Watch Your Step with "Jive"

I read an e-book recently that, packaging-wise, would earn the envy of any marketer.

But all its polish and pizazz were wasted on me when I collided with an all-too-common blunder business writers make: confusing the words jive and jibe.

The e-book read:

"Influencer marketing jives with content marketing. Influencer marketing doesn't just jive well with with content marketing. It IS content marketing."

The writer meant "jibe."

The verb jibe means to accord with something.

The noun jive means swing music, foolish chatter, or the jargon of hipsters. As a verb, jive means to dance, talk or mislead.

To Spur Innovation, Sponsor Playtime

Do deadlines breed innovative work?

Rarely, say most organizational behaviorists.

That's because creativity results from the playful association of ideas.

Deadlines dampen that play.

While they drive workers to work harder and longer—and even lead them to think they're innovating—deadlines, in fact, kill creativity.

To lessen deadlines' deadening effect, behaviorists suggest bosses:

• Set deadlines that allow for playtime—and build some into every week


• Shield workers under deadline from interruptions


• Help workers understand why particular deadlines are mission-critical

What Planet are You on?

"Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to," Seth Godin says.

The last time I checked, in my world the least effective way to persuade people you were trustworthy was to claim you were trustworthy.

What worldview does Overstock.com think customers have?

How Does It Feel?

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the recording by Bob Dylan of his masterwork, "Like a Rolling Stone."

A semicentennial anniversary should make you feel old. 

But most of us live outside time.

I remember a TV comedy skit from the 1970s by British comedian Benny Hill. 

Called "Woodstick," it depicted the feeble antics of a half million cane-toting geezers banned together for the imagined 50th-year reunion at Woodstock.

Feeling as frolicsome and randy as teens, the alumni were too doddering to act on their urges; when they tried, they fell down. And therein lay the gag.

Today a lot of us could star in that skit.

“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time," writes novelist Milan Kundera. "Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.”

A Thing of Beauty

What's more important In marketing emails, copy or design?

In a new report on email marketing from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, digital strategist Jason Falls answers the question—categorically.

It's copy.

"Nothing makes an email more powerful than expertly written copy," Falls writes.

"Catching the recipient’s attention, taking them on a quick journey, and making them believe that more than anything they have to take the action you want them to take and take it right now, is a thing of beauty."

Falls quotes Derek Halpern, a fellow digital guru who "swears by text-only emails."

“I’ve experimented with both simple text and fancy HTML," Halpern says, "and in all my experience, simple text generates the best results."