Since 1998, we have been reflecting on marketing, design, code, and much more.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
So you’ve registered for Connections 2012, made your hotel reservations and booked your travel. You’re amped up to join 4,000 other marketers in Indianapolis to find out what’s working for other people, hear Michael J. Fox’s keynote address, catch The Fray in concert, and see what David Blaine is going to make vanish. That’s quite […]
William Lever, who started the notable soap company Lever Brothers, famously said, “I know half of my advertising isn’t working, I just don’t know which half.” Thankfully, we no longer live in a time where we have to guess what’s working and what isn’t. In fact, in some ways, the bigger problem today is wading […]
I received a disturbing email from a client this morning. He had received an official-looking email that appeared to have come from an address at Rare Bird. The message said: Subj: Please update your information at [clientdomain].com Dear [clientdomain].com, Rare Bird Inc is hereby announcing a new upgrade for Content management system. We’ve upgraded our […]
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had just about all of the spin and rhetoric I can stand. Television news outlets can’t seem to resist the temptation to include their own analysis, newspapers seem unable to simply report the facts, and radio talk show personalities — on both sides of the political spectrum — […]
