Blog
Notes on influence.
Writing on executive positioning, distribution, and reputation — from the team that does the work.
January 7, 2020
Snitches Get Stitches: Why You Should Think Twice Before You Post
This article was originally published on my Forbes column here. On June 30, 2017, the New Jersey rapper Tay-K (born Taymor McIntyre and also known as Tay-K 47) uploaded a music video called “The Race” to YouTube. Wanted for murder in connection to a crime committed when he was just 16 years old, Tay-K had been…
September 27, 2019
Why You Will Be Happier If You Unplug
This article was originally published on my Forbes column here. In 2017, Sarah Solomon woke up in a hostel in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Days earlier, she’d left her life as a high-flying New York publicist to travel the world. Now, she was on the greatest adventure of her life, using freelance PR work to make ends meet…
April 15, 2019
Why Every Company Is A Media Company
This article was originally published on my Forbes column here. Picture yourself preparing for a vacation to Sedona, Arizona. As you search for the best tips on where to eat, hike or spend a day at the spa, you’ll probably find yourself flipping the pages of a travel magazine or scrolling through articles online. Sure enough,…
February 28, 2019
Why You Should Automate Your Social Media
This article was originally published on my Forbes column here. Technology makes it easy to automate or delegate certain tasks in your life. Some people start their mornings by cueing Alexa to turn on the lights and make a pot of coffee. Others set their bills to autopay or outsource and automate email, calendars and other rote tasks….
November 12, 2018
Google And Amazon’s Competition Is A Win For Smaller E-Commerce Companies
This article was originally published on my Forbes column here. E-commerce is booming, and one player is leading the charge. Amazon is expected to drive 80% of all e-commerce growth this year. That is tough market domination for anyone to crack. Enter Google, Amazon’s long-time rival, which has recently begun pouring resources into its alternative e-commerce platform, Google Shopping….
September 29, 2018
How Blockchain Could Put An End To Fake Online Identities
This article was originally published on my Forbes column here. If you are in Birmingham, United Kingdom, you might check Yelp to find a good Argentinian-style restaurant. You might even see a review that Ivan Stravensky wrote about his favorite restaurant, and decide to eat there based on his glowing recommendation. There’s only one problem: the…
July 26, 2018
Why You Need To Outsource Your Administrative Work
The following is an edited excerpt from the book, Zen and the Art of Admin Tasks, by Nic De Castro and Nathan Pettijohn. “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it…
March 22, 2017
How Do I Google Myself
Recently I was invited for an evening smoke at an upscale, private cigar lounge, and the owner told me with pride how adverse he is to anything digital. He has a flip phone. No email, no social, no frills, no nonsense. Can’t even find him online, he says. Just the flip phone. You can call…
March 7, 2017
Intro to Influencer Marketing
Wendell Berry once wrote that, “It is, in fact, the nature of the electronic media to blur and finally destroy all distinctions between public and community.” I’ve written numerous times over the years about why brands shouldn’t treat social media as a passing fad; that brands should move away from thirty second spots and move…
April 25, 2016
The Future of Branded Content
CLICK HERE TO ENABLE ADS I use Google Chrome for nearly all my browsing and like many people I use extensions like Adblock and Adblock Plus. Though, I honestly didn’t install these initially with the intention of blocking video ads but instead to block “pop up” ads. Still, I get served skippable ads on YouTube, and…
December 10, 2015
Digital Content Incubation For Brands
tl;dr: Corduroy matches a brand’s target audience with premium original IP that is developed, produced, and hyper-targeted to specific audience segments based on exclusive data, tech and audience insights to create original sponsored content. The Problem: For those who don’t know, the old television advertising model was based on a captive audience that would sit…
June 8, 2015
Building Brand On YouTube
YouTube is ten years and old and has quickly become a significant destination for individuals cutting their cable bills in favor of ad and subscription-based digital alternatives. According to Nielson, millennial males watch over two hours of web videos every week. Business Insider compared that YouTube’s gross revenue was not much less than CBS and…
March 30, 2015
A Few Good Podcasts
Podcasts are a fantastic. Here are 5 of my favorites: Innovation Crush: Listen on Soundcloud Chris Denson’s series focuses on innovative people and amazing projects and examines the multiple facets of how innovation works. One of my favorite episodes is with Lee Zlotoff, the creator of the MacGyver series. He explains his creative process and the subconscious…
March 19, 2015
Product Placement For Indie Filmmakers
An Introduction to Product Placement: The 2004 documentary “The Corporation” has a segment about real life product placements that companies pay for (such as people paid to talk loudly in public about a song they just heard or a product they just tried like in “The Truman Show”), which I think is a scary extreme…
November 13, 2014
HERO Racing 2014 Baja
We are proud to share the news that the HERO Racing team came from behind to win the 17th Rigid Industries SCORE Desert Challenge recently, and are one of three teams in all classes to be undefeated all season! The HERO team dedicated this past race to Kionte Storey, a wounded marine who received a…
September 13, 2014
Polar Blades & End of Babes
Our friend Jimmy Marble recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance two short films: Polar Blades and End of Babes. Perhaps you’ve seen Jimmy’s PSA’s on our site before or follow his other work, and if not you should check them out. Jimmy is trying to raise 25k in the next 20 days and I…
August 4, 2014
Sister – Behind the Scenes
SISTER, a film about ADHD being over diagnosed and over-medicated in our culture, premiered this year at the Tribeca Film Festival and played two sold out shows this weekend at the Traverse City Film Festival. Michigan native film-maker Michael Moore introduced the film, which was runner up as the audience award for Best American Film…
July 31, 2014
Keith Musil – She Keeps Bees
Corduroy friend Keith Musil recently directed the below video “Is What It Is” for She Keeps Bees from their upcoming album Eight Houses. Keith’s work is always a little surreal and very stylish. He is from the suburbs of Chicago and his commercial work includes clients such as HP, Ford & Fox. Keith is currently…
March 13, 2014
HERO Racing Success in San Felipe
Awesome news out of the 2014 San Felipe 250 that our friends at HERO Racing took first place in the 40 Pro Class and first place in the 50 pro class. More importantly, they were able to raise enough money to buy another prosthetic for a wounded marine — making it their 6th prosthetic donated…
February 17, 2014
Roxine Helberg
Roxine Helberg is an incredibly talented artist with a unique and visceral style working and living in Los Angeles as a commercial and film director. Her work has been featured in publications such as Vanity Fair and Glamour Magazine. Before moving west, Roxine was raised in Israel, France, Belgium and Italy. She studied at NYU’s…
January 12, 2014
Nipples on Facebook
Since we last wrote about actress/writer/director Lina Esco’s new film, “Free The Nipple” there have been a few developments worth sharing. First, Miley Cyrus tweeted @freethenipple with the below photos pushing for gender equality, which was a surprising but much needed shot in the arm for the film’s reach. In the following storm of traffic…
January 11, 2014
This May Be The Last Time
The below trailer for “This May Be The Last Time” was just released in advance of next week’s premier at the Sundance film festival. The film is a documentary about America’s first music, focused on the ethnomusicology of Native American hymns once sung during the trail of tears, and sung again when Director Sterlin Harjo’s…
November 24, 2013
All Visual LA
The ALL Visual Los Angeles slideshows are curated and hosted by Henry Diltz and Dola Baroni. This past Thursday was the two year anniversary of the monthly slideshow and as always there was interesting work and a good crowd here at The Forge. As next month there will not be an AVLA event I thought…
November 18, 2013
Privacy in a Digital Age
As the clip above from South Park illustrates, we’re a society that freely shares a lot of our information publicly while (occasionally) pointing out that we should be entitled to a certain amount of privacy. Whether snooping is being done by governments, corporations, or individual hackers (or all of the above), there is a wealth…
November 12, 2013
Free The Nipple – Teaser
A new independent film on #freethenipple movement is coming soon by a friend of ours – writer, director and actress Lina Esco – about something I think we should all be able to rally behind. The cause is near and dear to her heart, and is a basic question she poses about the social norms that govern…
November 4, 2013
Derek Wood
Derek Wood is a professional photographer based in Los Angeles, CA and often shooting in studio at the Forge. Originally from Maine, Derek mostly shoots fashion work and is a regular contributor for Zooey Magazine. Check out his website for more of his work.
October 24, 2013
Dead Hello Crowdfunding
As I wrote about previously, our friend Callin Passero is in the midst of releasing new tracks from his solo project “Dead Hello” (some of which are linked below) and has just announced the launch of an Indiegogo campaign to enable him to finish recording the album in studio. The perks include a signed guitar,…
October 18, 2013
Forge LA Halloween Party
The annual Forge Halloween party is set to kick off next Saturday, October 26th around 9pm. I wrote about last year’s Halloween party and Indiegogo fundraiser, and have been helping set up the event for the past few years so I wanted to write a post letting people in the Los Angeles area know about…
October 17, 2013
FOUND Magazine Release Party
Davy Rothbart is a very cool and interesting guy. He’s the founder/editor of FOUND Magazine, a publication that collects found writings. He’s also an author, film-maker and contributor on NPR’s “This American Life”. Davy recently finished a documentary about a high school basketball team from Medora, Indiana, called “Medora”, which has been making its way…
October 12, 2013
Picking a Good Domain Name
One of the most important elements of starting a new business is obviously choosing an appropriate name for the company. When buying a domain name for a new business, many people like to see how much traffic the domain is already getting. However, this is not an indication of how successful your online business will…
September 13, 2013
Adi Goodrich
Adi Goodrich is an awesome art director and set designer based out of Los Angeles and one half of the team behind the JIMMYnAdi PSA’s we wrote about here previously (that were created to “motivate and inspire the creative minded people in our community”). Her work is extremely colorful, imaginative and always handmade, and you…
September 1, 2013
Intro to Instagram for Brands
When Twitter first became popular it created a list of suggested users for new accounts to follow (one of whom was comedian BJ Mendelson, who wrote about this in his book SOCIAL MEDIA IS BULLSHIT and I briefly talked about it in my counter – SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT BULLSHIT) — essentially this list caused…
August 12, 2013
Tino Schaedler
Tino Schaedler is a production designer, art director and architect from Berlin currently working in Los Angeles. He has worked on everything from big budget commercials and feature films such as Harry Potter and V For Vendetta, as well as work in other mediums and smaller collaborations in architecture, film and photo projects. Below are…
July 12, 2013
Intro to Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization: In a nutshell, SEO breaks into three categories: site-wide, on-page and off-page. Site-wide, as you may imagine, consists of coding issues on the site. On-page consists of text on the site all being keyword focused (global nav, titles, headers, tags, etc). Off-page consists of links to your site (from other sites and…
June 10, 2013
Get A Free Online Education
The below list are all things I use with my iPad, but you could just as easily use a phone, desktop or Google Glass for your education, I just like the size and ease of the iPad. Also, while I have spent time on pay sites like Lynda and in college had access to sites…
June 3, 2013
Hiring Guest Instagrammers For Brands
Today most everyone in the western world has a smart phone in their pocket with a higher quality camera lens than most consumer cameras have ever had, and that combined with the interconnectivity of these devices means that photos and videos are now being shared at a rate never before imagined. This has many positive…
May 1, 2013
Kurt Braunohler’s Cloud Project
Crowdfunding has really become a major point of origin for creative projects over the past few years (see more of our thoughts on crowdfunding here). We’ve seen the public fund good causes, creative ideas, and support their friends. Comedian Kurt Braunohler set out on a Kickstarter endeavor of his own, to make the world a…
April 22, 2013
7 Key Elements of Successful Brands
Recently I was privileged to co-host an event with guest speaker Tom White of 3DI2. Tom gave a presentation about what he considers the key elements of mega-selling brands, so I’ve decided to share a brief breakdown below along with some of my thoughts for how all of these lessons and key elements from today’s…
March 2, 2013
What Is The Forge
Late last night (Friday March 1, 2013), The Forge met its fundraising goal of 60,000 dollars right as the clock ran out on their campaign. You’ll remember from my past blog posts that the fundraiser was launched in conjunction with the 2012 Halloween party, which gave some much needed momentum to the campaign from the…
February 17, 2013
On Fixing Internet Comments
INTERNET COMMENTS: Once everyone has a voice, what can you do to stop hearing all but the ones who agree with you? After all, not everyone has something constructive, informed or agreeable to say on all matters (such being the cause of most bullshitting), and things now are often put in writing that otherwise may…
February 13, 2013
Keep Denver Beard
My brother and our sometimes graphic/motion designer, Aaron Pettijohn, just put out a new design called “Keep Denver Beard” on CafePress that’s pretty sweet, if you’re in need of some new threads; it is also soon to be available at the I Heart Denver store. Photo by IndyInk
January 22, 2013
Like Knows Like
“Like Knows Like” Meaning? One might also apply the phrase in ethics without referring to other minds (divine or otherwise), to mean “being good enables or helps one to know the good”. The idea that virtue somehow illuminates moral truth suggests that more virtuous people have a greater ability to know moral truth. – Wiki…
December 30, 2012
OTG Wins Award For iPad Deployment
Corduroy client OTG Management has had a terrific year in 2012, capping it all off with a slew of more positive press about the company this month. According to the first ever Moodies Awards, OTG has definitively employed the best use of digital media in an airport concourse overall. The OTG Facebook page also received…
December 17, 2012
Creative Inspiration as a Public Service
“Be Cool” is the latest in an ongoing series of public service announcements of creative inspiration by local LA artists and friends of Corduroy: Jimmy Marble and Adi Goodrich, now dubbed as creative duo “JIMMYnADI”. So far, the PSA’s have been well received, having premiered them each at the All Visual LA Slideshow (event…
December 12, 2012
Introduction to Crowdfunding
Wendell Berry once wrote of “modern salesmanship and modern technology” that it was “yet another way to make people pay dearly for what they already have”. Crowdfunding seems to be an example of technology finally giving something to the little guy that he never had access to before in terms of venture capitol and investment….
October 31, 2012
Forge Halloween & Indiegogo
The Forge LA photo studio and creative space was born in 2008 when Dan Busta and brothers Ryan and Collins Schude took over the building’s lease just north of downtown LA (near Chinatown, where the 5 meets the 110 freeway). The building has since gone on to see various build-outs and upgrades paid for out…
October 31, 2012
Instagram Contest Serves Hungry Travelers
This fall, Corduroy set out to build a presence on Instagram for OTG Management, an award-winning airport food & beverage operator with more than 150 restaurants and eateries in ten airports. OTG Management is responsible for the largest iPad deployment in a public space, providing free access to iPads for travelers in airports and the…
October 28, 2012
Lauren Randolph
Lauren Randolph ( @laurenlemon ) is an all around awesome photographer from Reno, NV now living and shooting in Los Angeles, CA. She has done incredible work for ad campaigns large and small, and took the photo of me for my bio page. She’s also worked with us on some Instagram campaigns we’ll blog about…
September 15, 2012
Social Media is Not Bullshit
BJ Mendelson’s new book, “Social Media is Bullshit” claims that the buzz surrounding social media is overblown and uses semantic arguments, case studies, and his own experiences to make that case. At the heart of this book is a counterintuitive soapbox for furthering the direction in which the web and capitalism are both already headed….
July 31, 2012
Ryan Schude
Ryan Schude is a friend, neighbor, and incredibly talented artist. He’s from Chicago originally and now lives and works at The Forge with Dan Busta and his brother Collins. Here’s just a few of his photos, but you can see more on Ryan Schude’s Website
July 19, 2012
Leonardo Lawrence
Leonardo Lawrence is a talented young artist living in Southern California. I thought we should give him a shout out on here, since his work is awesome, and he drew the Corduroy dog for us based on our mascot Charlie Bronson. You can follow him at @sad_poisoned_nice_guy on Instagram. Check out more of his stuff…
July 17, 2012
Jumboltron
Walking around most cities in the US – it is common now to see most people you pass staring down texting, tweeting or just gawking at their smart phones. Sometimes you may even notice this while stopped at an intersection when looking around at the cars around you only to find the drivers all smiling…