Framework flow and marketing

Happy New Year!

I don’t really have resolutions but this year I’d like to read more books; I’m getting tired of 140 characters and want something with some depth again.

I just finished reading Project to Product by Mik Kersten. Recommended to me by people at work, I was admittedly reluctant to read it. But I really got into it and found it a bit like a self-help book in many ways, which I know was not its primary intent. Its purpose was to help inform and guide how organizations tie development efforts back to business goals. There is this thinking out there that there is a disconnect between developers and the business and Kersten’s book is designed to help the two sides come together.

What I liked about it was that it made me think how I could applies some of the same principles to marketing. Ideally, as part of a ‘Flow’, marketing assets and measures would flow into a model as it moves along from idea to consumption.

But on its own I think there is value in tying marketing platforms to artifacts to business value. A campaign may have a number of key metrics but what are the one or two that can be leveled up as part of a project’s flow. And would connecting those marketing elements be, in some way, really an abstraction for the customer journey.

Next up is Edna O’Brien’s “Country Girl”. Big deviation from the process book but I’m sure I’ll find a connecting thread there somehow.

Touring the Dillon marina in the wrong direction--a cyclist's dodgy memory of a good day

I belong to the Boulder Cycling Club and am actually a board member, which means I have a little more obligation to get organized and lead rides occasionally.  Suggesting and putting together the route isn't as big of a challenge as it is keeping everyone more or less together on the ride and preventing speedsters from blowing up the group. Fortunately, our ride out at Dillon started off and stayed fairly mellow except for the ascent up Swan, which left me gulping huge lungfuls of smoky air.

A group  of five of us rolled out from the Dillon amphitheater around 10 and headed west, contrary to my suggestion that we head east and descend Swan. The group seemed to think there wasn't a shoulder on the way up to Swan about which they were sorely and regretfully wrong. But lessons were learned all round and the view was brilliant enough to blow any thoughts of reprisal completely out of my mind.  The marina was a gorgeous summer blue, the range encircling the water was a hard grey and the clouds promised just enough shade.

It was a gorgeous spin and there were different paths that peeled  off towards Frisco, Breckenridge and other places. In fact, the weekend we were there, the Guitar Town festival was going on in Breck, which would have been fun to attend. As it was, the Dillon Amphitheater was hosting some sort of Sunday church revival with live music; I saw someone with a tambourine headed towards the stands.

The 19-mile loop took a little less than two hours and that included regroups and polite discourse about a wrong turn. The route was fairly busy with other cyclists, large strollers, and runners but everyone played nice.  We ended up at the Tiki bar overlooking the marina, where we didn't see any Tikis and no one drank. But the food wasn't bad and everyone got the chance to recover a bit before spending the next 2-days on HWY 70 to head home.