Tag: Marketing Truth

Before Undo. Before AI. We Just Had Redo.

Written on February 23, 2026. Posted in Business Leadership, Career, Hands In The Soil Marketing Leadership, Personal Thoughts.

How undo took the permanence out and put the pressure on Forty years ago I was a bleached-headed skater kid in Northern California, which at the time felt like the center of something even if no one would have admitted that out loud, because...

Authentic Growth, Hands in The Soil, Marketing Truth, Personal story, Thought Leadership

The Human Cost of “Correct” Answers

Written on February 16, 2026. Posted in Brand Marketing, Career, Future Marketing, Hands In The Soil Marketing Leadership, Personal Thoughts.

Early in my career, I became obsessed with unlocking the secrets of our industry’s pioneers — not because I wanted the tactics or the shortcuts or the tidy frameworks you can laminate and sell back to management teams that secretly hopes...

Career Stories, Hands in The Soil, Marketing Truth, Thought Leadership

AI: Some Kind of Wonderful… or Just Static on a Monitor.

Written on February 16, 2026. Posted in Business Leadership, Career, Operational Leadership, Personal Thoughts.

There’s a quiet question a lot of us Gen Xers are asking right now. We built the digital world. Wired it together when nothing worked right, survived the crashes, rebuilt again, and again and again. We weren’t born into tech—we were excitedly...

Authentic Growth, Career Stories, Marketing Truth, Thought Leadership

Trends Are Curios by Nature, AI Makes Them Programmatic by Design…

Written on February 4, 2026. Posted in Brand Marketing, Personal Thoughts, Sales and Marketing.

The Trend: “Hey AI, create a caricature of me and my job based on everything you know about me!” At the surface, this trend looks playful.A fun way to see yourself as a character. A moment of novelty before the next scroll. But...

Authentic Growth, Brand Building, Brand Stategy, Marketing Truth, Viral Marketing

Old White Men Can’t Jump… But They Sure Can Smash It at the Kitchen Line?

Written on February 4, 2026. Posted in Brand Marketing, Business Leadership, Hands In The Soil Marketing Leadership, Lifestyle Business.

I started playing pickleball during cancer recovery. Docs and friends called it “low-impact”—perfect for seniors in care facilities, they said. Come on, how hard could it be? I grew up skateboarding, skiing, snowboarding, and—like every other 80s...

Brand Stategy, Hands in The Soil, Marketing Leadership, Marketing Truth, Personal story

The Best Worst Job I Ever Had — And That’s Saying a Lot

Written on October 22, 2025. Posted in Business Leadership, Personal Thoughts.

Norman Building & Design. A job I took after a divorce and the closing of Cascade Hop Farm. When the phone rang, it was the new CEO, a man I genuinely liked from an earlier interview and considered a professional friend. I didn’t know it...

Authentic Growth, Career Stories, Marketing Truth, Personal story, Thought Leadership

From Red Dots to Tellurides: The Case for Selling Authentic Products Over Product Hype

Written on October 17, 2025. Posted in Brand Marketing, Business Leadership, Hands In The Soil Marketing Leadership, Sales and Marketing.

In brand marketing, there’s one truth that never changes: you can’t sell fake quality. You can try — for a while. You can dress it up with slick messaging, influencer hype, or cinematic ad spots. But sooner or later, the consumer will find the...

Authentic Growth, Brand Building, Brand Stategy, Hands in The Soil, Marketing Leadership, Marketing Truth, Viral Marketing

Is Staccato Becoming the BlackBerry of the 2011 World?

Written on October 17, 2025. Posted in Brand Marketing, Sales and Marketing.

When a brand becomes “standard equipment,” it’s one step from irrelevant. Why Staccato — and every brand that stops pushing — risks loosing out. If your brand is known as the yardstick of the industry, congratulations — you’ve already stopped...

Authentic Growth, Brand Building, Brand Stategy, Marketing Leadership, Marketing Truth

Your Viral Marketing Is Fire Today — But It Might Burn Your Brand Tomorrow

Written on October 14, 2025. Posted in Brand Marketing, Sales and Marketing.

We’ve all seen it. A brand drops a post, a collab, a “moment”—and the internet explodes. Numbers spike, comments flood, and the team high-fives because, for one glorious day, the campaign is fire. But have we learned what happens when the flames...

Authentic Growth, Brand Building, Brand Stategy, Hands in The Soil, Marketing Leadership, Marketing Truth, Viral Marketing