The value of travel for a strategist

Today, I wanted to share some musings on the value of travel in the life of a strategist.

I’ve always been a passionate traveller. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to leisure travel quite a bit in my life. I’ve visited nearly 70 countries — some in depth, some just for a short visit. In my adult life, I’ve made travel a priority, making most of my financial and major life decisions on the basis of how I could maximize my opportunities to travel.

For years, I downplayed this in my professional life, worried that it might make me seem less dedicated to work, that the dreaded “resume gap” could make me appear less attractive to potential employers. But I want to make the case today that this doesn’t have to be true.

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What dating etiquette can teach marketers

A couple are out having drinks and the woman looks irritated that her partner is on his mobile phone and not paying her any attention.

Like most people, I’ve had a lot of bad first dates in my life. In fact, my single life was full of cringeworthy first dates that could charitably be described as good story fodder. Luckily, as a marketing strategist, I love a good story, and it’s recently occurred to me that, while these dates were each bad in their own unique ways, they actually had a lot in common with bad marketing strategies.

Most of my bad first dates were with nice people who made one of two seemingly opposite-yet-related errors. And these are the same errors I see a lot of businesses make in their marketing strategies.

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