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Dear CMO: Why is it that we always need to see things for ourselves? Why do we never trust other people? Are we all so distrustful of others that we can’t take anyone’s word for it anymore? Maybe this is a by-product of our hyper-connected, e-enabled world. We have too much information so we trust […]

Dear CMO: Let’s talk about competitive “blinders”. The ones you put on when you talk about “the competition” — the ones that say, “we know who our competitors are,” and fail to take into consideration the trivial, the comic, and the beneath-your-contempt minor players who don’t even qualify to hit your radar screen. Chimps with […]

Dear CMO: There are times in a career when things hum along smoothly. The machine is well-oiled, the team works together like a veteran kitchen staff, customers are happy (enough), and management is looking towards the future and not the back end of the current quarter. I’m not here to talk about times like these. […]

Dear CMO: It feels like ages ago, but the possibly misquoted VP of Marketing over at Verizon Wireless’s comments about mobile advertising still haunt us. “We know we can make significant dollars in mobile Web advertising in 2007,” said [the VP of Marketing at Verizon Wireless]… “That said, we likely will not — we want […]

Dear CMO: Some of us, in times of introspection, follow the sage advice of philosophers like Heraclitus or Machiavelli. Or Yogi Berra. We seek guidance when different paths appear before us, and, as smart people often do, gain insights into human nature in the process. One of my board of philosophers is Lucius Annaeus Seneca, […]