You can't market technology without the word "innovation." And, yet, few organizations actually want it, fewer organizations still care to invest in it, and, quite possibly, it means nothing. So why is the word so important? Mike and Jason just want to stop being forced to use the word in messaging projects.

Failure is a slippery word in the industry. Few admit it. Expectations are lowered until it's irrelevant. Project outcomes are spun. Goal posts are moved. So what is failure? Even more important, what is success, both objectively for a project and subjectively for the person who takes pride in their work and wants the best product to go out there. Mike and Jason apparently know too much about failure.

Decision fatigue has always been an issue in business, but now it's an exponentially worse threat thanks to instant communication channels like Slack. Every one of those red dots is someone asking you a question...that you need answer instantly or break the flow of business. Mike and Jason just want to flip coins.

Forrester recently showed that brands are achieving no differentiation in the market due to the homogeneity of everyone's digital experiences, and suggested that to combat the trend, 20% of technology budgets should be sent to creative. This sounds good in theory, especially for creatives and brands, but it might actually mean that everybody's screwed. Mike and Jason just want, well, the same thing Forester wants, but know the reality of execution and delivery.

It's a classic debate in the marketing world: When do you build the team to tackle all the various elements of marketing and when do you outsource? Today, that debate is much more complicated thanks to how technology is rebuilding marketing's role in the business. Mike and Jason just want you to remember that Maark is available for outsourcing.

The marketing around (and inside of) Stranger Things Season 3 was wild and brazen and so far unabated and could be a portent for the future of marketing. But we mostly discussed what we liked/didn't like about Season 3. Mike and Jason still can't get the theme from The Neverending Story out of their heads.

McDonald's just dropped its CMO. So did Coke. And Unilver and Uber and Johnson & Johnson and Lyft and Hyatt Hotels. In fact a good 30% of Fortune 500s don't have CMOs anymore, and that percentage is growing. We discuss the reasons why this could be, and why this is either extremely bad news for marketers...or extremely good news. Mike and Jason sometimes enjoy the chaos of modern marketing.

Turns out, brainstorming is the worst thing you can do for ideation, and that includes any form of group ideating (e.g., "brainwriting"). Ideas comes from individual sweat and focus: Doing the hard research and thinking up the idea until the veins in your head burst. Brainstorming is usually the Hail Mary thrown when those steps haven't been owned by anyone. Mike and Jason just want ideas to come from the bottom of gin bottles.

What do you need to start designing a digital experience? The content? How much of it? An outline? Full text? Can it be placeholder? Or should design dictate content? The amount of it? The flow? Can't design make general containers to fill with content later? Actually, it's not a chicken or the egg question. It's also not as simple as "both." It's a strategy question. That's right. The dreaded "S" word. Mike and Jason just want designers and content owners to get along.

With digital, the focus has always been on creating elegant experiences, and the socials often reward the most polished presentations of our lives. But a new generation is growing up that sees that level of sophistication as corporate and inauthentic and is drawn to low-fidelity aesthetics that will impact design, marketing, and how we interact digitally. Mike and Jason just want to know how to connect with their kids.