1998 … my year as Director of Corporate Communications at The Learning Company. Twas an interesting time, bookmarked by the acquisition by TLC of its chief competitor Broderbund in the early part of the year and the acquisition of TLC by Mattel at the end of the year. In early 1999, I returned to Cyber Patrol as VP/General Manager and proceeded to spend the next year or so helping sell the unit, at a hefty profit I might add.
TLC was an interesting place. And no one was more interesting than company president Kevin O’Leary, who will probably go down in software industry history for his comparison of software to cat food.
Tip of the hat to former TLC colleagues Karen and Kathy for pointing out Kevin’s most recent incarnation as the Canadian Donald Trump on The Dragon’s Den, albeit with no, versus bad, hair.
Gotta say, if your livelihood doesn’t depend on him, he is a funny bastard. Enjoy!
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Geoff Livingston over at The Buzz Bin posted a query to a bunch of us PR/Marketing types on Facebook over the weekend: What’s On Your Social Media Reading List? The usual suspects made the list — Cluetrain, Naked Conversations, Debbie Weil’s Business Blogging book, Hobson & Holtz’s new podcasting book, and so on. But there were also some interesting, and new, suggestions, and I urge you to check out the list for yourselves.
My contribution? I believe that one of the biggest hurdles to understanding social media, and how to work in this new world, is learning how to think differently. Not just out of the box. Get rid of the box. Think about things in a whole new way. I suggested people should read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, Gonzo Marketing by Chris Locke and Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.
What am I reading now? Beyond Buzz by Lois Kelly, with The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott and Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger on deck.