Tom Ruwitch
More marketing magic from Earvin Johnson In yesterday’s email, I told you how Magic Johnson created a business empire by opening movie theaters and Starbucks in inner-city neighborhoods. Today: A story about Johnson and those Starbucks. Like most chain restaurants, Starbucks had a set menu. Muffins, croissants, bagels, yogurt parfaits, and scones — lots and lots…
HBD Earvin Johnson. 🎂 🥳 Magic is 66 today (August 14), and that has me thinking about… …multiplexes and Starbuck’s. Yeah, I know. When someone says, “Magic Johnson” most think hoops. I like basketball, and I respect Magic for his great NBA career. But I love great business stories, and Magic’s is one for the ages.…
In case you missed my email yesterday, sad news: My GPT-powered robot, B-9(?), is dead. Actually, I unplugged him and threw him in the broom closet after his GPT overlords gave him a mandatory upgrade, and he lost his mind. Seems I’m not the only robot owner fed up with their GPT-powered robot. My news…
Last week, my robot lost his mind. His name is B-9(?) and he was one of those GPT-powered robots. On Thursday, he got a mandatory “upgrade” from GPT-4 to GPT-5, and it turned him from my faithful, intelligent companion and friend to a… …belligerent, idiotic ass! So I gave him the ultimate downgrade. I removed his battery…
Recommended Reading 📝 Ann Handley: 24 Questions to Ask Yourself About That Piece You’re Writing Right Now (Part 2) Ann Handley just dropped questions 13-24 of her writing self-audit. They’re way more useful than the usual “check your grammar” advice. My favorites: “What emotion am I inviting?” and “If I deleted my byline/logo… would anyone recognize…
ChatGPT v5.0 landed yesterday. And the crowd’s going wild. I get it. I’m all-in on AI. I’m even building a suite of AI assistants, called Your AI Noggin, that know my tried-and-true marketing frameworks and will help you implement them. But I also know… You have to show up as HUMAN if you want to stand…
A long, long time ago, I was on the lower east side of Manhattan when I saw… …a big, fat rat, walking backwards… …dragging a foot-long slice of New York style pizza across the sidewalk. He pulled the thing with his teeth a good 50 feet before he and the slice disappeared into his hidey…
Happy Birthday, World Wide Web! On this day (August 6) in 1991, Tim Berners Lee launched the World Wide Web as a “a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.” And today, we can’t imagine a world without that wide-area hypermedia information retrieval thingamajig. Wanna see…
I got a cold-call voicemail yesterday from “Dina” who pitched “a health and wellness lunch-and-learn event” for my staff and employees. The focus: “On health and wellness…which is a very informative and educational event.” No thanks, Dina. But your call got me thinking about how businesses pitch their “informative and educational” content… …and why they…
Recommended Reading 📝 Onboarding is not housekeeping 2.0 (by Brian Kurtz) You have a new client. Now what? For many businesses the “onboarding” process is a mish-mash of random activities that don’t serve the client — or the business — as well as they should. This post outlines the the six key elements of “Extreme Onboarding”…