I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something about the new season of Mad Men that has left me totally disinterested. I am confident, based on past seasons that the show is headed somewhere, but after four hours of pandering and meandering, I have already bailed on the show.

LinkedIn is a valuable social media tool for many businesses and is often overlooked as just a resume/job-seeking platform. While it is certainly beneficial for those uses, it can also serve as a tool for marketing your experts and ultimately your company.

Fleishman- Hillard has coined the phrase "authenticity gap" as the next step in the evolution of "reputation management" or something like that.  And their recent study shows there is an authenticity gap between what consumers expect and what they experience from brands.

Evolution takes time.  And it is generally a very unsettling, if not ugly process.  Ron Johnson was brought into JCP to remove the shackles of a stodgy old retailer and breathe new life into an all but dead brand.

Waahhhh...Google is shutting down Google Reader on July 1. Gee thanks Google. Now how are we supposed to keep up with our favorite blogs, news sites and interests? Following are some tools to check out as potential "substitutes" for Google Reader's absence: Feedly: A mobile application that allows you to organize blogs, news sites, podcasts and YouTube channels and access them all in one place.

Pick a canard, any canard. How about this:  The world is going to end on December 21, 2012... oh wait, that didn't happen.  Global warming is going to flood every continent... oh wait, we are not sure if that is happening.  North Korea is going to start a nuclear war...

As humans, we often move too fast and do not give ourselves time to really think about "what we are doing" and "why" with our marketing strategies. As marketers, it is imperative to slow down and reflect. Taking that time to assess marketing efforts ensures you are meeting (and hopefully exceeding) your marketing goals.

In the words of Dr. Peter Venkman: "Have you been outside lately? Do you know how weird it is out there? We've taken our own head count. There seem to be six million completely miserable a**holes living in the tri-state area...

A case study is an excellent marketing tool to help show - rather than tell - customers and prospects how wonderful your products or services truly are. They help build confidence in what a product or service delivers, as well as in the brand/company.

Every single day brings new hope for better health and a longer, pain-free life.  Or so it seems. This week, we learn the University of Colorado Cancer Center found there is a "a delicate balance of bioactive components in rice bran that together show anti-cancer activity, including the ability to inhibit cell proliferation, alter cell cycle progression and initiate the programmed cell death known as apoptosis in malignant cells.