Author Archive
Next time you drive past a soybean farm, look closely. You may be staring at the center of a data privacy controversy. One that carries an important PR lesson for all of us. Farmland owners who don’t wish to farm often lease their land to people who do want to farm. It’s an arena into which, inevitably, the gig […]
Originally posted February 18, 2016 Four years later, and privacy is still a battleground. A fact of digital life is that the harder we work to keep data secure, the harder bad guys will work to break in. But what happens when government wants to break in? The FBI has been trying to break into […]
The digital payments business didn’t start in the late 19th century. But that’s when events were set in motion that would eventually bring us to last week’s press release from Fiserv, which happens to be where I’m employed. More on the press release in a moment. In 1884, coal merchant John Henry Patterson bought the company that […]
Originally posted Feb 12, 2013. Facebook had just acquired Instagram—and PR mayhem had ensued. I suggested five takeaways from the experience. Seven years have passed, and Facebook is still tripping on its untied PR shoelaces. I guess Zuckerberg doesn’t read my blog. Especially as regards Lesson 5 below. * * * You know the tale: Facebook acquired […]
Crazy humans. Seems like we’re never satisfied. If you don’t believe me, ask Abraham Maslow. According to his Hierarchy of Needs, which hardly needs introduction, as soon as we satisfy basic needs like air, water, and food, we up our expectations to things like security, revenue, health, and possessions. From there we seek friendship and belonging. […]