The Archive
Sorted by date, filed by subject, and occasionally revised when I turn out to have been wrong about something.
AI can produce more marketing work than ever. But producing more is not the same as producing work that matters. On judgment, experience, and what AI cannot do.
Tools and channels keep evolving, but marketing's real purpose is still connection. On leadership, AI, and what contracting has unexpectedly taught me.
AI can produce decent work in seconds. That means decent work is no longer the differentiator. What remains is judgment, taste, and the willingness to sit in the buyer's seat.
On losing a friend who was in the middle of building something new. Some things don’t have a lesson. They just matter.
Branding is the hardest marketing activity to measure, which is exactly why it's often the first to be abandoned. On Lent, patience, and giving important work the time it needs.
Forty strangers showed up at my house on a winter night. Eighteen years later, that book club is still running. On retention, community, and the kind of leadership that lets people make something their own.
Qualifications are table stakes. What matters is readiness: the willingness to learn, contribute, and figure things out as you go.
We cut a $2 million programmatic advertising budget to $400,000. The result was not a retreat; it was a forced conversation about what actually created value.
A website redesign built around customer decisions instead of internal structure increased website-driven revenue by 40%. Design alone did not do that.
AI makes producing content easy. That is exactly why volume is no longer a strategy. The advantage now belongs to knowing what is worth saying.
I am very good at marketing. I am not naturally good at interviewing for marketing jobs. Here is how I am getting better.
Experience gives us context and pattern recognition, but it does not exempt us from learning. On curiosity, reinvention, and why seasoned careers still require new skills.