graphicmachine

We’re often told that the hallmark of an effective leader is the ability to think big picture and to delegate the task-based work to subordinates who are good at it. That may be true. But in today’s tech-driven world, can business leaders still think of technology as “task-based” and also be effective? How much does a C-suite leader need to know about technology? And what does it mean to be a “Full Stack CEO”? In today’s Is There There There podcast from the Graphicmachine studio, we’re going to be exploring these questions in what we are calling “The Everything Edition.”

Maybe it’s the moment when you’ve corralled blog posts for the week, made sure your social channels are all scheduled out, or you juggled 10 different points of contact while meeting all your deadlines... or in the effort to be where everyone expected you to be you finally hit that wall. You’re overwhelmed. What was once a straight line of one thing after another has become something akin to landing a plane at La Guardia… messy, congested and razor thin margins between success and failure. In this week’s Is There There There podcast from the Graphicmachine digital agency, we explore if the clenched anxiety of modern marketing is inevitable or if it’s possible to find another way in what we are calling The Overwhelmed Edition.

t seems that everywhere in the media, there is a strong pitch to move things in one direction or another. Vote for this candidate, buy this product or use this service. These seem like clear ideas that must of been born out of a singular focus or idea. Perhaps for some that is true. For many though, getting a message to market means the unruly task of building consensus around an idea. Words like stakeholders, interested parties and market share get bandied about. Hundreds of Skype sessions, meetings, whiteboards later you arrive at your message. Is it bland or effective. Has the process of consensus robbed you of interesting and original. In today’s Is There There There Podcast, presented by Graphicmachine Studio, we dive into consensus building in what we like to call the Let’s Get Together Edition.

Sometimes you have a bunch of data that tells you with certainty that something will happen. You’ll be the victor in an election or you’ll reach this sales record. However, if you have an instinct about how something might work, it can be difficult to justify departing from that data to move in a new direction. In this week’s Is There There There, the podcast from Graphicmachine, we dive into the idea of making this break and what we like to call “Justify My Data”. I am Patience Jones and with me to discuss is Brian Jones to discuss this and also what is now and next with pivoting away from conventional data wisdom.

A number of years ago, I left my job as an architect to pursue the idea that the digital environment would become as important to our daily life as a built environment. It was a big change in lifestyle, in what my future looked like, but mostly it was an agreement with myself (known or unknown) that I would be in near constant change. Hundreds of jobs and one job, a new company every year or so that morphed to grow with this environment, all while trying to hold on to a core identity to make things better. Marketing things or companies or ideas often pulls from its bag of tricks the notion of change. In this episode, we’ll look at the idea of change as a means to growth, organizations that are using it and if it’s still a reasonable way to think about things.

Topics in the trends report include: Looking at a borderless world to guide your marketing efforts. Understanding when to hire someone to do what they are best at. What does the future of web accessibility look like. Give your feedback here for what those guidelines should include. A pet project that grows up, shows that there is value in growing an idea. The election cycle and how to think about marketing now. Changes in Google's PPC (pay per click) display on desktop search and what that means for your campaigns. The privacy blowback that happens as people consider how much of their emotional state they share. Targeting becomes mainstream as businesses learn to use the new tools at their disposal. Spanish language becomes part of the integrated landscape of American advertising. Big retail is suffering, but there are opportunities. Understand how people perceive threats from others and what that means for us as we move forward. In a french twitter campaign, women turn the tables on men to speak to them in a manner that may be unfamiliar.

Companies have long fretted over every word that goes into their mission statement. These polished statements, once commonplace, seem out of step with the way that consumers expect business to reveal what their companies "are about."

"We bring you the uninterrupted edition of this program sponsored by...Dr. WhatsTheirName" the words of an advertiser to state they are not advertising. For people who offer professional services (doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects... to name just a few), has the world changed enough to advertise without making your services seem less than top tier? Are there ways to close the loop with prospects without seeming desperate?

Managed expectations, fruitful endeavor or zero sum game? In this week’s episode, we discuss keeping everyone in the loop, possibly at the expense of completion. When do you let people know that something might not turn out as expected, and when is that just adding to the agitation? Will your customers or clients understand if something isn't going to go as planned?

In this week’s episode, we review the idea of things that makeup a digital afterlife, be it after death or less distressingly the end of a campaign. What pieces can you plan for and which ones require thoughtful consideration? How big is the digital footprint that we leave behind? How is that changing with all the cloud services that seek to create eternity, albeit in a server farm far away. Investigations beyond the Afterlife this week include : There is a new sheriff looking over the shoulders of would be IP thiefs. Slack is growing up, but will be an awkward adolescence? An impossibly cool digital spray painter for your next wall art project. Finland may not be friending you.

In this week’s episode, we tackle the most important person, you, I mean me, no...you. We improve on: Identifying the moment that ego takes over and seeing the big picture of a project goes out the window. The social feed from Business Insider and it's tendency to resort to elementary school tactics when talking about the US presidential election. Can math equations be beautiful, and if so, what do they look like? Is it possible to judge how much empathy a person has? A recent UK study thinks so. A new product testing tool that is staffed by actual product testers.

By the time you listen to this week’s episode, we will have experienced the first presidential candidate debate of this election cycle. Brand debates, on the other hand, we’ve been experiencing for seemingly ever. Is there value in this? Or does it limit opportunities?

The Olympics: Boston doesn’t want to host them. Rio has a raw sewage problem that could potentially kill athletes and threatens to give everyone else Hepatitis A. Russia now has a giant defunct structural wasteland visited only by feral wolves. Is the intended message of the Olympics still buried in there somewhere? Is there still a value to advertisers in the face of environmental and economic disaster? How do the Olympics need to change to remain on their intended brand?

This week, we start a new occasional feature: the creative review. What are some of the most recent good, bad, or neutral campaigns?

Are subscription services a way to reduce purchases of soon-defunct items, or are they a long walk off a short pier into the lake of anxiety?

In the words of the great Brenda Lee, “I’m sorry, so sorry.” When should businesses apologize, and how can they do it without sounding like jerks?

In the realm of workplace collision, is your business a bumper car track or the Large Hadron Collider?

Fancy yourself an expert, do you? This week we explore what it means to be an expert, what it doesn’t mean, and whether the word even has any meaning in a rapidly changing world.

Spotify’s sudden shift in logo color has some fans experiencing their own Blue (Blue-Green?) Monday. What does color psychology tell us about the reactions people are having? Do differences in shades really impact us as much as we’ve been told?

Are you ready for what is literally the best episode ever? It will change your life and you will never think about anything the same way again!

You don’t have to stock crates of toothpaste in your former-garage-now-“pantry” to appreciate a coupon, but does it work the same way it used to? This week’s special guest AWG Marketing Specialist Andrea Garcia walks us through the details.

In the pre-digital, post-dinosaur era, things like street address and area code were used by potential customers to determine whether a business was qualified. How do we qualify businesses in a digital age?

If your mindset can be summed up as “The Little Engine That Couldn’t,” you may need to reconsider whether change really is impossible, or just more work than doing nothing.

Do you find yourself using the same words repeatedly regardless of the situation? Do people stare at you blankly when you speak, or respond to your writing with only “Thanks”? Has jargon become the icing on not just the cake but everything? Then take a listen, because we can help.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/graphicmachine/Ep_55_-_No_Free_Lunch_Edition_-_Is_There_There_There.mp3