Blog
Notes on marketing leadership.
Field notes from inside fractional CMO engagements: what holds up under pressure, and what doesn’t.
Discovery, habits, and the places people look
Findability depends on context. Buyers look for solutions in different places depending on their habits, markets and local platforms, as a trip to South Korea reminded me. Read
What SaaS gets wrong about higher ed
SaaS companies selling into higher education often misread how universities decide. Why the harder problem is coordination across a campus. Read
Signals hiding in plain sight
External search, internal site search and on-site behavior all show what an audience wants. What those signals reveal, with insight from BCIT’s Alan Etkin. Read
Staying on after the full-time marketing hire
The usual picture of fractional leadership ends when the full-time hire arrives. I think the handoff period matters more than that picture allows, and staying on carries its own tension. Read
Marketing as connective tissue
The most useful things I’ve learned about buyers came from working inside sales, product and finance rather than from a request queue. Read
Holiday merch for a volatile year
Holiday merch planning in 2025 meant working around tariffs, port delays and higher expectations. Why it paid to plan early and buy with purpose. Read
Why founders fund marketing last
Founders often fund marketing last because the case for waiting holds together on its own terms. What that delay costs is hard to spot while it’s happening. Read
The wasted space of legitimacy messaging
Challenger brands often spend their best ad space on disclaimers. What Lime and Sound Transit’s messaging says about the cost of leading with legitimacy. Read
Norteño playlists and curation in the age of AI
A hijacked Spotify account and a Seattle music festival taught me something about curation, and why human taste still matters as AI gets better at recommending. Read
