// journalist, analyst, futurist, dreamer //
recently updated ...
State Farm: 15 Keys To Successful Digital Transformation (Learned The Hard Way)
State Farm is almost the opposite of a tech startup. It’s a 100-year-old company with 58,000 employees, 19,000 independent agents, and 84 million customer accounts. State Farm is #36 on the Fortune 500 and has been the #1 insurer in the United States for the last 70 years. But three years ago, State Farm executives
Read More
Internet advertising growth is slowing. Here’s what’s changing … and why
Read this sentence slowly: pre-movie ads at the theater will grow faster than internet advertising next year. You got that right. Ads shown for 10-20 minutes to a paying audience waiting for the real show to start will grow faster than the fastest, most modern, most digital advertising ecosystem ever created. The most annoying part of going
Read More
Smartphone Shipments: Apple Down 12%, LG Down 18.5%, Samsung And Huawei Both Up
Clearly, smartphones are the new PCs: global shipments are down for the seventh straight quarter. Globally, smartphone shipments dipped to 360 million in the second quarter of 2019, down 1.2% or 4.3 million devices from the same quarter in 2018. But Chinese manufacturers like Huawei, Xiaomi, and Vivo bucked the trend. Get the full story
Read More
The EU Just Threatened Facebook’s Biggest (And Least-Known) Advantage
Most tech companies know about you when you visit their websites or use their apps. Some however, like Facebook, know about you on virtually every important site on the planet … and the majority of top apps as well. But the European Union just threatened that massive data source. Get the full story in my
Read More
Facebook Fined $5B? Big Deal … Last Quarter’s Revenue Was 3X More
Facebook was fined $5 billion by the FTC today. Good thing for Zuckerberg and company that its latest quarter racked up $16.6 billion in revenue. The fine was a new record for the FTC, almost 2000% more than the next biggest: Equifax. It’s for Facebook’s violation of user privacy in the Cambridge Analytica case and other breaches of privacy
Read More
Amazon Antitrust Inevitable? 71% Of Retailers Fear Its Pricing Power
Almost three-quarters of U.S. retailers fear being outpriced by Amazon, according to a new study of 500 retail executives. That compares to just under half being concerned by traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. The question is: why aren’t the other 29% worried? Get the full story in my post at Forbes …
Read Morewhat I do ...
marketing & martech
I help CMOs with strategy, positioning, martech, and designing for growth.
Read Moreresearch & writing
I help brands uncover insights in data … and share them in compelling stories.
Read Moreconsulting
I help tech companies build data-driven research practices that drive effective content marketing.
Read Morewhat people say about me ...
You are an incredibly talented journalist and panel moderator. I’ve always enjoyed working with you.
( Robert Brennan Hart, CEO, Canadian Cloud Council )
John provided great inspiration to our team ... his ability to talk about the future as if it was now challenged our team to think innovatively."
( Kurt Pregler, CIO, TransLink )
"John is an engaging and charismatic speaker who delivers content that even the most successful app entrepreneurs can use."
( Steve Young, CEO, AppMasters )
"John is the type of person who finds a way to turn a can't into a can. He has tremendous energy and passion in helping others solve problems."
( Brad Kuik, President, K2 Performance Management )
"It has always been a pleasure to work with John. I can not remember a meeting with him where his trademarked laugh was not to be heard."
( Arie Veenendaal, Owner, KiK Associates )
"He really understood our brand and strategy as our business partner ..."
( Jieun Kim, Manager - Product Development, Disney )
"John is smart, business savvy, tech savvy, and has an inherent sense of social media that just blows me away."
( Aaron Hilton, President, Steampunk Digital )
"Extremely innovative and well read on the latest and greatest internet and mobile technologies ..."
( Angela Robert, cofounder and CEO of Conquer Mobile )
"Equally adept on both the strategic and tactical levels, which is rare."
( Nicolas Gaudreau, CMO at Groupe Dynamite )
"John is the "ne plus ultra" - the real deal of old-school journalism combined with a keenly analytical mind as well an encyclopedic knowledge of industry information."
( Jonathan Hirshon, Principal, Horizon Communications )
"His depth of vision for the mobile tech landscape is, I think, quite unparalleled by anyone else I've worked with."
( Scott Valentine, marketer, communications strategist, writer )
I'm putting together a new live video show. If you're interesting and awesome, ping me to get interviewed!