem At? -- Part 1
The other day, I jokingly said to a friend that the side benefits for working at Google would be free access to their search engine, YouTube videos and Gmail. I'm recalling this now to make a point -- the Internet is free, yet it is not free. You may have seen... Read full post »
Timing Your Facebook Outreach; It Does Matter
When should you post Facebook content for a client? A recent study by Vitrue, as reported by Mashable, answers this question. Read full post »
More on OMMA Global - Arianna Huffington's Keynote
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend Arianna Huffington’s keynote speech at OMMA Global. Huffington appeared in front of a packed house to start out day two of the conference. Huffington started out with some best practices she has deployed in the short five-year history of Huffington Post. Transparency is... Read full post »
Tech Innovations: The Future is Bright & Green!
Living in California, more specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area, we tend to forget how privileged we are to have the ability to experiment firsthand with new technologies - from the Internet to PDAs to social networks. Beyond computing technologies, California is also becoming the epicenter of green technology innovations.... Read full post »
Horn Group MIXXing it Up
While Anthony spent some time this week at OMMA, I spent most of mine at the IAB's MIXX Conference & Expo. Horn Group had the exciting opportunity to experience Advertising Week from behind the scenes this year as we worked with the IAB to help support the conference and the MIXX... Read full post »
Observations on OMMA Global
This week is Advertising Week in NYC. On Monday and Tuesday, my colleagues and I made it to both IAB MIXX (full disclosure: IAB is a client) and OMMA Global. Personally, I spent most of my time at OMMA and here are some initial observations. The free model works for conferences.... Read full post »
PR Needs to Think Mobile
If someone asked me to give up my iPhone for a week the payout would have to be huge. I am addicted to the thing and love going online while out and about. And I am not the only one. According to the Mobile Marketing Association and Luth Research, one in... Read full post »
Operation Backpack Deploys in HGNY Office
Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. (You’ve Got Mail, 1998) There’s something about that moment in the late days of August in New York... Read full post »
Is Google Priority Inbox a PR Professional’s Worst Nightmare?
Last week Google announced their latest email feature, Google Priority Inbox. The Gmail enhancement aims to unclutter your inbox and sorts emails by importance. Essentially, Google crawls your email and decides what’s important then pushes those emails to the top of your inbox, while pushing less relevant emails lower down. To... Read full post »
The Changing Role of I.T.
Quite a few articles have been written about this topic and most of the authors shared this one common prediction: there’s going to be big changes ahead in IT. This transformation has actually been happening for some time now and, to some, it's probably already a way of life. In this... Read full post »
A little red umbrella that went a long way on a Friday afternoon
This post has nothing to do with PR or with our industry. I was just so struck by this small but enormous gesture of kindness last Friday that it really reminded me about what’s important and what's not. I was in my usual rush on Friday — this time to make... Read full post »
History in Process
I'll be honest, I'm having trouble concentrating on regular work today. Of course it's election day that's distracting me, so I decided I'd at least be useful and write a blog post about it. Not about politics, who or what I'm voting for because this isn't the place for that. I'm... Read full post »
Thoughts on Blogger Dinner With Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
[Robin Carey from Social Media Today, Charlene Li from Forrester, and me. Thanks to Douglas Pollei for the picture.] I had the pleasure of joining Forrester analysts Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li last night for a blogger dinner in NYC. Natali Del Conte from CNET was there and interviewed me about... Read full post »
The Courage to Trust Your Intuition, and other great themes from the World Business Forum
I've been meaning to blog about what was perhaps the best leadership conference I have ever attended: HSM's World Business Forum, held here in New York October 10 and 11. First the quality of the speakers: Alan Greenspan, Jack Welch, Garry Kasparov, Michael Eisner, Herb Keller, Fred Smith and Scott McNealy... Read full post »
Six Years Ago
Like Sabrina, I love New York also. With a passion. Most of all, I love the energy. I knew right away that even that terrible day, September 11, 2001 would not suck the life out of the city. I wrote earlier today about my memories from six years ago. I asked... Read full post »
I LOVE NEW YORK
Today is quite an auspicious day here in the Big Apple, especially downtown, where our offices are located. There's nothing like walking to work, past the beautiful New York Stock Exchange, and saying hello to the cops with the machine guns strapped tight around them. Waking up to the news that... Read full post »
The Art of Schmoozing
How many times have you walked into a room and been caught off guard, felt uncomfortable, or simply been afraid to be there? Don’t lie, I know you have. I just read a fascinating article from Always On about the art of schmoozing. The article is based on a recent book... Read full post »
How Sweet It Is...
I love birthdays. Today is a big one. Horn Group turns 16. Sixteen years of helping an industry move forward, bringing companies and people together, helping executives communicate their stories, solving business problems and devising strategies, enabling employees to find their way and pay their bills, even maybe buy a house...... Read full post »
American Express Redeems Itself
At the end of April, a terrible thing happened. American Express terminated all Horn Group corporate card holders because of a new policy in which AMEX must review the financials of its small customers every 10 years. Reviewing our financials is ok. Not letting us know they needed to do this... Read full post »
Get a Clue!
Nearing the end of a very busy conference season, I continued to be disappointed and amazed at the number of times I listen to what I consider to be really smart and accomplished executives in the tech world totally miss the beat (and the opportunity) in their keynote speeches. I'm referring... Read full post »
The Changing Workforce
Last week I was traveling through London for a little R&R and while walking the streets I couldn’t help but look at the busy Londoners in their fancy pin strip suites, and then began to wonder: has today’s worker really changed? Here I was in a new country and I saw... Read full post »
Missed words
I have been thinking lately about how short life is, particularly in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. I have been thinking about the difference a few very important, and probably short, words would have made in the 2.5 hours in between the first and second shootings. Maybe the second... Read full post »
Signing Off
The New York Times ran an article on email sign-offs in late 2006 that was brought to my attention by a recent BlogHer post. Evidently, “Best” is seen as overly formal and brusque, though only minimally when used in a business email. I learned to use “Best” from my colleagues and... Read full post »
Results Oriented Work Environment
The March 2007 issue of Business 2.0 discusses the idea of ROWE or Results-Only Work Environment (it’s #2 out of the top-ten products, ideas and trends story), and if you haven’t heard of the concept before you’re probably not alone. ROWE was created by Best Buy Corporation and allows employees to... Read full post »
The Value of Customer Service
If anyone has been following the news lately, you’ve probably read that JetBlue had a customer experience nightmare when they left passengers stranded on a plane for 8 hours. Apparently there was little food, the air quality was horrible, and passengers were left to wonder why they were waiting. Let’s just... Read full post »
Constructive Discontent
Constructive discontent (Revitalizing your Corporate Culture, Franklin Ashby), is the art of continuing to look for ways to improve one's work. Example: you finish writing a document or a memo and you think its pretty good, makes all the right points. But something's nagging at you. It feels like something's missing.... Read full post »
The Chemistry of Simplicity
Less is more.... Keep it simple.... The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That's my mantra for 2007. Both personally and professionally. In an industry where we just LOVE to over complicate, our challenge is to stand, even fight, for simplicity. The acronyms, the jargon, ugh. Folks in... Read full post »
My Predictions for 2007
Even though we’re already in the second week of ’07, I thought now would be a good time to provide my predictions for the year. Here’s where I believe things are headed from a technology and public relations perspective. Tech Predictions On-Demand – my favorite buzz word will continue to be... Read full post »
Stop Making Sense
What an anarchic, widget-y year. As someone who craves a certain degree of structure, it was admittedly tough sometimes to look at all these new companies coming out and see…the company. Better search, better social networking, more and better tools for self-expression—I’m there. But companies? With strategies and business models and... Read full post »
Cool to be Kind?
I just got back from a meeting of the Silicon Valley Junto, a group of business and technology folks dedicated to exploring the intersection of ideas and culture. The Junto was started by Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh, both entrepreneurs, because they believe that what used to be dismissively referred to... Read full post »
A Tragic Ending, So Close to Home
How sad for the family, friends and co-workers of CNET editor James Kim. So many of us here have been glued to the web since the initial news that the family was missing. I often avoid the internet on weekends since it's such an intense part of my weekday life, but... Read full post »
Continuous Partial Attention (You Can Say That Again)
If you had to read that headline twice, then it's likely you're one of many suffering from what is called continuous partial attention or CPA. CPA is not a medical conditition that's officially defined by the American Medical Association, but it's something many of us suffer from on a daily basis.... Read full post »
SaaS is Sexy (For the Enterprise)
The always outspoken Nick Carr blogged about an upcoming McKinsey & Company survey that found that 61% of North American companies with sales over $1 billion plan to adopt one or more Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications over the next year. While the full survey hasn’t been released, anyone following the “SaaS Revolution”... Read full post »
A World With No E-Mail
This week's issue of BusinessWeek has a story about a company that has instituted a “no e-mail Friday” policy, and while I agree that the idea is good in theory, the reality is that the PR world can’t live without e-mail….or can we? When we entered the PR world as young,... Read full post »