Et tu Jared?. You may know where this is going.

Lance Armstrong, notorious cheater

Bill Cosby, allegations of rape

OJ Simpson, likely murderer

Mike Tyson, Rapist

Ray Rice, Woman beater

  Shall I go on? I didn’t think so. What do all of them have in common? They were once at the top of their game with sparkling marketing appeal. Brands flocked to them because of their influence and following. For major brand marketers, the drug is real. Sign a...

By Brian Barquilla Ray Tomlinson is credited with receiving the first email that was ever sent, in 1971. What did this world-changing message say? We may never know because it’s recipient cannot recall. Tomlinson is on record as saying. “They were entirely forgettable and I therefore, deleted them.” I’m choking in the irony. While email is still a valuable tool, its abuse by me-too marketers has poisoned the pool for the rest of us. There was a time when a blast email worked relatively well. If you earned a 25 percent open rate, you could have taken rest of the day off. This marketing...

Isn’t it interesting how some industry heavyweights can force us into change? I’m not suggesting this is necessarily a bad thing, just that the power they have to alter how nearly all of us do business is quite intriguing. There are many examples of this, but I’m talking about Microsoft and the new Windows 8-8.1 release. If you haven’t seen it, the release is vastly different from what you have come to expect from Windows. It seems we are in an awkward time in the evolution of technology where we are somewhere between the traditional keyboard/mouse and true touchscreens. In fact,...

Unfortunately, I was called out of town recently to visit a family member who has terminal cancer. When the end was near and it was time to say goodbye, it trumped anything I had going on in my business life.

To get a few minutes distraction from tense family matters, I went to a local donut shop to take advantage of the Wi-Fi and hot coffee. When I arrived, the place was busy with mostly retirees. It was a social scene where politics, health, and weather filled the conversation.

There was a heartwarming occurrence that happened recently at Cortello Salon in Jacksonville Beach. It was just a normal day at the salon until a woman walked in, unsettled, weary, and sobbing. She was facing cancer for the third time and her hair was falling out from the treatment. She had decided that, instead of allowing cancer to slowly take away her femininity, she was going to take as much control as she could. She was going to shave her hair off.

Now, I’m not in the salon business, of course, and I don’t know how often this comes up, but it did strike me as a bit insensitive that multiple salons would turn her away or charge $50-$75 to do this. I’m fully aware of the costs of doing business, but at some point, can’t we put that aside and just cut someone a break?

The phone rings.

Me: Hello? This is Brian.

Tony: Brian, this is Tony(not his real name). Let’s do lunch this Wednesday. I have some things I want to talk to you about.

Me: Okay. See you then.