Have you ever had a flash of insight in the shower, when you’re brushing your teeth, or even just before you fall asleep? If you want to know more about this serendipity, then you should learn about “strategic intuition.”

The heart of strategic intuition mostly has to do with your mind combining existing ideas in new ways to solve a problem that you might be facing.

At a recent conference, I caught up with Columbia Business School professor William Duggan to talk about his new book, Strategic Intuition. The book recently received a very favorable review in The Wall Street Journal.

In this podcast, Professor Duggan offers advice to anybody who is trying to improve any process or trying to do anything creative. Check it out …

Great Artists Steal! – a podcast with Professor William Duggan

About Professor Duggan

William Duggan is the author of three recent books on strategic intuition as the key to innovation: Napoleon’s Glance: The Secret of Strategy (2002); The Art of What Works: How Success Really Happens (2003); and Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement (forthcoming, 2007). He also has authored three previous books.

Duggan has 20 years’ experience as a strategy adviser and consultant. He teaches strategic intuition in three venues at Columbia Business School: MBA courses, Executive MBA courses and Executive Education sessions. He also sometimes teaches the core MBA course Strategy Formulation.

Is pay per click losing momentum? Is growth in the channel waning? In a recent blog post, Steve Rubel wrote “I am calling a top to this market now. There are five reasons why a pay-per-click advertising recession looms!”

To further explore pay per click’s future, we turned to Steve and to Alan Rimm-Kaufman. Alan leads the Rimm-Kaufman Group, a direct marketing services and consulting firm, and he’s a fan of pay per click. Steve, senior vice president in Edelman’s me2revolution practice, has his doubts.

We dove into such questions as:

• Are people numbing to pay per click ads as they have to banner ads?
• Is the pay per click channel maturing, and what does that mean?
• Is pay per click more, or less, trustworthy than public relations?
• Can combining channels help drive your pay per click results?

Enjoy …

Pay Per Click: Boom or Bust?

Now, kind listeners, it’s your turn. Please let us know whether you’re thumbs up or thumbs down on pay per click by leaving a comment on this blog! Or, toss out another topic you’d like us to explore. And thank you for listening.

About Alan

Alan Rimm-Kaufman leads the Rimm-Kaufman Group, a direct marketing services and consulting firm founded in 2003. He is a regular speaker at industry events, including Jupiter Media’s Search Engine Strategies; the DMA’s Annual, Catalog, Net.Marketing, and NCDM shows; NRF’s Shop.org; eTail; NEMOA; and DMD NY conferences.

Rimm-Kaufman writes the internet retailing column for Catalog Success. He co-wrote the online marketing chapter of Katie Muldoon’s The Catalog Strategist’s Toolkit. He has been quoted on internet marketing in DM News, Internet Retailer, Catalog Age, Direct, Business Week, and The New York Times. He serves as a contributing reviewer for online marketing for the academic journal Management Science. He has also taught for Marketing Profs.

Also check out Rimm-Kaufman blogs.

About Steve

Steve Rubel is a senior marketing strategist with over 15 years experience. He currently serves as senior vice president in Edelman’s me2revolution practice. Edelman is the largest independent global PR firm.

Steve is charged with helping Edelman identify, test, incubate and champion new forms of communication. He also explores this on his well-read Micro Persuasion weblog and in a bi-weekly column for AdAge Digital.

Steve is often sought out as a speaker and appears frequently in the press. He has been named to several prestigious lists, including: Media Magazine’s Media 100, the AlwaysOn/Technorati Open Media 100 and the CNET News.com Blog 100. Prior to joining Edelman in 2006, Rubel spent five years at CooperKatz & Company.

Also don’t forget to check out Steve Rubel’s Blog.

In a recent blog post, Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer at Cymfony, wrote about a study that provocatively proclaims “Spending on Conversational Marketing will Outpace Traditional Marketing by 2012”. To find out if that’s even possible, I got together with Jim and Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president at Nielsen Online Strategic Services. Like Jim, Pete is wary of the “conversation” hubbub.

What ensued was a very lively debate about whether marketers are prepared to support conversational marketing, and the answer isn’t very pretty. As Jim and Pete point out, not only are marketers not using Web 2.0 tools to create a conversation. To even listen effectively, they need to overhaul their infrastructures, big time.

We invite you to listen to the debate and then tell us what you think by leaving a comment on this blog. Enjoy …

Conversational Marketing: Irrational Exuberance or Next Big Thing?

About Jim

Jim Nail has an extensive background in integrated marketing through his 22-year career that spans online marketing, market research, brand advertising and direct marketing. Jim was an analyst at Forrester for eight years, focusing on how marketing strategies and tactics must adapt to technology-driven changes in consumer media consumption habits. Prior to joining Forrester, he helped launch Web advertising network AdSmart, where he served as director of marketing. He spent 15 years planning and managing integrated marketing campaigns at leading advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather Direct, Draft Worldwide, Bates USA and Hill Holliday.

About Pete

Pete Blackshaw, whose professional background encompasses politics, interactive marketing, and brand management, is Executive Vice President of Strategic Services for Nielsen Online, a new entity combining Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a firm Pete helped co-found, and Nielsen NetRatings. Pete’s primary focus revolves around how to help brands interpret, manage, act upon consumer-generated media (CGM). A former interactive marketing leader at P&G and founder of consumer feedback portal PlanetFeedback.com, Pete co-founded the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). He is a frequent speaker at interactive marketing industry events, serves as Ad-Tech advisory board member, authors a regular marketing column with ClickZ, and authors several blogs including ConsumerGeneratedMedia.com (www.consumergeneratedmedia.com). He is author of an upcoming book by Random House entitled “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World.”

Also, another good reference point on the ugly side of this debate can be found here.

Eduardo Conrado and I met up at the MarketingProfs conference at the beginning of October. I really liked his approach to using thought leadership in the positioning of the Enterprise Division of Motorola.

As global marketing VP, Eduardo controls the marketing for all of Motorola’s enterprise B2B products worldwide. So naturally I wanted to better understand his approach to thought leadership, as well as how he defines success. I also wanted to learn which Web 2.0 tactics are working for his teams around the globe. Enjoy …

Using thought leadership to position Motorola, a podcast with Eduardo Conrado

About Eduardo

Eduardo Conrado is vice president of Global Business and Technology Marketing & Communications for Motorola, Inc. His role encompasses three of Motorola’s four primary businesses with revenues of over $17 billion: Home & Networks Mobility, Government & Public Safety, and Enterprise Mobility.

Reporting to Motorola’s chief marketing officer, Eduardo is responsible for driving a worldwide team that focuses on Motorola’s vital B2B marketing strategy – from overall branding, to product and regional/channel marketing, to interactive and direct marketing. He also leads both internal and external communications, including employee communications, public relations and industry analyst relations.

Is microblogging the latest fad or the next big thing? Microblogging is just like regular blogging, except it’s limited to 140 characters. The leader in the space is Twitter.

According to a recent blog post by Peter Kim, Twitter is now used regularly by 6% of American online adults. That sounds about right to me, although Twitter power user Robert Scoble thinks the figure is “way too high.” But if you want to reach an affluent, well-educated, early adopter audience, there might not be a better communication channel out there.

To get a better sense of this emerging social media tool, we assembled a micro-panel to discuss it: Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst on Social Computing at Forrester Research and a fan of Twitter, and David Berkowitz, director of Emerging Media at 360i, who is skeptical about Twitter’s application to business. We hope you enjoy the lively debate!

Twitter: Valuable Tool, or Waste of Time?

Listen learn and weigh in – Let us know which side you are on by leaving a comment on this blog. Or, feel free to comment on a topic you would like us to explore further.

Coming up will be another Prof-cast, “Pay per Click: Boom or Bust??” It features Alan Rimm-Kaufman, who leads the Rimm-Kaufman Group and is a fan of Pay per Click, and Steve Rubel, senior vice president at Edelman, who is skeptical about the future of Pay per Click.

So don’t miss it …

Through a classic Google search on her name, Stephanie Fierman found some unwelcome entries. The experience led Stephanie to wage a one-woman crusade to alert marketers and non marketers about how to practice personal brand defense. You can read her full story here.

I had a chance to interview Stephanie about her experience in practicing personal brand defense…

Interview with Stephanie Fierman, on practicing Brand Self Defense

About Stephanie Fierman

Stephanie Fierman is a marketing executive for the digital age. Known for building both profitability and brand equity for companies in all stages of growth and across different business sectors, Ms. Fierman has contributed to the success of both Internet start-ups as well as Fortune 50 companies including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Time Warner. She graduated as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Fierman volunteers much of her personal time and talent to several arts and education organizations in New York City. For more information, go to www.stephaniefierman.com.

In the new world of work, your reputation is the only accepted currency. Whether you’re looking to move up the corporate ladder at your current organization, find a position at another company, make a major career change, or start your own enterprise, you’ll no longer be hunting for your next position. Instead, opportunities will come to you. Colleagues, hiring managers, clients, and recruiters will use Google and their social and professional networks to find out about you and reach you.

To thrive in this new environment, you need to identify your personal assets and clearly communicate your unique value promise. That’s why I jumped at the chance to speak with William Arruda, co-author of the book Career Distinction, at the MarketingProfs conference in Chicago, where he gave a keynote speech. I hope you enjoy …

Career Distinction, a podcast with author William Arruda

About William

William Arruda is an executive coach, public speaker and author. He combines his 20 years’ corporate branding experience, passion for human potential, and avid pursuit of innovation to help professionals stand out and expand their success. He is the founder of Reach, the global leader in personal branding, and co-founder of the Reach Branding Club. JPMorgan, Disney, Adobe, Microsoft, Warner Bros, British Telecom, Electronic Arts and Starwood Hotels are just a few of the corporate clients for whom he’s delivered presentations and workshops on the transformative power of personal branding. William has appeared on BBC TV, the Discovery Channel, and Radio America. A sought-after spokesperson on career advancement, he has written for and contributed to the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Time magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and many other publications throughout the world. He holds a master’s degree in education.

As author Chip Heath told the audience at the Marketing Profs conference in Chicago this week, “In a market where it is difficult to be heard – only the sticky messages will break through.”

One of the reasons for this is that “common sense” is not sticky enough for people to remember. They assume what they’re hearing or reading is what they get from everyone else, so they flush it from their mind. A good example would be corporate boilerplate or a mission statement. These never seem to have enough bite to really make them stick – hence you need to move from common sense to uncommon sense!

After hearing Chip deliver the conference keynote speech, I decided to ask him a few questions of my own to further illuminate the challenges facing the B2B technology marketer. I hope you enjoy …

Made to Stick, a podcast with author Chip Heath

About the Authors

Brothers Chip Heath and Dan Heath are the co-authors of the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, which has been a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller.

The Heath brothers write a monthly column called “Made To Stick” for Fast Company magazine. They have spoken and consulted on the topic of “making ideas stick” with audiences from organizations such as Microsoft, Nissan, Fannie Mae and West Point.

David Meerman Scott is the publisher of the blog webinknow and a three-time author. His latest book is The New Rules of Marketing and PR, published this year by Wiley.

David’s new book covers a lot of ground for marketers who are new to social media tools like blogs, podcasts, etc. It also has lots of ideas for folks who may be more advanced in social media. Personally, I found myself intrigued with the new uses of PR in the marketing mix and wanted to explore that further with David.

Be warned. What he says may shock you …

New Rules of Marketing and PR a podcast with David Meerman Scott

About David

David Meerman Scott is an online thought leader and viral marketing strategist and the author of the number one best selling PR and marketing book The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers directly. The programs he has developed have won numerous awards and are responsible for selling over one billion dollars in products and services worldwide. He has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong and has presented at industry conferences and events in more than 20 countries on four continents. Check out his blog at www.WebInkNow.com.

Publishing InformationWeek or any major publication has to be a daunting task. But as more and more companies begin to think of themselves as publishers, you should be watching what the major publishers are doing with new media.

That’s why I assembled a team I call the InformationWeek “Power Trio,” who could help me (and you) understand the challenges new media poses and how to get the most out of it…

A podcast with the InformationWeek Power Trio discussing New Media

Who is the InformationWeek “Power Trio”?

Bob Evans is senior vice president and editorial director for CMP’s Business Technology Group, which includes InformationWeek, TechWeb, Interop, Web 2.0 Expo, Black Hat, and other online and face-to-face products. He is responsible for content strategy and execution across the group’s event, online, and print platforms. Evans was editor-in-chief of InformationWeek until 2005. During his tenure, InformationWeek became the undisputed leader in the business-technology field in revenue, readership, circulation, market share, and market authority. He is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University and is a frequent speaker at industry events and on college campuses.

Stephen Wellman is editorial director of E-mail Newsletters for the TechWeb Network of CMP Technology. In addition, he serves as editor of Over The Air, InformationWeek’s blog dedicated to business mobility and wireless technology. Wellman also serves as editor-in-chief for Grok on Google, the only email newsletter that chronicles the Web’s leading agent of change. He is a well-known journalist, industry analyst, and editor with extensive experience in email newsletters and other forms of online content.

Tom Smith is editor in chief of the TechWeb Network. He oversees content strategy and traffic-driving initiatives for broad IT sites including InformationWeek.com and Networkcomputing.com, as well as more topically focused sites including Intelligent Enterprise and Dark Reading. Under his leadership, key sites in the network have posted double digit traffic growth for several years running, and the network’s blogging strategy has expanded dramatically. He has launched numerous new products in the network and has a particular interest in the ways online publishing affords a more interactive relationship with readers. He previously worked for a number of weekly and daily newspapers inside and outside the technology industry.