Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Ask(?)Away: What's Next?, Ryan Karpeles -- Part One

Blogs may make you famous to your customer community. When you share insights on what you have learned and information about your industry experience, you may gain readers who will in turn spread the word about your business. So why doesn't every company have a blog that should have one? I discussed this very topic with Ryan Karpeles of Living Light Bulbs recently. Ryan contributes an insane amount of (intelligent) questions to our conversations, as he put in a post on job interviews this past week. I sat down to chat with him late one evening as we wondered together... Read more →

Fathers and Daughters

“Atta Unsar” these are the opening words of the only written record we have of Gothic, the language that preceded common German from which English originates. It’s the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer and it means “our Father”. The verses were so important to transmit that they were stabilized in written form, and not merely consigned to the vagaries of oral transmission. This is a figure of enormous importance and meaning through the ages. My father Achille was born in 1935, the first son of a dashing man who served with the Italian Red Cross in Libya and a woman... Read more →

Are You Ready for Marketing 2.0?

This is a broader discussion than just this weeks' launch of BrandingWire. And it is because the product of this collaboration ends up not being a tangible thing, per se. In fact, you are the ones with the products and services, the conversation around your brand and how to make it blossom is the focus and potential action of such collaboration. I think we've covered 2.0 from the Web to Advertising to the kitchen sink. The one variable in this equation remains the human element. In Marketing 2.0, this variable populates both the working team and the outcome. What if... Read more →

Feedback is Different from Echo, it's More Like CPR

A couple of days ago I posted a reflection on feedback, to which I received important... feedback. Yes, comments and all other conversations you have with readers, audiences, and customers or clients, are filled with information you can capture and learn to use to your benefit. As I stated in my opening paragraph, the problem with feedback is that we rarely know how to give it, and seldom learn how to take it. Stephen Denny was first on the scene with the "Inside the Actors' Studio" moment concept on exit interviews. He wrote: "...your point about giving and receiving feedback... Read more →

SEO is Sexy, Ask Mike Levin at HitTail

It has been a few weeks since I met Mike Levin, a Philadelphian now living in New York, on my home turf. Mike and I were in attendance at Seth Godin's first book event for The Dip. As we discovered during our conversation and I just found out in the last couple of days, we have more that one connection between us. This is not a six degree of separation post, although it could easily be. That is great news, as I believe that when we meet people who are extremely passionate about what they do, demonstrably good at it,... Read more →

2 Weeks to a Breakthrough with Lisa Haneberg

Today I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time with Lisa Haneberg and I can tell you that everything they say about her is true: she is energetic, passionate and motivated to help you succeed. If you do your daily practice, you are Two Weeks to a Breakthrough, too. This is not going to be an interview with Lisa, Phil Gerbyshak has already done a great one at Make it Great! Lisa and I had an interesting conversation over dinner and I can add that she is also a fantastic active listener. The type of conversation she's... Read more →

BrandingWire: JavAroma, in love with coffee

Joe Cups, the owner of a small coffee company in mid-America, is looking for the next big idea. The company owns a few retail stores, having been in business and moderately successful for 8 years. Joe tells me that the stores are reasonably profitable so he has no debt and can fund his operations out of steady cash flow. A Look at the Operations They roast their own beans on-site -- their retail sites are wide-open, relaxed, and kind-of country-funky. There is a very strong local attachment to the company. Since it is a family operation, the recognition outside of... Read more →

The Problem with Feedback

Every time I engage in a transaction or renew a membership, I am asked for feedback. I receive feedback after events and meetings I organize with clients and colleagues. The problem with feedback is that we rarely know how to give it, and seldom learn how to take it. Why is that? Maybe we fail to recognize that feedback is a conversation -- it goes both ways. The way we engage in it speaks as much about how we think and who we are and want to be as it does about the circumstance, transaction, or product and service in... Read more →

Can Poetry Matter?

How could it not? Yesterday I met Dana Gioia, Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts. And indeed it was a joy to be sitting among the audience at the Wharton Leadership forum and letting his verse enchant me along with 300 people. If anyone can tell a story with a poem it is Gioia. The purpose of art is to bring people together, he said. Gioia sees the arts as an ecosystem that helps bring love into the conversation. If you follow the link above and read his biography, you will be impressed. He received a BA and... Read more →

Exhibit A: Dommert Phillips on Design of Story -- Part Deux

And now, we continue the conversation on design of story through exhibits. Valeria Maltoni: What organizations need to communicate information through display? Alice Dommert: All sorts of organizations from traditional museum, botanic gardens, historic houses and sites, archives and libraries, hospitals and schools, stores and businesses -– the possibilities for display usually imply the showing of something three-dimensional. Ad usually something of significant value…. But who is placing the value? What may be important to a museum curator may hold no meaning for the more typical person. Take the Rocky Balboa statue and its recent debate about it location at... Read more →