On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of moderating a great panel conversation on the use of social media in B2B sales and marketing.  The panelists included Anne Plese from Cisco, Tom Vaughn from Microsoft, and Ari Newman from Jive Software. Huge thanks to Anne, Tom and Ari for sharing their wisdom.  And so much of it!  To Facebook or not to Facebook? MORE >>

I looked at my marketing text books one last good time – the pages seemed fairly crisp, but most examples cited in the book seemed obsolete. It seemed like between 2008 and now, marketing had undergone a transformation and the textbook couldn’t keep pace with it. The answer to this question lies in the evolving nature of marketing. Agile planning. MORE >>

What makes brands vital, and what makes consumers associate particular brands with innovation? This question recently struck me as I read Roobini Aruleswaran’s great piece about Bose. Now, marketers don’t have a ton of control over R&D (although that’s changing in some companies). Advertising lifestyle, not product. Simplicity. MORE >>

How would you feel if you were served a dish which you never ordered, instead of the one that you really wanted? can imagine feelings of shock and disappointment. Switch gears to marketing. Many B2B customers today find themselves unpleasantly surprised, when companies design offerings for them that they never asked for. MORE >>

Hand in hand with commercial teaching/insight marketing approaches – something we at MLC understand to be the most effective method to break buyer assumptions and make complex sales – comes something else: namely, having smart things to teach customers in the first place. This is, unsurprisingly, a lot easier said than done. MORE >>