[wire] stone

At [wire] stone, we architect, integrate, and interpret consumer data 24/7. Our B2B enterprise clients use this data to economize their businesses and to uncover new business opportunities. Our B2C clients use this data to better target customers, optimize creative, increase goal conversion, and more.

This love of synthesizing data made my leap to personal analytics an easy one. For example: MyFitnessPal tells me that I’ve shaved 11%, 24 lbs., of my total body weight in 120 days. Wells Fargo Money Map tells me that I’m over budget on groceries; I need to cut back on ‘beverages.’ Foursquare tells me that I mostly explore airports, offices, and coffee shops; sad, but true. And Spotify reveals that I’m listening to some pretty bad music right now, but so are my friends.

My problem is that all of these personal digital footprints, like many channel marketing efforts and IT initiatives, are in silos. The interpretation of this data is wholly left to the end user. Now, Wire Stone’s analytics team has put together some very impressive dashboards; they just haven’t done so for my personal life.

(more…)

Account Planners and Strategists thrive in chaos and fluidity. The great ones, however, typically don’t come up with innovative thinking out of thin air. They internalize and process the world around them in ways most people can’t, and add their own perspective and experience into the mix. Good planners seem to always be aggregating raw material “inputs” from the world around them and from what they already know. It’s like they eat the world, and then spit out new and amazing things we’ve never thought of before.

Some of the Planners and Strategists I follow — Chris Anderson, Paul Saffo, Ben Malbon, Dr. Pamela Rutledge, Edward Boches, Farrah Bostick, Rick Liebling, as well as @wirestone’s own Paul Marobella, to name just a few — inspire me as a Planner to make [wire] stone a place where pushing the envelop (not just winging it) is the norm.

To help us get to that lofty place I introduced the The Planner’s Canvas Part I (Download Planning_canvas_cal_rd6). Today’s post deconstructs Phase 1 of the Canvas and explains why Raw Inputs are so important for Planners.

(more…)

Marc Andreessen contributed a brilliant essay entitled “Why Software Is Eating The World” to the Wall Street Journal this past weekend that I think should be recommended reading for every businessperson. His points also should serve as an important reminder to every marketer about what really matters today.

In short, Andreessen convincingly argues that we now truly live in an age wheresoftware is the driving force for change in the world, and that this phenomenon is just going to

(more…)

It’s been more than 40 years since Stanley Pollitt from the UK agency BMP birthed the account planning role to design a process of advertising development that would rely more on rigorous, research-based work than on gut feel. The account planner’s role would be to develop a deep understanding of a brand’s position in its market, and use associated research data and consumer feedback to glean insight into a brand’s core connection points with consumers. Today — and probably for the rest of our professional lives — a planner’s ultimate role is to develop big ideas and great marketing concepts derived from and in concert with people as partners in a holistic endeavor.

(more…)

I hate to admit it, but I hold my iPhone more than I hold my kids. And given the choice—well, it’s always a choice—I will drop my kids to pick up my phone. Come to think of it, my stupid smartphone makes me feel so “with it” that I can hardly bear to be without it.

News this week that WIMM Labs released what may be the world’s first commercially viable micro-computing platform really got me thinking about all the things I’d rather be doing—things I should be doing more—with my hands instead of holding this phone all day.

(more…)