Month: June 2008

J W Waterhouse and the Art of Marketing

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J W Waterhouse Hylas Nymphs

Or maybe I should say the marketing of art …

I’ve been doing a lot of drawing lately – gearing up for an amateur painting contest with some friends. And this is all on the lo-fi, and by that I mean on canvas, not photoshop.

Anyway, I’ve also been studying some of history’s great masters to get some ideas on style and technique and I came across J W Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs. And my first thought was … ‘Man, that’s good marketing’!

So let’s take a look at this great classic work of art (pictured above) and see what it can teach us about marketing …

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10 Invaluable Life Lessons You Can Learn from the Movie Troy

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The great thing about classic tales is they’ve stood the test of time. And so has all the great advice you can get from them … Never judge a book by it’s cover. Just because a guy is wearing a leather skirt and a funny hat, doesn’t mean he can’t still kick your ass. Never … Read more

Failure is The Breaking Point and Not One Second Sooner

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Bluebells in the Forest

Stuff happens. Stuff goes wrong. If it doesn’t, then something really is wrong. And when stuff goes wrong, sometimes we have to get as close to failing as we can possibly get to see the right course of action …

A number of years ago I was driving down a highway here in Vancouver with my girlfriend at the time. It’s a 4 lane highway and there’s the odd light-slash-intersection. As I was driving, a woman coming the other way decided to turn left in front of me.

She started to turn; she had all the time in the world. And then she just stopped. In my lane. She froze and I was barreling straight towards her.

And there was no way I could stop in time.

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Facebook IPO Could be the Next Big Stock Opportunity

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Facebook

There’s been a lot of chatter about Facebook going public. A lot of people don’t think it’s possible. And I tend to agree … or at least, I used to.

Social media sites like MySpace and YouTube usually end up getting purchased by bigger companies for one simple reason: they can’t financially stand on their own. It’s really difficult for a social media site to earn big returns because users are there to do other things. They don’t click on ads.

Cracking the Web 2.0 Code

Someone’s going to do it. Sooner or later. And of course there are many much smaller websites that are profitable. Just not IPO worthy.

There are a few reasons I like Facebook as an IPO opportunity …

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