By Andy Marken

A year ago, I was watching the news in my hotel room; and in front of the newscasters were big containers of Coke.

It could have just as easily been a sign, "This Space for Rent."

I'm probably one of the few that really watches the ads on TV; but increasingly, it's hard to see where the ad ends and the show begins because I see blatant show/tell about comforting insoles, candy, cars, video conferencing systems, computers, you name it.

By Andy Marken

After three days immersed in technical/business sessions at this year's Flash Memory Summit (FMS), we're absolutely convinced we live and work in an RDF (reality distortion field).

You know, where the impossible is so distorted that you honestly believe it's possible.

By Andy Marken

Now that we can easily get the information, we love to classify people according to one of the many categories the industry has developed over the years -- Boomers, Millennials, teens, pre-teens; white, Asian, Hispanic, African-American; as well as bosses, us, politicians, honest people.

By Andy Marken

Since the mainframe days, people have complained that IT was slow to respond, slow to deliver, over budget.

Unisys' latest report that IT people are willing to ignore the consumerization of IT only reinforces this old saw.

According to them, IT has its collective heads in the sand.

By Andy Marken

Social networks and social marketing get a lot of attention, especially when someone "liberates" a ton of names and passwords as they did recently with LinkedIn. You know the site with all the marketing, communications resumes on it.

By Andy Marken

Perhaps the Boston-area English teacher's commencement address a few months ago was right.

The graduates aren't special or exceptional, just different.

They're different significantly from him, from Gen X/Yers, boomers.

By Andy Marken

ZDNet's Ken Hess recently gave Apple a backhanded compliment, saying that OSX, Mountain Lion, was the world's first transgender operating system aimed directly at Cougars, middle-aged women.

By Andy Marken

All around the globe, kids are about the only things that don't come with halfway-decent instruction manuals and detailed warning labels.

By Andy Marken

The Twitlympics has been almost as exciting, interesting, breathtaking as the event the IOC (International Olympics Committee) put on in London.

But judging was mixed, tough and argumentative on the world stage.

By Andy Marken

We love buzz words.

You know, innovation...marketing ROI (Return on Investment)...social media...branding...positioning...differentiation...segmentation.

Yeah, they're all cool; but do you know the words we like better that the boss likes?

By Andy Marken

Over the holidays, we decided to listen to some nice restful music, so we dusted off a bunch of old 78s, scrounged up a workable needle and listened to The Doors, Grateful Dead and some early Stones.

By Andy Marken

One of the biggest frustrations in working at Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) or Bell Labs had to be having out-of-focus images of what new ideas, technologies, products were going to be here in 10-20 years while working with stuff that was introduced five years ago.