Monday Morning Memo
The World’s Ugliest Website And the People Behind It
In the world of bricks-and-mortar, 1. a spectacular building, 2. good signage and 3. an excellent location are the best advertising money can buy. In the binary world where Ones are bricks and Zeroes are mortar, 1. your website is your building, 2. your masthead is your signage and 3. your domain name is your &hellip Continue reading
The Apathy of Leisure
A person capable of creating is happiest when they are creating. Artists create visual and auditory artifacts that affect our thoughts, moods and attitudes. Riddle-solvers perform feats of engineering and invention. Teachers create new understanding in the minds of their students. Entrepreneurs create businesses that offer us new and different experiences. Communicators create stories and &hellip Continue reading
On What Will You Shine Your Spotlight of Words?
A radio commercial begins, “I’m Ronald Watersdown, and I’m here to tell you about a very important opportunity that I’m sure you won’t want to miss. It’s an incredible chance for you to…” What did those twenty-nine words make you see in your mind? Not much, right? But what about these? “Owl was neither wise &hellip Continue reading
Why Principles are Better than Rules
Laid side-by-side, a stick and a rope of the same length share a similar appearance. Likewise, rules and principles look alike even though they have virtually nothing in common. Rules are like sticks. You can prod people with them. You can threaten people with them. You can beat people with them. But you cannot lead &hellip Continue reading
The Day After This Day
The principal benefit of creative thought is hope. New possibilities are electric, and hope is the light that shines from them. Creativity is the source of hope even when your hope is in God: “I don’t see a way out of this, but I’m betting that He does.” We depend upon God’s creative thoughts to &hellip Continue reading
College Isn’t for Everyone
The smartest thing I ever did was drop out of college on the second day. What I wanted to learn, they couldn’t teach me, so I left to figure it out on my own. That was 37 years ago. A number of years later I wrote a series of New York Times and Wall Street &hellip Continue reading
Ad Strategy vs. Ad Writing
Ad strategy is more difficult to teach than ad writing. Ad writing, essentially, is to choose: 1. an intriguing angle of approach into the subject matter and 2. the sharpest words and phrases to make your point. Ad strategy, essentially, is to choose: 1. the point you need to make. Bad strategy happens when you: &hellip Continue reading
What I Do Today Is Important
For I Am Exchanging a Day of My Life For It. Quixote sees the turning of the windmill as the flailing arms of a giant that must be defeated. Peter Pan will remain young only if he can escape a tick-tocking crocodile that has swallowed a clock. In 1904, old Mrs. Snow spoke of her &hellip Continue reading
Secret Messages – Embedded Codes
Finally, an authentic, encoded message. And you’ll never guess where. The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003, exactly 10 years ago. The book has been denounced as an attack on the Catholic church and sharply criticized for its historical and scientific inaccuracies, but that hasn’t keep it from selling more than 80 million copies &hellip Continue reading
Becoming Bulletproof
Fear is the bullet that eliminates happiness. Fear is the bullet that kills the dream. Fear is the assassin of success. Why not become bulletproof in 2 easy steps? 1. Make peace with the possibility of failure. 2. Amputate your sense of shame. “Failure is not an option” is the platitude of people who have &hellip Continue reading
