The Deal Is Off: What to Learn from the Fall of Groupon CEO Andrew Mason
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Andrew Mason’s unsurprising ouster from Groupon last week wasn’t entirely about his personal brand. As anyone who has been paying attention knows, the group-discount company has been performing spectacularly badly. Its fourth-quarter earnings report was awful, with a GAAP loss of 12 cents per share—that’s 10 cents more (or six times [...]
Trendspotting: Sew Cute
First came “babyccinos” and iPad apps for infants—now there are these, just some of the outrageously priced designer children’s items offered in the burgeoning market for stylish tots: a frothy little Lanvin dress that retails for $1,200, a fuchsia puffer jacket from Moncler priced at $380 and a pair of $132 True Religion cargo pants. [...]
Facebook for Kids
[Originally posted on Euro RSCG’s Social Life and Social Media blog.] This week, Facebook confirmed that it is developing parental control technology that will allow children under the age of 13 to use the site. My first question: What took it so long? Currently, those aged 13 and under are supposedly prohibited from creating a [...]
Five Things to Think About as Facebook Goes Public
[Originally posted on CNBC.com.] With the Facebook IPO looming and everybody watching, I’m wondering if the social network to end all social networks is going to live up to the hype. (Could anything live up to all this hype?) With big advertisers not convinced that Facebook is a good platform to propel brands forward and [...]
The Future Faces of Hate
[Originally posted on the Huffington Post.] Since 9/11 (and long before, actually), the world and our nation have been obsessed with a collective hatred of individuals who threaten our ways of life and promote hatred of it. But now that bin Laden, Hussein and Gadhafi are dead, who will be the object of our obscenity-laced [...]
On Brain Blur
[Originally posted on the Huffington Post.] Everybody’s talking about the inevitable social media fatigue setting in, but I myself am having a wicked case of brain blur. At any given time, my head is filled with ways to solve problems that often have no answer, as in trying to make sense of how to communicate [...]
Grabbing the Bull by the…Balls
Originally posted on the Holmes Report. We’ve watched protests around the world all year, but where were the 24/7 television cameras when a little sit-in began in my neighborhood, right at the site of what many in the U.S. identify as the biggest petri dish of injustice? Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallSt) began two weeks ago [...]
Moved to Action
Originally posted on the Huffington Post. In my travels around the world, I’ve (over)heard a lot of ways for people to say they’ve reached a point of no return with their frustration, feeling so full of stress that they’re stirred from passive acceptance to action. Some cultures say it’s “the drop that makes the jar [...]
Separated at Worth
This is the eighth in a series of 12 posts expounding on the 2011 forecasts in the annual trends report from Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR and an internationally respected trendspotter. What is anything, or anyone, worth today? It’s clearly a question for which the old “lies, damned lies and statistics” quote could [...]
Local is the New Global
A few weeks ago, The Independent published an interview with me under the headline “Local Will Be the New Global.” I told their reporter that I read several print newspapers on my morning commute, including my hometown paper, the Stamford Advocate. I read it partly for the restaurant reviews and advertising, things “I’m never going to find [...]
