The Full Monty

It's natural to want to make changes to your life around the beginning of the year. If you made a New Year's resolution, are you still sticking to it nearly two months in? If you're like most people, the odds are that you're not.

In this episode, we explore what motivates us to make resolutions at that time of the year, why it's the wrong time, and how we can begin to create habits that not only last the entire year, but a lifetime.

• Be sure to check out other major stories from the February 21st edition of The Full Monty newsletter: A female engineer told a harrowing tale of sexual harassment, HR threats, and a dwindling percentage of women engineers at Uber. It's an explosive post that goes into great detail about the situation.
• AI is surrounded by marketing hype, jargon, inflated expectations, and fear. Two experts offer realistic and thoughtful ideas about AI in our society and economy.
• Cisco released its 2017 Cybersecurity Report, which indicated that over one-third of organizations surveyed that reported a breach in the last year, said that they experienced significant customer, opportunity, and revenue loss.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

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We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

There are plenty of examples of metrics, KPIs and other hard data points to follow if you're looking to prove ROI. But sometimes, it isn't about hard metrics and it's not about the return; it's about value.

Value given and value derived are two different things, and the outcome you achieve depends greatly on which end of the value chain you're sitting. Are you measuring the wrong thing? Or maybe you're measuring the right thing the wrong way. This episode contains a parable about the metrics of value.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling for technology companies to band together to defeat "fake news." With made-up stories and hoaxes clouding people's minds, he suggested that his colleagues "need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news."
• You can access 375,000 beautiful, copyright-free images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art online.
• In 1802, the 32 year-old Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a stirring letter to his brothers shortly after writing his Second Symphony, in which he detailed the loneliness of living with hearing loss and how music saved his life.

When a technical glitch threatens to obliterate an otherwise clockwork-like tradition, something surprising happens. The resulting lesson is one that every business should heed.

Be sure to check out other major stories from the crowdsourced December 12th edition of the newsletter:

• According to Mashable and the Australian Consumer Commission, AirBnB scams have tripled this year. Fake listings, fake sites, and fraudulent payment schemes plague the brand and consumers alike. 
• With Oculus, Vive, Daydream, and many others beating the drum, 2016 was supposed to be the year of VR, but AR got the headlines
• The rise of fake news gives brands a shiver - and well it should. Where brands’ ads appear can have significant, unintended impact. Marketers pay heed: build rules into your ad platforms to ensure they’re appearing where you want them to.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

This week, a look at boycotts from an unusual angle — when a media company goes on the attack. Is this a unique event, or are we in for more?

Be sure to check out other major stories from the December 5th of the newsletter:

• Amazon is cracking down on fake reviews in a number of ways: first, by deleting "incentivized" reviews; and secondly by allowing no more than five reviews per user per week — unless they've made verified purchases.
• According to data published in November, about half of US advertising and marketing executives identified artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented realities, the internet of things and “conversational marketing” as critical emerging technology for marketing.
• With all of its focus on technological advances on the most minute area of our lives, some think that the bigger picture is being missed because Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Problem.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

This week, a look at the detrimental effects of fake news and what kinds of technical and communal solutions it might take to establish order, provide assurances, and help restore thoughtful dialog.

Be sure to check out other major stories from the November 21st edition of the newsletter:

• A new study from WE Communications and YouGov covering China, the U.S. and the UK reveals that earned media placements are regarded as the most influential sources of news and information when it comes to driving consumer opinions about brands and products and when driving sharing across social media and other platforms.
• How do businesses prioritize their digital transformation efforts? One key area is picking the right individual to lead the process.
• Increased technology usage in cars has contributed to distractions that resulted in a 10.4% rise in traffic fatalities this year, after three decades of falling rates. Death? Yeah, there's an app for that.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

There are modern-day lessons that craft-driven content marketers can learn from John Henry.

And should we still be relying on polls to predict the outcome of elections in a post-digital world? 

Be sure to check out other major stories from the November 14th edition of the newsletter:

• Twitter has been through a lot lately. But Ben Thompson makes the case for Why Twitter Must Be Saved. “It is Twitter that has reaffirmed itself as the most powerful antidote to Facebook’s algorithm: misinformation certainly spreads via a tweet, but truth follows unusually quickly; thanks to the power of retweets and quoted tweets, both are far more inescapable than they are on Facebook.” 
• MIT and Uber are teaming up to address the future of urban ride-sharing. The Institute’s Senseable City Lab and the San Francisco-based company recently announced a research collaboration in which they'll explore how ride-sharing networks could impact urban transportation further down the road.
• This ends in the only way it could: a man and a woman were playing with VR in a parking lot (that's right — with the goggles obscuring their view of the real world) when they got hit by a car. No word on whether the driver was wearing VR goggles too.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

Donald Trump is uber-dependent on the media. And vice versa. What does it mean for advertising?

And we're living in a world where facts don't seem to matter. Has Facebook irretrievably damaged discourse and democracy?

Be sure to check out other major stories from the November 7th edition of the newsletter:

• Facebook's top-line growth is double that of any other company: third-quarter revenue soared 56% to $7 billion and its quarterly profit nearly tripled to $2.38 billion. But there's a downside: Facebook is running low on ad inventory and can't keep up the growth.
• Virtual assistants that can read social cues and nonverbal signals are less jarring—and surprisingly persuasive. That's right: chatbots with social skills will convince you to buy.
• With the rise of companies like Dollar Shave Club, Uber, Airbnb and more, the expanding role of the CMO involves combating disruption. Sounds like a job for Brain+Trust Partners.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

A publication called Facebook out for racist policies regarding its ad targeting. Was it the exposure of a nefarious practice or an overblown assertion?

Vine never had a fighting chance, thanks to mismanagement at Twitter. What went wrong? And a special tribute to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

Be sure to check out other major stories from the October 31st edition of the newsletter:

• How well versed are marketers in the realm of digital? According to Unilever's CMO Keith Week, there's a whole generation of marketers who are bluffing. Bottom line: it's time to get serious, embrace the digital world and bone up on trends, skills and actual usage. 
• Social media ads drive awareness and revenues for SMBs. SMBs were three times as likely to rely on social ads as any other format. And they don’t seem to differentiate much between the two goals, which is troubling. 
• Instagram has partnered with mental health professionals and advocates to design a response to posts that could be about suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders. 

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

When you're trying to change hearts and minds, is it an immutable concept that you should also be honest with people? How far can the envelope be pushed in pursuit of a public service?

Who owns social, content, and customer relationships? Does it matter? Should it? 

Be sure to check out other major stories from the October 24th edition of the newsletter:

• Global spending on newspaper advertising is expected to drop by 8.7% in 2016, and publishers are cutting costs and restructuring. It's particularly troublesome, given that the overall global ad market is expected to grow 4% this year to $529.1 billion, with a 14% acceleration in digital-ad spending. 
• Advertising on Facebook is always changing. Check out the five major shifts in Facebook advertising that all marketers should know about.
• Is the self-driving car un-American? Given that so much of our culture has been car culture, the advent of autonomous vehicles may reframe our view of the self.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

Wells Fargo should have seen the crisis coming, but it fell victim to the classic myopia that plagues so many companies caught in issues of their own making. What could they have done differently?

All too often, if you'd like to get a company's content, it requires you to give up too much personal information. What's the alternative?

Be sure to check out other major stories from the October 17th edition of the newsletter:

• The Wall Street Journal is reorganizing its newsroom as it aims to reach 3 million digital subscribers. The result will be shorter, snappier and more creative stories.
• Facebook launched Workplace, formerly known as Facebook at Work. It's a competitor to Yammer and Slack.
• According to June research, US marketing and media professionals will allocate an average of 11.6% of their ad budget and inventory to digital audio placements by mid-2017, doubling the share of investment made just two years earlier.

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Western music: "Adventure Western Music - Wild West" Ross Budgen (YouTube)

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.