Michael Leis

Though our wide-ranging crepe-based discussion panel on Saturday morning was a highlight, I’m seated in the cavernous ballroom A for Brynn “No relation to Will or Bob” Evans is sitting on this panel, so I really wanted to hear it. Brynn is kicking things off. She is concerned with the interaction design of search and [...]

What a lot of brands are missing in their digital marketing strategy is common-engine thinking. As brands chase social media and leave a trail of long-forgotten campaigns in their wake, what’s needed is a solid, enterprise foundation that allows for any new computing trend to be added or subtracted while always making a tangible deposit [...]

People in marketing constantly chatter about “getting a share of wallet,” or “midshare,” or any other myriad metaphors for being so ingrained in a potential customer’s habits and awareness that when it comes time to pull the trigger, that particular brand has become an automatic purchase. Forget the metaphors. What is your brand actually doing [...]

Having identified the problem space of pushing all your brand budget chips on Facebook, it’s time to explore the solutions to bridge brand sites and Facebook to deliver the best of both worlds. Application Programming Interfaces are what drives much of the integration and mobility in data that people call Web 2.0. For about the [...]

Moving into its third or fourth year as a Web design / marketing mantra, it seems the people marching to the drumbeat of “Death to Microsites,” has had a confluence with Facebook surpassing 300 milion registered users. To a chorus of rousing applause, more and more large brands are discontinuing the practice of creating microsites [...]

It’s fairly prevalent now to find larger brands ready to jump headlong into a sweeping social media strategy.  “We get it!” or “We know our customers are there!” It feels a lot like when athletes in interviews (or reality TV contestants) say things like, “We gotta step it up.” or “Take it to the next [...]

So you’ve read all the articles, heard all the pundits, and devised a social media strategy that provides the brand cause, articulation, and the publics where you want to participate. But now you’re staring at a blank screen, wondering how to actually engage meaningfully. Where I start with clients is breaking down the communications into [...]

Looking at the major players in social media, contrast in color and user experience controls creates meaning for the creator and the browser. How much is too much, and how can brands take these lessons back to their own Web strategy?

Adding to all the ways that people are using Twitter, Oprah’s episode today is certain to launch the Twitter brand and the service to a new level of shaping public discourse.