Tesar-Reynes

In the office we have watched a business attitude shift in the last three years that is pretty amazing:

2008 – This is really worse than anyone said. I am going to have to let some people go and weather the storm. I have been through this before and it will be gone by next year.

2009 – Oh my God! I wonder if I can stay in business. Nobody wants to buy anything; if they do they want a discount and are paying late. No one makes a decision anymore. Cut pay and cut more people.

2010 – The worst may be over, but I am not spending any money. If I get any new business I will make do with the stuff I have. No commitments until we have some more money in the bank.

As of the 2nd …

A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to sit down and share a couple of beers with a real story teller. He was the kind that keeps me wide awake and ready to order him another round.

He was talking about his old boss and said, “He looked like Gregory Peck after the whale had pulled him under a few times.” Later he talked about a supplier who reminded him of “that gnome in the Middle Earth who was trying to steal the ring.”

People who make me use my imagination and memory really communicate with me because I am forced to do some of the work. I am truly interacting with the speaker. Unless I am forced to contribute, sometimes I can just sit there like wallpaper, which …

With 2010 around the corner, I thought it was a good time to draft resolutions for the New Year. Judging by how I did in 2009, more due diligence will have to be played on my part. Of the 10 resolutions I set in December of 2008, less than half of them were accomplished.

I took a beach vacation to Santa Barbara (which is gorgeous by the way), figured out Twitter, and built a network on LinkedIn. I did a halfway decent job of keeping a work schedule and working out at the gym. But I failed …

We are still in a period where there is an amazing amount of transition. The market is changing as is the consumer. Clients large and small are continuing to test what works and what doesn’t. They thirst for insight.

As this trail continues, once-trusted suppliers fall by the wayside if they do not contribute to the understanding of the future. This means that agencies have to be truly committed to helping their clients through this tough period. It is one of the few times in a client-agency relationship where firms a have a chance to stand out to the client’s corner office and really make a difference.

In some regards, this is not a new investment or a new initiative, but rather a re-commitment to reading the signs that are out there everyday. The winner is the resource that observes, assimilates …

Last week, my partner Bob and I flew into New York to meet face-to-face with a company that had really impressed us. We wanted introduce them to some of our clients and were driven to their headquarters to see a multi-media presentation on their capabilities.

Here we were in their headquarters and the presentation got wonky and did not execute. Instead of ordering in the techs or crying “poor me,” the presenter had an alternative backup presentation on a thumb drive that he plugged in and it went without a hitch.

Yesterday I was in another presentation where the presenter came over the day before and ran it through on his PC. The next day, the PC conked out and he had a backup on a thumb drive. He tried …

My sort of go-to Bible on social media is David Meerman’s Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR. A New York Times best seller, David outlines simple steps a marketer can take if budget is an obstacle. Thanks to the Web and social media, creating buzz around a product stays within the realm of possibility.

One of the chapters involves writing online news releases. David’s thinking is, “Why take the time to pitch the media when you can write a news release that goes straight to the public instead?”

The media will generate good publicity, provided a PR person can make it through the 1,000 pitches a journalist gets daily. That’s a big if. Or, marketers can …

I have an entrepreneurial spirit. Often, I daydream of starting my own business and making Business Week’s list of America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs. The young men and women who populate this year’s finalists look like rock stars to me. One of them, Shama Kabani, caught my attention because she made her mark by starting a business specializing in exactly what I do – Social Media Marketing.

This girl is 24 years old and she already owns a company that expects revenues of $280,000 in only its second year of operation. Her business, …

Hands down, the Economist is my favorite publication. Simply put, it keeps me informed. The writers don’t try and sway my opinion with guilt or emotion. They use only logic and sound reasoning, with a dash of British wit. I love British humor, so it’s right up my alley.

The video above was produced by the weekly news source in partnership with Xplane, an information design consultancy. I found the video on AdMaven, an interactive advertising blog from fellow Chicagoan and blogger Nick Kinports. For those who complain that the Economist is for pretentious educated people, the video shows they can dumb it down effectively.

As the video highlights, the model for information and entertainment …

Last Winter I bristled at the thought that the naysayers would gain any ground in the fight to prevent Chicago from hosting the 2016 Olympics. Chicago is a great sports town. How could anyone be against bringing the Olympic games to the home of Michael Jordan, two professional baseball teams, and one of the NFL’s first franchises?

But a Tribune poll earlier this month has shown a significant sway in public opinion. While 61 percent of Chicagoans favored the Olympics last February, now only 47 percent support the Summer Games. That number should have gone up, not down. Chicago 2016 has a PR problem if I ever saw one.

Just weeks before the IOC makes their official decision, Chicago 2016 is launching a last-ditch …

John Kopchinski gets much respect from me for sticking to his ethics. A former sales representative for Pfizer, Kopchinski was given the ax several years ago after he filed a whistleblower lawsuit exposing the drugmaker’s shady marketing for the pain drug Bextra.

Bextra increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Unhappy with sales tactics, Kopchinski filed a “qui tam” lawsuit, leading to federal investigation and eventual felony charges against the pharmaceutical company. Pfizer didn’t pull the drug from shelves until two years after Kopchinski’s filing and subsequent firing.

At the time of filing, Kopchinski had a baby boy and his wife was pregnant with two kids. He went from making $125,000 a year to $40,000. He depleted his 401k just to make ends …