Until Further Notice… Celebrate Everything

A few people I care for deeply had a really rough week. It seems there is a lot of loss going around right now. Charles lost Joey, a friend and colleague, in an unexpected and senseless crime. And Ben lost his dear friend Dave after a brave and inspiring fight with ALS (Dave’s story here:…

Seeing Glasses in a Whole New Light

If you wear glasses you know that shopping for them at the traditional places like LensCrafters and EyeMart etc.. is mildly, well…. antiseptic. One thing it is NOT is sexy or fun. Stores are boring with bad lighting, doctors smocks, mysterious pricing and ultimately, very expensive. I found this out first hand recently when I…

Crowd Sourced Onion Soup

Why would anyone buy a cook book these days (other than as a gift) when there are so many great cooking websites with copious free and detailed recipes, videos, pictures and more? Personally, it never even occurs to me to crack one of the many I have. Why? Because of the comments. Yes, a written…

A Contemporary Spin on the Gingerbread House

For the holidays this year we decided to try our hands at our very first gingerbread house (“gbh”). As big fans of contemporary architecture and with our own future home currently under construction, it seemed only natural that our gbh should be its replica. Normal, right? Definitely no ungapatchka traditional gbh for us! With no…

Abercrombie’s Brand DNA Revealed in an Unexpected Moment

Back in 2006, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries now famously admitted in an interview with Salon.com that his brand was intentionally “exclusionary” and perhaps most offensive… well… I’ll simply quote him: “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot…

Forty. Full of Surprises.

I approached 40 with trepidation. Perhaps in part because I’ve never felt my age? I was always “precocious” or “15 going on 30”. And I looked older too. Man, when I look back at pictures of my 14 year old self I am shocked at how much I look 25 (yeah, ok.. it was the…

Improving Life on the Road: Inspired Creative Minds

Traveling a lot certainly has its ups and downs (yes.. literally). One of the surprising “ups” is stumbling upon marketing and design brilliance, sometimes in the most unexpected places. For me (admitted marketing geek) I get true inspiration from creative, elegant and insightful solutions that demonstrate deep understanding of the plight of the customer. And…

The Art of the Up-Sell

For a very brief and slightly dark time in college I waited tables at Bennigan’s. For some reason I had a romantic notice of working there. I think it came from 1980’s Brat Pack movies. I thought it would be uber social, with lots of slow motion laughs around a big Cheer’s-like bar and hot…

Sometimes “Good” Marketing Isn’t a Good Idea

I appreciate good marketing. Duh. Especially when you can tell they were thoughtful about the brand (and its touchpoints), understand the impact of customer service, are consistent in the environment and truly 360. But alas sometimes, as I have learned, good marketing may in fact be a red flag. Case in point… the dentist. Recently I was referred…

When Good Service Brands Go Bad

Think of brands known for service and you think of Nordstrom, Enterprise Rent a Car, Ritz, Virgin Airlines, Zappos, Starwood. These are brands known for differentiating themselves by their service DNA. And yet, sometimes even the brands that are known for getting it right, get it wrong. Somehow this is even more devastating then if they…

Email and the Demise of a Civil Society

Have you ever noticed how rude people can be when communicating via email? Especially when the email is to an unknown recipient. It’s as though we’ve all forgotten that there is still a real person on the receiving end of every email. Slipped our minds that our complaint, issue, concern or frustration has to be…

History Repeating

My mom has a long history with Sears Roebuck & Co. She has always shared stories about how exciting it was when the massive catalog arrived at their doorstep with a thud, initiating near fist-fights between her and her brothers over who got to browse its’ pages first. They would dog-ear the pages that contained…