Nothing stays still. Relative to the rest of the world, even something that’s not moving is changing. It’s tempting to talk about not making fast enough progress. But it’s far more useful to ask which direction we’re progressing. Often, people will point to the velocity of the change they’re making without pausing to consider the […]

There are many ways to prioritize our time and focus, but the easiest and most vivid way is to do the urgent things first. If we wait until a house plant is sick before we take care of it, though, it’s too late. Deadlines, loud requests and last-minute interventions are crude forcing functions. They’re inefficient […]

Consulting firms rank brands on value. Marketers promise to increase it. But brand value has little to do with whether a company is famous or even profitable. The accurate measure of brand value is the premium that consumers will spend over the generic. What time, money or risk will they take for a valuable brand […]

The simplest way forward is to see which boxes your target market has and then check all of them. Unfortunately #1: The audience doesn’t publish their actual list of boxes, they conceal many of them. Unfortunately #2: They don’t all have the same boxes. Unfortunately #3: If it were that straightforward, your competition would have […]