Agency On Record

We talk to a founding father of Maark, Johnny Boursiquot, to learn about Maark in its early days and why he believes it's important for developers to own product experience instead of just delivering it.

The worst sports team is still probably marketing better than you are. Whether it's escalating narratives, brand management, or content marketing, sports is the best school to learn from. Mike and Jason just wanted to give the XFL that second chance.

Alexandra Watkins is obsessed with brand naming. From her naming agency Eat My Words to her book, "Hello, My Name is Awesome," she believes in the commercial power of a great name and the horror of a bad. We talk about her process, how to make such a subjective task more objective, and why a good brand name is so important to success. Mike and Jason just want to rename everything now.

U.S. National Pride Falls to Record LowsThe American Story, Splintered, and Those Vying to Tell It  

We hear a lot about empathy in design, empathy on the socials, and it seems to be considered a universal good. But is empathy that great? Does it actually lead to subpar work or, worse, bias and prejudice instead of protecting against that? Mike and Jason just want us all to be Deanna Trois.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/06/r-i-p-quartz-brief-the-innovative-mobile-news-app-maybe-chatting-with-the-news-isnt-something-most-people-really-want-to-do/

With everyone in quarantine, entertainers and media personalities who usually rely on highly produced video content to create their experiences have been forced into creating low-fi experiences that any schlub could create...and it's made culture a lot more interesting for the time being. Mike and Jason just want to see a "Cheers in Zoom" reunion.

Transforming the LEGO Group for the Digital Economy. An MIT Paper.

Our new state of emergency illustrates exactly why Twitter taken seriously is bad for society. It's full of misinformation and low-word-count opinions passed around at the speed of RTs, it taints and replaces legitimate journalism, and it tempts scientists and politicians to further their individual brands instead of the truth. Any information propelled by a like mechanism should be immediately suspect. Mike and Jason just want to Twitter to focus on what it's best at: drunk tweets.

We check in from our respective fortresses of solitude for some possibly too-candid thoughts about living and working through this pandemic, where health concerns are scary, the economy is scary, but the unknowns are probably the most mentally trying. Mike and Jason just want to visit their barbers.

The core craft of marketing is storytelling. And the way you figure out a story, and the way to practice that craft, is through writing. Is that arguable? We argue it in this episode. Mike and Jason just want to make storytelling cool again.

Conferences are being cancelled, nonessential travel is being curtailed, stocks are diving, industries are being hit--the coronavirus is really doing a number on the business world. In this episode, we discuss its impact and how Maark is dealing with it. Mike and Jason just wanted to go to Adobe Summit.

Brand New breaks down the rebrand.Fast Company likes that the new Godaddy logo gets out of the way.

The Iowa Caucus voting app debacle is the latest in a string of high-profile software failures that illustrate that there is still a widespread, fundamental misunderstanding of how software is built, how hard it is to build, what its risks are, and how to mitigate them. Mike and Jason just like how much fun it is to say "caucus" during a podcast.

Part two in our quest for quality software experiences finds us discussing whether or not the old "build vs. run" model applies in a world bent on constant innovation. We learn from Boeing's experience that cheap software has consequences. Mike and Jason just want jets that never leave the ground.

Good design has mostly been commoditized. And that's because great design is super-hard to execute on. And that falls on the front-end engineers, who are, in the end, responsible for the ultimate quality of an experience and whether it will be used or trashed. Mike and Jason just humans to be better at software.

The Edelman Trust Barometer...Itself.

Over the past year or so, we've seen the industry shift from modernizing their web stacks to pulling value out of those stack, and first on the list seems to be personalization. Yup. It's time for that topic. Mike and Jason just want to stop being chased around the Internet by the same ads because we looked at that lamp one time on Amazon.

Martin Scorsese's New York Times Op-Ed

What does it take to be a marketing leader? Executing on the CEO's priorities? Embracing your own vision for the company's story? Should there be friction between the CMO and the CEO? Is marketing about standing out internally as much as it is standing out on the market? Mike and Jason just want to play Game of Thrones with the C-suite.