Changing Tides Newsletter
The Unhoused need more than a house
July 2022It seems every candidate running for office in California is promising to end the unhoused crisis. In 2017, UC Irvine and the United Way of Orange County commissioned a significant study on the cost of people without...
A Memorial Weekend to Remember
A Memorial Weekend to RememberOriginally known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day originated in 1971 tracing its roots all the way back to the Civil War when Northerners and Southerners alike were looking for a way to publicly mourn their...
Why virtual meetings are a permanent reality!
Why virtual meetings are a permanent reality!Video conferencing has been around since 1964. But social distancing and quarantine rules driven by Covid 19 have accelerated its usage to become an everyday experience for many businesses,...
SEO is the way to go in 2021! – January 2021
SEO is the way to go in 2021!On March 11th 2020, a good client got word that their biggest show of the year was being canceled in Frankfurt. I knew immediately that this was going to be bad. Only a week later, Covid-19 restrictions...
SEO is the way to go in 2021!
On March 11th 2020, a good client got word that their biggest show of the year was being canceled in Frankfurt. I knew immediately that this was going to be bad. Only a week later, Covid-19 restrictions forced everyone to stay at home...
When you need help fast, just Wissle – December 2020
When you need help fast, just WissleWith unemployment up and police support down, there will be more to watch out for this year than just Santa. Higher crime is inevitable. One way to prepare for the possibility of unwanted intruders...
Before you say thanks, please consider this – November 2020
Before you say thanks, please consider thisThanksgiving is a national holiday devoted to gratitude for all we have. For many, 2020 will go down as the worst year ever due to loss of a loved one, friend, or a job, a career or business....
Making Sense of the 2020 Census Fiasco – October 2020
Making Sense of the 2020 Census FiascoIf you were contacted incessantly by the U.S. census to complete your census recently, you are not alone. This will be one of the most expensive and the most inaccurate census ever. Essentially,...
Why isn’t all voting done online today? – September 2020
Why isn't all voting done online today?For decades I complained that every time I visited a doctor, I would be required to complete my medical history, answering questions like, “When did you have your last smallpox shot?” Heck, how am...
Is working from home more productive – August 2020
Is working from home more productive?There are certainly a lot of articles these days that claim working from home is more productive. And many employees agree. After all, there are fewer interruptions and last-minute requests from...
A July 4th unlike any other in our nation’s history? – July 2020
A July 4th unlike any other in our nation's history?Last weekend was the most somber July 4th celebration in recent history. But not the first time America awoke on the 4th to a sea of change and uncertainty whereby traditional values...
Will June Gloom Turn to Bloom – June 2020
Will June Gloom Turn to Bloom?Since mid-March, it feels like we have been living under a solar eclipse. The sunshine of our lives stopped shining for two and a half months. Everything was weird. Everyone was affected. Some faced...
The Yin and Yang of Corona Shuffle – May 2020
The Yin and Yang of Corona ShuffleWhen I was young, I was grounded. More than once. But never for a month. This COVID-19 stay at home order is similar, except that everyone is grounded. Well, almost everyone. For those not directly...
COVID-19 Ushers in a New Reality – April 2020
COVID-19 Ushers in a New Reality2020 may go down in history as the year “live and in-person” became a threat – not a benefit. I certainly hope not, but everyone is rapidly adapting to social distancing and staying at home. As a result,...
Is it time to Switch to Plan V? – March 2020
Is it time to Switch to Plan V?Every day we hear more bad news about the rapidly spreading Corona Virus. While the potential health threat of COVID-19 is very real, the economic impact is immediate for those thousands of companies...
Unsafe at Different Speeds – February 2020
Unsafe at Different SpeedsWhen I was graduate student, a had a consulting job for a company that taught bus drivers how to operate accident free. My role was to conduct an initial cost/benefit financial analysis for cities and counties...
Amazon’s 2020 Recycling Solution – January 2020
Amazon’s 2020 Recycling SolutionWhen Jeff Bezos won Time Magazine’s Person of the Year Award in 1999, even Bezos himself had no idea how huge or profitable Amazon would become. Now that environmental activist Greta Thunberg has become...
Closing Stores Near You – Boo Who – November 2019
Closing Stores Near You – Boo WhoChange is inevitable, or so I have been told. So the closing of retail stores at an accelerated rate (over 12,000 store closings in 2019 as compared to 6,000 in 2008 at the hight of the great recession)...
Learn to overtake your competitor’s website – October 2019
This week over 10,000 B2B marketing professionals will be attending the at the Los Angeles Convention Center and some will be learning how to build and manage a champion website that outperforms their competitors in search, traffic and...
Death of a Salesman? – September 2019
For much of the twentieth century, professional salespeople played an integral role in B2B marketing. They did far more than answer questions about specs, price and delivery. They represented the company whose products they sold. They...
The Great Debate – August 2019
With television viewership on par with major sporting and entertainment events, political debates have become media attractions like we’ve never had before. At a time when many complain that the electoral college system is unfair,...
Enjoy the Festival of the Arts for Free – July 2019
Every summer, there are three art festivals located in Orange County's center of creativity, the city of Laguna Beach. We are offering you free admission and parking for up to four adults! For the month of July, be our guest at all...
Where to Invest your Marketing? Acquisition vs Retention – June 2019
It’s an age-old dilemma. While studies have shown that a 5% reduction in customer defection can increase profits by 25 – 95%, only 12% of marketing dollars are spent on customer retention and about 55% goes towards new...
Is Artificial Intelligence Dangerous? – May 2019
The grounding of Boeing 737 MAX airliners due to fatal crashes should be enough evidence to convince every airline and their pilots that relying solely on avionics without human override ability is just too dangerous. So, when Tesla...
Is Your Website like a Good Party? – April 2019
Although there are some who say that the website is dead, I assure you, it’s not true for our B2B clients who depend on daily website traffic and leads to fuel their sales efforts. In fact, it has never been stronger, thanks to...
Is Branding Dead? – March 2019
J. Walter Thompson is a legendary American advertising agency famous for many, many firsts. The ad agency idea of the 'Account Executive' and the 'Creative Department' were both born at JWT in the 1880's. But neither achievement is...
Its not what you attract, but what you catch that counts – February 2019
Attracting eyeballs has a cost, and it can be high. Which is why a lot of attention goes towards the creativity that's put into any advertising campaign. Successfully drawing attention, eyeballs and clicks is very important, but it's...
Happy New Year of the Pig! – January 2019
OK, it's officially past January 1. But if you are looking for some good news in the new year, this might make you smile. The pig is the designated 2019 zodiac animal to be celebrated during the Chinese New Year February 5. That’s...
Is last minute shopping a thing of the past? – December 2018
If you decided to skip the crowds on Black Friday, you are not alone. In-store retail traffic was down about 1.7% over 2017¹. Although Thanksgiving weekend spending was up about 4.5%². So overall, things are off to good holiday...
Are Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain for Real…or just a Scam? – November 2018
The whole idea of decentralizing our financial transactions sounds risky at best, even if it is possible. Money without banks? Most people don’t get it, don’t trust it and don’t want it. Most still don’t understand why we went off the...
Digital Goes Yo-Yo with an Analog Touch – October 2018
Over the past 20 years, the digital economy has transformed entire industries. Entertainment, retail, travel, and media sectors have been turned upside down. Digital brands such Airbnb, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix,...
Where do Outstanding Brands Come From? – September 2018
You know the ones. Those mega brands that create entire industries. Those brands that set the pace for dozens of wanna-be competitors. The ones they write textbooks about like Apple, Starbucks, Target, Charles Schwab, McDonald’s,...
Enjoy the Festival of the Arts for Free – August 2018
There are three art festivals located in Orange County’s center of creativity, the city of Laguna Beach. The sound of live musical performances and clinking glasses fill the air at the Festival of Arts which is a delightful...
“Never Trust a Stranger” is so Last Century – July 2018
Review marketing shifts the paradigm. Thanks to the world wide web, what used to be common sense, “never trust a stranger” has been totally overturned when it comes to shopping online. Today, a whopping 88% of consumers trust product...
Event Marketing Takes Center Stage – June 2018
While social media and digital marketing get the biggest buzz these days, we have discovered that client programs centered around an event get the best results. Event marketing tops the marketing agenda for the year by providing an...
Big Data or Small Database. Which is right for your company? – May 2018
Big Data is big business and while the term “big data” is relatively new, the act of gathering and storing large amounts of information for eventual analysis is ages old. The term gained momentum in the early 2000s. Its...
If Facebook Loses Face, Will Marketers Still Book It? – April 2018
The Cambridge Analytica breach of confidentiality that surfaced in March is more than a PR challenge for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, it has forced marketers to weigh their options – pull out or continue to leverage...
What’s Wrong With Digital Advertising? – March 2018
Dissatisfaction is the first step in making progress. I am hoping this message reaches our friends at Google so the progress can begin. Digital advertising has many benefits to both marketers and consumers with its ability to target...
What’s in a Title? And Why Does It Matter? – February 2018
Over the past two decades, the ability to reach a B2B target audiences by job title has become a lot more difficult. The steady erosion of B2B print magazine ads since 2000 took with it the source of the most current B2B databases....
The Power of Optimism – January 2018
With all that’s going on in the world today, it’s easy to be pessimistic. Thanks to global media, we become instantly aware of every natural disaster, military threat and wrong-doing as it happens. This news arrives so fast...