Being Productive – No, seriously. Stuck on a project charter review call with the Hand-Wringers? Sitting through yet another B2C webinar they promised had business content and doesn’t?  Bored with the Keebler Elves’ mandatory due diligence training module? Time for some distractions! Here are a few incredibly distracting links which are defensible if the Thought Police audit your online wanderings. love Time Management Ninja and this may be my favourite recent post from them. It’s 14 dangerous ways you can actually get stuff done. WDH a MobiStrat! What ever shall we do?). MORE >>

Who are the same people who pay to update the website, make the products, deliver the services, clean the floors and so on. Who owns your brand? Hint: The same person who owns your dog. Stop looking around. It’s you. If you don’t have a dog, just play along. If your dog eats the neighbour’s lawn furniture, it’s your problem. If that neighbour blogs, tweets or otherwise moans publicly about it, then it’s still your problem but more people know about it. So it’s arguably a bigger problem. If Just like the dog belongs to whoever pays the vet bill, buys the kibble and takes it for a walk. MORE >>

If this is truly a key segment for your products, why not spread the joy all year? And why, pray tell, would you gum up their year-end with new offers and products instead of launching them when small businesses (especially retailers) are ready to listen, say in January. Let us launch products and services and offers all year long. Wake the agency! Saddle up the consultants! Loose the hounds! Small Business Season is practically here, and there is much to do before we start stalking our quarry through the underbrush of the economy. Do I sound like I feel a bit guilty? MORE >>

The subhead pops up in just the right spot and proposes the resolution as we travel downward to see our confident Productivity Prevention Engineer heading out for lunch. There is no connection between the image and the product. There’s no connection between this ad and the product. What the heck is happening to transit advertising? used to be able to kill a ten-minute subway ride by reading the ads. They were never particularly good, but they amused. Lately, I have to fend off the “experiential” marketers and their 20 second facials. Uh oh. And it does. MORE >>

Not the scary kind where she had to fight off her 300 feral cats to use the toaster; the pernicious power-grabby kind where corporate goodies like product samples, trinkets, office supplies and promo materials were kept carefully locked up and doled out only upon presentation of a court order or a venti-double-shot-soy latte. When she finally left, it took months to dispose of the obsolete products, branded junk and paper. Years ago I worked with a sales administrator who had a hoarding problem. Which is what I want to talk about today. 140 characters will only get you so far. MORE >>