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Finding the “best” products

Have you ever had to buy something you knew very little about? Something like a vacuum cleaner, a gas grill, wiper blades, or maybe even replacing your brake pads? For some of the smaller items, like the wiper blades, you may do what I do: pick the one with the median price. If you do, […]

Everyone is getting fit, bit by bit.

You may have noticed some subtle changes going on around you. More and more people are wearing odd bracelets emblazoned with small LED lights, some even show scrolling words that refer to their current ‘fuel’ levels. While it might look like a bit of avant garde jewelry, it’s really the latest in wearable technology and […]

Conversation Starter

Even in this age of hyper-communication, where people are willingly sharing all kinds of things with each other on social networks, there is one area of our lives where we quiet down completely. On the one hand, it’s not surprising. The topic is uncomfortable and the potential for misunderstanding is large. On the other hand, […]

Learn Guitar, Love Guitar

In sixth grade, I had the insight to realize that girls love musicians. So when the time came to sign up for music at school, I quickly raised my hand and declared my intent to play guitar. “That’s great,” said Mrs. Bonham, as she handed me a violin. “Start with this.” I have nothing against […]

Protecting Your Kids Online

Recently, Indianapolis Police Detective Darin Odier came to our school with a message for the students, and he delivered it in the most impactful way possible: He started with the seventh and eighth graders and immediately got their attention by projecting pictures of some of them on the big screen at the front of the […]

Marketer Beware: That Shiny Object is Just a Distraction

Oh, woe is the plight of the marketer. With so many things to do, so many channels to explore, we often forget the one abiding truth in nearly everything we do: No one cares like we do. We find ourselves today living in the proverbial forest, trying to answer the timeless question: If a tree […]

Stay connected with ÜberConference

There’s a significant amount of evidence, both empirical and anecdotal, that suggests you really need to meet face-to-face with your clients and customers periodically. Of course, the reality of your working life may make this difficult. If so, you’re likely relying on conference calls to keep in touch and ensure projects are progressing. For the […]

Kids learn real world skills at DIY.org

Your kid can be a Maker. That’s the promise of a new website called DIY (DIY.org) that is built around the idea of moving kids away from the virtual world – and deeper into the real one – by getting their hands dirty with projects. In an interesting twist, they can then post pictures of […]

Supplement your memory with Evernote

I was doing some research recently and discovered an infographic that explained just how much data is being generated by the information-rich world in which we live. The image showed things like “Google receives more than 2,000,000 search queries” and “Twitter users send more than 100,000 tweets” and “Facebook users share more than 684,000 pieces […]

Rare Bird Wins Four Awards in Int’l Competition

Indianapolis-based Rare Bird, Inc. has been honored with four 2012 WebAwards by the Web Marketing Association. Now in its 16th year, the WebAward program is the longest running annual website award competition dedicated to naming the best Web sites in 96 industries while setting the standard of excellence for all website development. With thousands of […]

Key Takeaways from Exact Target’s Connections 2012

As much as I dislike words like ‘takeaway’, it seems the easiest way to describe something worth, uh… taking away from the event. So here, in no particular order (and without implying any synergistic connection or claims of empowerment), are the primary things I learned in Indianapolis this week. I learned, from a company much […]

For the first time, more emails get opened on smartphones than desktops

A few months ago, in April 2012, a stunning thing happened on the way to communicating with your customers: For the first time ever, more of them opened your emails on their smartphones than any other platform*. On the surface, this seems like a very big deal. In fact, it’s even bigger than that. For […]