Reading List for the Dog Days of August- Mark Cuban Edition

I've just returned from vacation and I'm catching up on some reading. Here are a few articles that have caught my eye...

Which USA do you work in?, by Mark Cuban
Mark says there is are two Americas: one is having the intelligence sucked out it (brick and mortar) and one is is desperate for intelligence (cloud). His advice? Learn to code.

5 Ways To Learn Code From The Comfort Of Your Own Browser, by Klint Finley, TechCrunch
Taking Marc's advice? Start here...

Amazon Web Services
And here...

Freelancer.com
And here...

Henry Rollins’ 3 Rules For Success As An Artist/Entrepreneur by Jason Gots, Big Think Blog
Still a big fan of Henry...I think I first heard a Black Flag song in 1985.

Groupon Visits the Bargain Basement, Marketing Pilgrim
Whoever said that Groupon/Livingsocial, etc were social media companies was seriously smoking something.

10 B2B Companies That Create Exceptional Content, by Meghan Keaney Anderson, Hubspot
Hubspot writes up some great, informational posts on marketing. Truly succeeding by drinking the content marketing kool-aid.

Copyspace
Ever wonder if someone is plagiarizing your website, or someone else's, this is the site for you.

MarketingBuzz: 5 steps for building a content marketing strategy, by Irving Frydman, ChannelBuzz.ca
Nice, quick highlights...

Content Marketing Checklist: 13 Things You Must Do Before You Publish Content, by Heidi Cohen, Business 2 Community
Another good take on how to set up and run a content marketing program.

The Marketer's Simple Guide to Creating Infographics in PowerPoint, by Anum Hussain, Hubspot
Hubspot scores again...and with a handy template.

Reading List- July

Here are some of the better articles so far in July...

How to Build and Operate a Content Marketing Machine by Toby Murdoch
A really good, easy to understand overview of the all the parts of a content marketing operation.

52 Incredibly Useful Sites: the Full List by Robert Strohmeyer, CIO Magazine

3 Tips to Integrate Social, Email Successfully by Karen J. Bannan, B2B Magazine

1. Publish your email newsletter to social accounts
2. Boost the chance that social and email content will rank high in organic searches
3. Make emails easier to share

The Forest of Rhetoric by Dr. Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University

An Interview with ITIL Girl by the LANDesk Software Blog
A blog post I helped pull together for a client.

What's the Point of Paid Media in Post- Advertising by John Thomas, Post Advertising

10 Things You Should Tweet by Jon Gelberg, Inc.

Read anything interesting lately? Send me the link at jeff@honeycomb-consulting.com

Reading List- June 20

Here are some of the better articles and posts I've read in the past few days...

What the Rise of Content Marketing Means for Your Business by Chris Horton, Social Media Today

5 Essentials for Marketing In An Upswing (Hopefully) Economy by Terry Welty, DemandGen report

Those five basic premises of essential marketing outlined in my original article not only still apply today, but I believe they are even more important guidelines than ever. For marketing professionals trying to steer their company forward in a hesitant, but upward slanting business climate, there’s no better marketing advice I can give than to stick to the following tried-and-true, “go-back-to-basics” approach:
1. Know your company’s real value
2. Know your customer
3. Keep your salespeople well informed, well educated, and well armed
4. Stay consistently visible
5. Keep it simple

The Marketers Reading List by Jay Ehret, The Marketing Blog (This is a great list- read all of these!)

Seven Mobile Marketing Best-Practices by Igor Faletski, Marketing Profs

1. Simple beats pretty
2. Be brief
3. Mobile is highly local
4. Mobile search is focused and timely
5. Make it easy to share the love
6. Mobile searchers make mistakes
7. Optimize your UX for mobile

Read anything interesting lately? Send me the link at jeff@honeycomb-consulting.com

Reading List - June 7

Here are the articles and posts I've been reading...quite a hodgepodge. Read anything interesting lately? Send me the link at jeff@honeycomb-consulting.com

B-to-g marketers leverage social media to build relationships with federal employees - Direct Marketing News


The 5 Pillars of Social Media Strategy by Brian Solis, on the Networking Exchange Blog

Top 50 #Mobile Twitter Influencers by Jen Cohen on SAP's mobile blog

The 8 Keys to Successful Branding - Why 'Mad Men' and Whisky Are Not Going To Cut It by Matt Symonds, Forbes


Why the surge in obesity? - Consider the Evidence

Summary- the obesity epidemic started in 1980. The only variable changed around the same time is Calories in the Food Supply. Everything else that can plausibly explain the nation's weight gain- levels of exercise, hours spent TV watching, sedentary jobs, daily commutes in cars- aren't correlated with the change in adult obesity rates around 1980. Basically, everyone in America started eating more, a lot more, around 1980.

St. Bernanke's Fight Against the Deflation Dragon By Lance Roberts of Streettalk Live

Excuse me for geeking out on the economics front for a moment, but this is an excellent article on, what I think is a very much overlooked part of our troubles, the collapse of the velocity of money, which has happened despite the huge increase in the supply of money. Something for all you tea partiers to chew on...

Plus, for all you 99%-ers, check out this chart:

Kind of hard to blame rising inequality on recent events, when this is a trend that started in the late 1970's. Which is also when people started eating too much and getting fat. Coincidence? Correlation?

Why working-class people vote conservative - Jonathan Haidt, The Guardian

And check out the middle finger on the gentleman's book cover. LOL

All Men Can’t Jump - David Stipp, Slate

Quote:

There's no denying it—our kind started substituting brains for brawn long ago, and it shows: We can't begin to compete with animals when it comes to the raw ingredients of athletic prowess. Yet being the absurdly self-enthralled species we are, we crowd into arenas and stadiums to marvel at our pathetic physical abilities as if they were something special. But there is one exception to our general paltriness: We're the right honorable kings and queens of the planet when it comes to long-distance running.

Tuesday Reads: Inbound Marketing, Housing Bubble

Marketing Research Chart: What are the most valuable inbound lead sources? - Kaci Bower, MarketingSherpa

The fine folks at MarketingSherpa released a new report on inbound marketing and surprise, surprise inbound marketing if effective.

Leads obtained from inbound marketing tactics, such as SEO, social media and blogs, have increased in importance over the last 12 months, particularly when compared to leads from outbound marketing programs. Inbound marketing tactics tend to be cost-effective, and offer an efficient option for generating highly qualified leads.

Twelve Facts That May Surprise You About the Housing Bust - Nick Timiraos, WSJ

A new paper was released by the Federal Reserve that analyzed the housing bubble/crash. Their viewpoint is that the commonly accepted reasons for the bubble aren't really true. Agree?

Fact 1: Resets of adjustable-rate mortgages did not cause the foreclosure crisis.
Fact 2: No mortgage was “designed to fail.”
Fact 3: There was little innovation in mortgage markets in the 2000s.
Fact 4: Government policy toward the mortgage market did not change much from 1990 to 2005.
Fact 5: The originate-to-distribute model was not new.
Fact 6: MBS, CDOs, and other “complex financial products” had been widely used for decades.
Fact 7: Mortgage investors had lots of information.
Fact 8: Investors understood the risks.
Fact 9: Investors were optimistic about house prices.
Fact 10: Mortgage market insiders were the biggest losers.
Fact 11: Mortgage market outsiders were the biggest winners.
Fact 12: Top-rated bonds backed by mortgages did not turn out to be “toxic.” Top-rated bonds in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) did.