When I started The A Group more than 12 years ago, I had no idea I was giving life to a new type of business: martech.  We developed in-house technology to make sure our marketing efforts worked and were simple to use. We knew marketing could not live without technology. It was true a decade ago, and even more so now. Not only digital natives demand it, we all do. We browse online, on our mobile devices but often purchase at a physical store. We want the same information on our desktop computer, tablet and phone whenever, wherever. We measure our tolerance to wait for information in mere seconds. Today’s consumer has an attention span of less than 6 seconds. Last week I attended the first Martech Conference in Boston. The Martech Conference was an integrated conversation of marketing, technology, trends and best practices led by experts, often titled Chief…

Last week I attended the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It’s the industry’s biggest event, drawing over 72,000 attendees from over 200 different countries. The event was massive in both size and scope: booths, the size of city blocks, from the likes of Samsung and Sony to small software developers for mobile devices. Everything mobile was covered. After learning my way around Barcelona’s metro system and fighting through the crowded train stations, I got several days of exposure to what’s happening, and what’s about to happen in the mobile world. Here are some overarching observations: The world is now mobile. While desktops might still have a place in business, the new day belongs to the untethered, highly portable world of mobile devices: phones, tablets, and phones the size of small tablets or small tablets with a phone built in. Payment through mobile devices has become streamlined. There are several…

Facebook is facing trouble ahead. IPO issues aside, Facebook seems to be losing one of its primary and most indicative of all demographics: teenagers. According to an article on USAtoday.com, teens are making a slow exit from the giant social network that claims over 900 million users. Think about it. It makes a lot of sense that teens are looking for another social network to call home: Mom and dad are there Grandmother just sent me a friend invitation My teachers are watching me My boss reads and comments on my posts According to the USAtoday article: More than eight years after Facebook’s inception, its mass appeal has drawn older crowds who add their kids as Facebook friends. That development could be tarnishing the site’s “cool factor” in the eyes of teens, said Jake Katz, chief architect at YPulse. Forget the teenagers, I’m ready to find another place to hang…

“We have a technology problem.” Words I often hear from a client or potential client. While that might be a valid concern, most of the time it’s not the technology problem that’s causing the issue, but a communication one. My company, The A Group, has a technology division where we have developed a sophisticated platform for media-rich tools as well as a powerful and easy-to-use content management system. While I’m happy to sell our products to anyone who needs faster, easier, and overall better technology, I’m always careful to make sure people understand the it’s the communication strategy that drives the technology and not the other way around. This might sound simplistic to some, but I can tell you from personal experience that many churches, businesses, and not-for-profits believe that a shiny new website, a powerful digital media tool, or an iPhone app will cure their communication problems. They won’t.…

Google and search engines are ruining our lives. I’m convinced of it. Sure, we can now find everything we want to know about any given subject by typing a word and hitting search. Now wait. We don’t even have to finish typing the word. Magical internet search engine elves anticipate our search criteria and fill in the rest of word or phrase for us, most of the time with eerily accuracy.  What’s so wrong about that? Well, the instant retrieval of exactly the information we search for is convenient for sure, but it is doing away with a part of my past I wish I could still have: serendipitous discovery. I remember looking through the card catalog and pouring through stacks of books in my college library in search of a book and finding authors and titles that were not even on my radar, but due to the “analog” nature…

Every Christian has a story of redemption to tell. One would be hard-pressed to find a better story-teller than author Max Lucado. Max has been a best-selling author for over two and a half decades. I remember reading my first Lucado book during my graduate school days. Chances are that if you’re a Christian, you have read some of Max’s books. I was thrilled as my company, The A Group, was chosen by Zondervan Publishers to lead in the efforts of getting Max’s latest release to the public. Our team under the leadership of Tami Heim, created a comprehensive marketing campaign that includes cover design, art direction, all traditional media, PR, social media and even a media-rich website with its own mobile app option for iPhone. Our intent is not only to market a great book, but to allow its important message to live beyond the written pages and to…

Yesterday Apple laid out a new subscription service and broad rules for digital content sold through the iPhone and iPad. Apple wants to make sure all app purchases and subscriptions, such as content from Amazon’s Kindle or Nextflix streaming, only happen inside the Apple Store, it also wants to make sure publishers’ subscriptions outside the Apple Store is never less than what’s offer within an app. But the most significant move might be Apple’s decision to allow customers the option to provide their name, email and zip code to the content providers, as oppose to require them to pass that information on. Running subscription restriction and pricing restrictions will create better margins and cement Apples’ dominance as a content provider. The fact that Apple is betting most of us will choose not to give our personal information to the content providers, (and who would?), is a total game changer. I…

The social media revolution has forced traditional journalism to rethink its most basic premise: a well researched, well developed and thoroughly checked news story. We don’t want to wait for weeks or even days for a news story. We want it within hours of it breaking, minutes would be best.  Journalists have even coined a new name for it: fast forward journalism. It’s a fast, unstructured post, and with just the facts that are available at the moment, giving its audience enough information to get them up to speed. I believe online development needs its own fast forward approach. Not long ago I sat in a room filled with engineers working on a spec document for an online tool. We worked for a solid week. The engineers were trying to account for every potential user scenario and exception. I was fighting for simplicity and quick deployment. I had not given…

“we have a technology problem,” is what I often hear from a client or potential client, but while that might be true, most of the time it’s not the technology problem that’s causing the issue, but a communication one. My company, The A Group, has a technology division where we have developed a sophisticated platform for media-rich tools as well as a powerful and easy-to-use content management system. While I’m happy to sell our products to anyone who needs faster, easier and overall better technology, I’m always careful to make sure people understand that’s the communication strategy that drives the technology and not the other way around. This might sound simplistic to some, but I can tell you from personal experience that many churches, businesses and not-for-profits believe that a shiny new website, a powerful digital media tool, or an iPhone app will cure their communication problems. They won’t. What…