Folks sometimes ask where I’m going to be speaking next. Here’s a quick list: In meatspace (live and in person, for non-geeks) How I’ve managed to only get speaking gigs in Seattle this year, I’ll never know. Don’t think I’m a travelphobe—I’m sure I’ll go to a few out of town gigs, too. SocialTech 2012: [...]

10 ways NOT to break up with a client
Breaking up is hard to do. But, as Portent’s President says, people remember how you enter, and how you leave. So ending a business relationship on as positive a note as possible is important. Even if the company in question never hires you back, employees change jobs, and you want them to think well of [...]
SEMPO Board, 2012
Thank you to everyone who voted for me in the SEMPO board election. I’m on the board, and very excited! Congratulations to all my fellow board members – I’m looking forward to working with you: Lindsay Blankenship, Director, Search Marketing, Razorfish Chris Boggs, Director Search Media and Thought Leadership, Rosetta Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, [...]
Justifying Enterprise SEO, and The Perfect Crawler
I’ve been unfaithful. I wrote two articles for other sites over the weekend: The Challenge of Justifying Enterprise SEO on Search Engine Land. I talk a bit about analytics and data presentation, and how to get your boss to stop looking at you like you’re a nasty toenail fungus. And Building the perfect SEO Crawler [...]
Portent Webinar 1: Resources
We’re starting the first Portent webinar in 50 minutes! In the mean time, here are links to resources I’ll be discussing: A link bundle with all of the goodies I mention: http://portent.co/web1bundle The slides, on Slideshare: http://portent.co/yAaPa5 If you want to view the recording later on, you’ll need to register. Link coming shortly.
5 signs you should shut up
I’ve had a hard time blogging of late. I feel a little hopeless. Like I’m yelling at the top of my lungs and pointing and saying DON’T WALK INTO THE BURNING HOUSE, but there are 10,000,000 other people writing all forms of idiocy. Luckily, I know lots of folks are still scraping my blog and [...]
Great marketing, small marketing: How it all fits
I did a presentation today at Emerging Media Conference: How marketing can change the world. I’ve distilled it down to the essential bits here. It’s not the best organized ever, but it covers the essentials. Give it a read: Streeeetchhh First, a quick mental stretching exercise: “Marketing” is not “Selling stuff”. “Marketing” is: Communications created [...]
SOPA, and content thieves: They both suck
Watching the argument over online piracy unfold in the US is like watching chimpanzees drive a car. They fight over direction but they don’t give a crap if they take the rest of us off a goddamned cliff with them. Here’s my problem with both sides in this Greek tragedy: SOPA = stupid If it [...]
A View From New York City’s SOPA/PIPA Protest
January 18th was a big day in the fight against Internet censorship legislation. As you may have noticed, major websites like Wikipedia and Reddit took their content offline to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). These two pieces of legislation would make dramatic changes to the Internet, [...]

Use freewriting to pump your verbal muscles
Writing isn’t a talent—it’s a skill. You can get better at it through practice. If you want awesome verbal pectoral muscles: If you want to get better, you could write a novel, or a textbook. But there’s a much easier way: Freewriting Freewriting is like a verbal sprint. You write a lot, really fast, and [...]

