Monday Morning Memo

I’ve never seen a business fail due to “reaching the wrong people.” So why does every business owner instinctively believe that “reaching the right people” is the key to successful advertising? Who, exactly, do you not want to know about you? Who isn’t qualified to repeat the good things they’ve heard about you? And when &hellip Continue reading »

The Private Advice of Harry Connick, Jr. Chandler Canterbury is a child actor with a dazzling future. Immediately following the world premiere of When Angels Sing, a not-yet-released movie young Canterbury made with Willie Nelson, Connie Britton, Lyle Lovett, Fionnula Flanagan, Kris Kristofferson and Harry Connick, Jr., Harry grabbed a microphone and told a funny &hellip Continue reading »

If I had any sense, if I had half the brains God gave an aardvark, I’d talk about politics or religion and fewer people would be annoyed. But aardvarks look at me with pity because I’m foolish. My social filter is so misaligned that I’m going to share with you my thoughts about planning. “Plan your &hellip Continue reading »

Been Read, Being Read, Will be Read Jeff says I have a confirmation bias, a strong attraction to information that reinforces my convictions and helps me prove my point. That makes sense. I’m an ad writer. Does anyone really want their ad writer to be unbiased? The job of the ad writer is to: 1. &hellip Continue reading »

Is it wise to protect the ones we love from the hardships that taught us all we know? Hardship is the undisputed School of the Masters, but very few students seek admission. Education begins with memorization. Having learned all the theories, steps and rules, we parry and thrust against the light in a kind of &hellip Continue reading »

I think there should be something in science called the ‘reindeer effect.’ I don’t know what it would be, but I think it’d be good to hear someone say, ‘Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.’ – Jack Handey The Reindeer Effect isn’t real. The Ikea Effect, however, is &hellip Continue reading »

Things depend on how you look at them. Through what lenses do you examine possibilities? The first 2 lenses are intellect and emotion. Sometimes you use one, sometimes the other. This is normal. Intellect employs hard facts and cold logic. Emotion relies on soft intuition and warm connections. Will the first impression be made in &hellip Continue reading »

Nothing sounds appealing. Have you ever had that feeling? You’re sort of hungry, but nothing sounds good. You want to have fun, but nothing sounds fun. So you drive to the bookstore but none of the books – not a single one of them – whispers for you to carry it to the cashier. You &hellip Continue reading »

Rambling Thoughts, Spoken Plainly, Certain to Irritate Someone, Somewhere A mirage is not a hallucination, but a misinterpretation. We see the sky reflected from the ground and we assume it to be water. But it isn’t. That reflection is caused by light passing through cold air that sits on a thin layer of hot air, &hellip Continue reading »