My first long-term job out of college was at Walt Disney Imagineering. It was a place unlike any other I had known before or have worked at since. Every meeting was full of “creative tension,” where the designer of some fabulous experience would get excited and wave his hands a…

This hack has helped me grow revenue by as much as 300%. One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses of all sizes make is not understanding their product-market fit. The old way of discovering this was to hire some “expert” to create a SWOT analysis. If you’ve ever used…

Finding Hidden Mickeys in Business and Life — As a child, I liked Disney just fine. I wasn’t a superfan, though. I didn’t collect Disney stuff. And after I went to a Disney park for the first time I didn’t torture my parents to take me back. …

I should be embarrassed that I watch other people play video games every night before going to sleep. But I’m not. …

Three Keys to “Going Viral” for Any Business — “We need you to make this campaign go viral.” Long pause. Nervous looks. “Uh, sure, we can do that.” If you’re an agency or run marketing, you’ve probably sat through this meeting. You may have even been the one to accept the challenge. I admit I have. In all likelihood…

Part Two: Creating Digital Experiences People Care About — Part One of this series introduced The Marketing Matrix, a tool to help you create digital experiences that engage today’s audiences. In Part Two we start helping you work with the matrix by identifying who loves you — in other words, who your most valuable audiences are. …

Part One: Creating Digital Experiences People Care About — To China, With Love Since this is the first in a series of articles that introduces the concept of The Marketing Matrix, let me set this up for you. A few years ago a Chinese businessman reached out to me on his trip through the U.S. He was looking for ways to market his…

New Threats Need You as Part of the Solution — What a real community is today has been usurped by the internet. “Online” communities have created a reason to disengage from the real world. Behind the safety of our keyboards, we vicariously experience the joy, pain and opinions of others. We participate (or not) as good neighbors (or not) without…

A Prophecy for Marketing Executives. — I originally wrote this article in 2009. Nearly 10 years later it proves to be prophetic, and the concepts I discussed back then even more relevant today. 6:00am: I wake up. The alarm clock application in the LCD TV by my bed chirps out my morning playlist. …