Technology

This Isn’t a Post About Delta Airlines

We all routinely deal with inconveniences and annoyances—so routinely that most aren’t even worth griping about half the time. We’re just that used to poor service, and mediocre treatment, and apathetic reps, and inflexible business policies, and Press 1* to Return to the Main Menu. The bar for impressive customer care is so low, in fact, it’s practically on the ground, lying like a stick in the dirt—right alongside our humanity. All companies need to do, to deliver good service, is do the minimum. All they need to do is step over that stick, as my friend Joey Coleman says. At least I think that’s what Joey says. I should probably look it up. But I refuse to, because I refuse to pay Delta Airlines another nickel of my hard-earned money. The money that I earn, in part, flying from place to place almost every week, on airplanes exactly like

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10 Ways to Deal with the Stupid Amount of Email You Get

Pop quiz: Do you wish you received more email? Answer: That’s a ridiculous question. I’ve been thinking about email a lot lately, because for the past few weeks I’ve been tracking how much time I spend managing, writing, reading, forwarding, filing, responding to, and (sometimes) cursing it. The verdict: Whatever the number is that’s bigger than “crap-ton.” (Octillion? Vigintillion? Googol?) It turns out I spend about four precious hours a day. Yet, ironically, there are probably people reading this now who are wondering why I never responded to their last inquiry. (Is this you? Whoopsie. Hit me again?) So in the first month of 2015, I’m committed to something basic and pedestrian but necessary. I’m committing to doing email better—by shedding the excess weight in my corpulent, noxious beast of an inbox. Why? Because doing so gives me more time to do the things I actually feel productive doing: writing,

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Breaking Out of Boring: Tell Unexpected Stories

What does a brand known as buttoned up and boring do to broaden its appeal? I get this question a lot. One great model for inspiration is LinkedIn, which has become the poster child for a staid brand evolving its brand by telling unexpected stories. In the early 2000s, UK musician Matt Henshaw was living the dream as the lead guitarist for Censored, a British rock band he had established with a few friends. Censored became an integral part of the music scene of the East Midlands (a region located roughly between London and Liverpool), releasing some independent singles, opening for some of their music heroes, and at one point being named one of the top five unsigned bands in the UK by the music news site NME.com. Then the band fell apart—“burned out,” Matt now says. And so in 2008 he abandoned his music career and took a humdrum

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Make Your Customer the Hero of Your Story: ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ Video

The Fault in Our Stars opened this past weekend to become number-one at the box office. Which thrills me – because I’m a fan of the young adult novel the movie is based on and of its author (and video blogger) John Green. But more importantly: It thrills me because good writing deserves to find a wide audience. But that’s not why I’m writing about it. Instead, I’m writing about it because the movie’s soundtrack video trailer is a great content marketing example of what I talk about all the time: Make your customer the hero of your story. In this case, the “customer” is (of course) potential ticket buyers and fans, who were made “heroes” when the The Fault in Our Stars (TFIOS) franchise solicited their images to crowdsource the theme song’s music video, Ed Sheeran’s All of Our Stars. The result was like catnip to Lord Tubbington: The

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How to Innovate in Your Marketing: Ask a Teenager

If you’re a company looking to use social media and content in innovative ways, ask a teenager. And not because you want to market to teens (although you might), but because teenage behavior online draws a kind of road map to where marketing is going. Here’s what I mean: My 17-year-old daughter bought a prom dress online this week. Before it even shipped from the warehouse, she had already posted a photo of it in a private Facebook group that the girls in her school set up weeks ago expressly to showcase what dress they were wearing to the prom, which is in May. The girls are essentially staking their dress claim and (at the same time) soliciting validation for their choices with likes and comments of their peers. In other words: Then: You bought a dress at a dress shop. You wore it to prom and hoped no one

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How to Use Instagram in a Genius Way (and Grow Your Audience)

If you’ve seen me speak in the last few years, you know I’m a huge fan of Instagram, because of its understated simplicity that makes for a rich story platform. You might’ve even seen me present one of my favorite examples, of the Toronto Silent Film Festival’s 2013 effort to promote the silent film experience to a brand new audience of potential fans. Now, the Festival is back, releasing its 2014 effort that uses Instagram in an interactive, genius way to spread its message and grow its audience. As I’ve written in the past, there are five reasons I love Instagram for content: Instant content. Instagram, at its core, allows you to tell stories visually, but with a simplicity and immediacy and elegance that’s hard to beat. But artful content, too. Instagram allows you to create visual stories with an artfulness and elegance and a special kind of gravitas that’s

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