The King of Pop is dead and a product of the media has ceased to be. From his debut with the Jackson 5 in 1969, to his moonwalk at Motown 25 and the later allegations of child molestation, we as a culture have reveled in his actions. Not only have we consumed Michael Jackson’s prodigious musical output, but also his public (and quite possibly criminal) foibles.

You’ve been struggling with your marketing for years. Every time you take on a new initiative you hope for it to make a difference, but somehow you’re left back at square one. Although you have a new website or piece of collateral it hardly ever seems to make a difference. Where’s the disconnect? I suspect it’s in your story and the value you put on it.

There are a lot of social media experts out there, and I’m not one of them. I don’t think your business needs a Facebook Page (actually, I say that they’re largely bunk); meanwhile, I feel that a lot of “blogger outreach” is an outright waste of time. In fact, I argue that you should probably ignore a lot of tools and features out there.

Last week’s post resulted in a number of lovely emails and positive feedback. Thank you for all of your kind words! Writing these articles is a lot of fun, but getting little notes from you makes it even more enjoyable! It’s a beautiful day here in Vancouver, and what better way to start it than with a few random observations?

The invasion of design has begun, fueled by an army of talented newcomers and low-cost offshore services. This new breed trades methodology for mimicry and by doing so radically undercuts pricing, sometimes even working for free. Like it or not, supply and demand in the design industry is undergoing upheaval. Worse yet, for design buyers it’s getting harder to differentiate between good and bad design.

As of late, I’ve been doing a little work in social media. I’m not particularly proud of this, but the fact is, we’ve learned a fair bit about it, and some seem to value our input. With that in mind, I’d like to take the next ten minutes to give you some reasons to forget about social media.

From 12 to 30 I utilized the same general approach when it came to trying to get a date. I’d meet someone great, get awfully excited, and then make a bumbling request to get together. It rarely worked out very well, and upon being rejected I would retreat, deciding that it was easier to sit on the sidelines than hear a “no”.

Things remain interesting around smashLAB. (Interesting is code for “really great and also really fucking hard”.) Lots of new lessons for us, including some that have taught us a little humility, which I’ll talk about in a future post. That being said, here are a few more random observations.

Last night I tweeted that I had achieved and maintained “inbox zero” nirvana. I’m sure there are countless posts on the topic, but thought I’d briefly share how I made sense of the communication barrage that I was once drowning in.

For as much as I make fun of them, I’m in fact a believer in online ads. They’re largely a mess right now, but this will change. In contemplating the future, three factors need to be considered: First, AdSense has completely buggered the market. Second, the death of mainstream media will create a vacuum of content. Third, this shortcoming will result in real revenue for quality content providers, regardless of delivery device.