I launched my blog in 2009 when I was wrestling with a midlife crisis. Since then, the digital world has changed so much. I was new to both Facebook and Twitter when I started blogging, and I was still rocking the BlackBerry for email. Instagram hadn’t launched yet. Podcasting and short videos are what the cool kids do these days, blogging is considered old fashioned. But I still find it the best way to share my thoughts and to profile people who inspire me.
I hope you’ll find something here that inspires you, or at least sparks a conversation. Some of my favorite posts are pinned to the top, scroll down a bit more to find the most recent, or check out the categories in the sidebar.
A few weeks back, I wrote about how to blog if you don’t like to write — take photos on Instagram or chat on camera using YouTube, for example. That post prompted several people to ask variations on the question perhaps best posed by Michael: How do I blog without looking like a douche who is bragging? There’s an oft-used…
Earlier this week I blogged about one theme I heard in digital marketing conversations at South by Southwest Interactive — authenticity — but the panel that really rocked me was about serendipity: Serendipity is a fuzzy concept that has a powerful effect on our lives. More than blind luck, it’s the product of lots of passion, insight, or proximity. As…
I recently returned from South by Southwest Interactive, a massive technology conference that takes over seemingly every square inch of Austin with growing numbers each year. While the marketing spending seems more pervasive — both Oreos and Game of Thrones sponsored pedicabs, as one small example — there’s still plenty of good content, ranging from 3D printing to the relationship…
I didn’t know much about David Foster Wallace when he died. I’d read a few of his essays and his widely circulated commencement address at Kenyon College, but that was the extent of it. The intensity of the reaction from well-read friends when Wallace committed suicide gave me a view into how admired he was. Flash forward a few years,…
When someone asks me how they get can more Twitter followers, it’s hard for me to give a straight answer. Not that I don’t know how to get more followers — there’s research showing, for example, that acting as a source of information instead of just talking about yourself will grow your audience. Hashtags help, as do including URLs and…
Frequently political candidates run on a campaign of running government more like a business. Presumably they mean things like more accountability and focus on results, as opposed to, say, accounting scandals or taking risks that put the country’s whole economy in peril. Lately as I follow news out of Washington, from the fiscal cliff to the massive budget cuts called sequestration,…
Last summer, I wrote a series of guest blog posts for Stirring Up Success, a B2B blog run by Dawn Foods, a manufacturer of bakery ingredients and products and distributor to the bakery industry. According to a case study by Crossroads, StirringUpSuccess.com has been featured in top industry trade publications as a unique and helpful tool for bakery owners. Here’s…
I’ve been on both sides of the media relationship — I’ve been a reporter and editor getting pitched every day and I’ve worked in public relations trying to get journalists interested in covering University of Michigan. Like any relationship, when it works well, everyone wins. The journalist gets to tell an interesting story she might not have otherwise known about,…
This weekend’s East Coast blizzard got everyone talking snow — and that makes sense, because I can probably count on my fingers the good snow storms we’ve had in NYC since we moved here almost seven years ago. But John and I have noticed that if it’s colder than, say, 68 degrees, people complain about how cold it is, and…
Maybe you haven’t used computers or the Internet much, but here we are in an era when email, websites and social media are essential tools of business. It can be overwhelming enough just to learn the peculiar language of Twitter or to find the right images to use on your blog — let alone figure out how to trouble shoot…
Like many people, it’s easy for me to get caught up in my aspirations for more — a bigger home, more money, greater success. Harvard Business Review‘s article, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, challenges that. Instead of more [fill in the blank with whatever you are chasing here], focus on the right things. Author Greg McKeown starts by defining “the…
Social media gets a lot of buzz as the cool, exciting way to do marketing. I get it. I’m a social media nerd. Tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn give us a way to connect with others faster and more efficiently than ever, and they’re growing like crazy. Mashable reported that Twitter had 200 active users in December, double what…
These last couple of days whipped me between wild extremes. Sunday morning, I couldn’t find my keys. I tore up the apartment — something I try to prevent by trying to always hang my keys near the door — and got increasingly frustrated and concerned … until I realized my husband had taken them by accident. Later that day, I…
Phone? Check Email? Check Website? Check Blog? No? No blog? It’s become standard marketing advice that a business must have a blog, alongside more standard communications tools like having a phone number and email. The benefits of business blogging are many: You keep your website fresh so you give people a reason to come back You share useful information that…
My husband and I haven’t missed a Jazz Fest since Katrina and we lived in New Orleans for three months in 2011, so we often get requests from friends about what to do. I’ve compiled an ever-expanding list to share when someone asks. These are my NOLA tips — I welcome your additions, questions or objections: In general, New Orleans…
I’m starting a series called Marketing Monday, with tips and tricks on more effective marketing, from market research to social media, from public relations to branding. Eventually I plan to move the series to a new website at colleennewvine.com, but in the meantime, I think improving sales and customer communications is close enough to improving your personal and professional life…
Do you remember that exhilarating feeling the first time someone you adored said those magic words, “I love you?” And do you remember the gut-wrenching feeling the first time you realized that someone who’d been throwing around the L word didn’t really love you? At least, not in the way you needed? How you demonstrate your love matters. John and…
One of the themes I come across consistently in seeking out fodder for my blog is that happiness is not something you get because of external forces — you will *not* become happy simply because you get a new job or lose 20 pounds — but instead is something you cultivate internally. So I could lose myself in the wonderful…
How are those resolutions coming? If you’re already stumbling, maybe you need some positive peer pressure. Just after the new year, I spent the better part of a day with two of my favorite ladies working on our 2013 plans. The three of us are at different places in our lives, with different ambitions and different ways of organizing our…
Like so many others, I am thinking the new year is a good time to recommit to exercise. Health clubs are full this time of year. Many won’t make it ’til Valentine’s Day before they drop off. But Lindy West isn’t a hit it and quit it gym member. She wrote a sassy, funny, inspiring article on Jezebel headlined, “Hello,…
At a fantastic New Year’s Day party, I talked to another guest about how smart we were in college, how our 20-year-old selves had it all figured out. Then we laughed, making affectionate fun of the cockiness of youth and the perspective we now have that our youthful selves had oh so much to learn. But here’s the thing: apparently…
Maybe you have this holiday week off, or maybe you’re just enjoying a little come down after a jam-packed month of parties, shopping, pageants or religious observances. I love the holidays — taking down the Christmas tree is one of my least favorite days of the year — but feels like many of us have let out a small sigh…
