Blog Feed: Opinion@Large

Hi all, thanks to everyone who has kept up with my ramblings thus far. I’ve been working on a new ericfulwiler.com that will now include my blog as well as housing my online personal brand. I’ll switch over the RSS and start blogging from

When politicians become computer technicians

Published on 2011-03-23 05:55:12

The flaw in any political system is in the humanity of it. So shouldn’t we be working towards reducing and eventually removing this weakness? Yes, I’m talking about computers running our governments… This would ensure all decisions were rationa

We are living in the digital dark ages

Published on 2011-03-22 05:55:58

We are in the dark ages of digital crime. Spammers and identity thieves can wreak havoc on our communities because there is no system in place to hold them back or hold them accountable. Organizations that we depend on for protection in the real worl

How I know you can be stupid and make the NYTimes bestseller list

Published on 2011-03-21 05:55:22

I wasn’t even aware that this was a subject that needed to be explained, but after reading one prominent (NYT bestseller) book from an American economist, I was amazed at the complete neglect for a fundamental economic fact. There are ALWAYS two si

How long till politicians create their own scandals?

Published on 2011-03-18 05:55:39

� Attention has become an absolute value for online marketing: the more people talk, good or bad, the better it is for you (assuming you are building your brand in the digital world, not transferring an established brand from the traditional wor

How to increase creative flow

Published on 2011-03-16 05:55:57

Our deepest pools of creativity flow within our minds. And yet most of us see only a trickle enter into the real world. Seldom do we ask ourselves where or why a bottleneck occurs. Instead, we accept as fact that which occurs, leaving for the future

Why social sharing is becoming increasingly less important

Published on 2011-03-15 11:20:10

Remember how we used to share content before Twitter and Facebook? Before AOL and Yahoo? Before email and the internet? If you found something that you thought someone you know would like, you had to physically bring it to them. You had to cut the ar

Why social sharing is becoming increasingly less important

Published on 2011-03-15 11:20:10

Why bad business ideas are so important

Published on 2011-03-14 05:55:28

Artists throw out dozens of half-used canvases before they finish a painting, and scientists mix thousands of dud combinations before they find the right formula. Failure is just as important as success, and much more common, but more importantly bot

Why new media needs new tactics

Published on 2011-03-11 05:55:29

In the digital world, noise and volume don’t get our attention anymore. Loud and large don’t thrill us like they used. The sheer size and shininess of new technology used to be enough to keep us engaged, but the routine has become a little too pr

Why new media needs new tactics

Published on 2011-03-11 05:55:29

Why creative productivity is an oxymoron

Published on 2011-03-10 05:55:55

What we think in our minds we are so hesitant to commit to paper, not because we don’t have the capacity, but because we have a natural human fear of the boundary between the internal and the external. Psychology and sociology both provide analyzes

The Online Economics of Media Consumption (or: a ridiculously long explanation for why your content needs to be short)

Published on 2011-03-09 01:03:40

Note: this is a little more meaty than my regular posts, so feel free to skim or skip — you’ve been warned. It’s also only about 82% fully thought out, and probably significantly less accurate, so don’t hold back if you have something

How to take care of creativity so he will return the favor

Published on 2011-03-08 05:55:27

Creativity is a little person in our mind who only gets active when you feed him. He will eat anything that’s good: books, articles, movies, discussions…In fact, the more variety the better because he gets bored if he eats the same thing

Why writers need to grow a pair

Published on 2011-03-03 05:55:28

Good writing strikes a balance between color and substance. Everyone has a preference as to what that balance should be. And while we might not be able to define what constitutes an imbalance, we know it when we see it. But it’s hard, even impossib

Why writers need to grow a pair

Published on 2011-03-03 05:55:28

Why the web doesn’t shorten our attention span

Published on 2011-03-02 05:55:46

The argument of “we all have short attention spans on the web” is pretty ingrained in pop culture at this point (and I think I’ve probably mentioned it myself a few times). But the reality is, we have the same attention spans, at le

Why the web doesn’t shorten our attention span

Published on 2011-03-02 05:55:46

Why you can’t buy social media

Published on 2011-03-01 05:55:12

Social media offers the holy grail of marketing: if all your traditional and new marketing tactics align correctly, you could have everyone selling your product for you. Friends recommend it to friends, followed praise it for followers. But inherent

Why I love online ads (and you should too)

Published on 2011-02-28 05:55:49

I love online ads. I’d prefer the ones the ones that don’t pop-up or cover my screen, but I’ll take whatever I can get. I click on ads for things even when I’m just curious, not interested. I love online ads because I love the

Does your media brand captivate or hold captive?

Published on 2011-02-26 05:55:18

There are two ways media companies can get attention. Traditional media relies on a captive audience; one that is forced onto a distribution platform by lack of choice. Broadcast television, radio, newspapers/magazines, and even older new media compa

Why reach and influence isn’t enough for marketers

Published on 2011-02-25 13:50:43

Traditional and even modern marketing is always concerned with reach and influence. How many people will hear your message? How many people will take action because of it? But there is a new factor marketers have to consider as the mediums become so

How to move intellectual progress forward

Published on 2011-02-24 11:09:28

We are all afraid of wasting time. So much so that we end up wasting time thinking about how to make sure we aren’t wasting time. Many of the metaphors describe intellectual progress as traveling down a road. But intellectual progress isn’

Call me crazy…Seriously, please do

Published on 2011-02-23 05:55:12

I’m sick of reading/hearing phrases like “it was crazy, but it worked.” What about, “it was crazy, and it worked”? Or even, “it was crazy so it worked”? Nobody pays attention to normal anymore. The sheer volume of output that the bu

Why credentials limit creativity

Published on 2011-02-22 05:55:05

Unfamiliarity is the only source of true creativity. We approach the unknown with a sense of awe that is both raw and powerful. But each fact and realization we uncover extinguishes a flame from our creative candelabra. The more we understand, experi

I’d love your thoughts on this: “Social Transference in the Digital Space”

Published on 2011-02-20 22:59:39

Note: This is totally a half-baked idea. I started it with one idea in mind, ended up going in about 8 different directions, and still never really arrived anywhere. However, I am interested in this idea of how we convert our natural human impulses

How marketing will lose its bad rap

Published on 2011-02-19 05:55:02

Marketing has always gotten a bad rap. People think of cheesy sales techniques and fake smiles. But marketing is changing.Business will always be driven by profit because that’s what dictate as consumers. But the means to achieving that cost-re

When will YouTube come to politics?

Published on 2011-02-16 05:55:36

The digital era has completely restructured the music industry in many ways. Napster allowed people to share music (usually illegally) among themselves, iTunes repackaged the product that musicians could sell, and YouTube provided a platform for gras

Why rubbernecking is important for digital media

Published on 2011-02-15 05:55:18

I’m sure some amazing, enlightening sociological studies could be (have been?) done on rubbernecking. People will wait in hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic, only to slow down even further when they reach the cause of the traffic – the acciden

Why great customer service is all about enjoying other people’s vacation photos

Published on 2011-02-14 05:55:57

It’s funny how big of a disparity there is between how much people love showing their vacation photos and how much less you enjoying looking at them. We all like to see pictures and hear stories of our friends’ and family’s journeys

How to strike gold in the creative mind

Published on 2011-02-09 05:55:28

If creativity is gold, we are all on a rush. We all have veins of creative gold running through our minds, some of us are just better at mining it.The problem isn’t usually ability, but rather technique. We see the riches that others have colle

Who is the new used car salesman?

Published on 2011-02-08 05:55:31

“I’ve got this amazing deal for you. I promise this is the best car you can get for your money. I shouldn’t even be telling you about this. I’m losing money on this deal…” “I’m going to tell you the the truth: this is

مصر

Published on 2011-02-05 05:55:56

It’s so easy to talk about the glorious revolution when you are far away, either in place or time. But a revolution by definition is a drastic change — something for which humans are not well constructed, especially on the societal level. Wit

Why a big gut is necessary for business success

Published on 2011-02-04 05:55:27

What is it about human nature that relates complexity with potency? We all seem to have an inclination to believe the more complicated the answer, the better it is. In academia, everyone looks for a mathematical formula, and in business everyone look

Where Pepsi’s refresh project went rotten

Published on 2011-02-03 05:55:04

Brilliant idea: make a huge PR play for NOT buying $20 million dollars worth of American attention. But is that as far as the idea went? As the advertising world makes its annual pilgrimage to the Super Bowl, Pepsi is rolling out its PR machine again

Why free-lance is the new full-time

Published on 2011-02-02 05:55:49

We have all become accustomed to the redistribution of labor by technology in the traditional sense: there is a machine that can do your job, so we don’t need you anymore. To weirdly quote Henry Kissinger in an economics discussion, “displacement

Why you should never fight to preserve the status quo

Published on 2010-11-30 05:55:55

This post is dedicated to all those cable companies still trying to sell me a home phone line,…Or to FX who makes people wait 30 days (30!!!) to watch new episodes of certain shows on Hulu. The problem with fighting to preserve the status quo in a

Do advertisers think we are stupid?

Published on 2010-11-29 07:59:51

Apparently, I give people more credit than most big brands because I don’t actually think people are stupid. I see all these million dollar commercials from huge, global agencies trying to dress up a pickup truck into an “American dream”, or a

Why the box kills creativity

Published on 2010-11-10 05:55:32

The people who are best at thinking outside the box are those who have no idea what the box even looks like. The most effective creativity comes from ideas and thought processes that are unrelated to the actual problem it is trying to solve. Sometime

Why experience does not equal expertise

Published on 2010-11-09 05:55:33

We have been conditioned to believe that experience equals expertise. We naturally assume that a professional with 10 years of experience in an industry has roughly 10 times more expertise than someone just starting out. I’m guessing it developed a

Why brands should advertise on the Conan premiere

Published on 2010-11-08 05:55:49

Conan is back! I like Conan, I think he’s funny. But the marketer side of me sees an opportunity with this premiere. Conan is a very polarizing entertainer; people either love him or hate him. You can’t really be passive about a guy as weird and

Why social media is the ultimate customer feedback tool

Published on 2010-11-02 05:55:00

Before social media, customer feedback was an instrument that could be precisely controlled by businesses. Marketers and business owners could decide when, where and how consumers and customers voiced their opinions on a brand or product. Customer fe

Why you can’t force your influence to grow

Published on 2010-10-27 05:55:56

The more we want something, the more power it has over us. The more we want that product, the more we will pay for it. The more we want someone’s affection, the more we will do for it. It’s a fickle loophole in the human psyche that we al

Concerned about privacy? Facebook has nothing on online advertisers

Published on 2010-10-22 05:55:24

Whenever we hear the word “online privacy”, we immediately think of Facebook. They have certainly borne the brunt of the consumer push-back and backlash on privacy issues. And for the most part, the heat is deserved and legitimate. But it’s als

Online Marketing

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