More and more, our jobs as marketers are to drive behavior. Sometimes that’s getting folks to buy something or more of something. Sometimes its to spend more time or interact with a brand in the hopes that will lead to them thinking about the brand in a moment of need. And more and more often, the behavior we all want is to drive people to advocate.

The best of marketing has always been about behavioral economics and those proven strategies that ‘nudge’ people to buy or take an action. Recently, behavioral science has been popularized and, even advanced, by some pretty smart people.
 

In this madcap world of arts administration, we tend to run on all cylinders at all times. There is a feeling that if we are not moving constantly and working around the clock, we aren’t being successful. But there are great examples of uber-successful people who disconnect in a big way.

Like a lot of organizations, my museum struggles with two conflicting goals:
1.    The museum should be for everyone in our community.
2.    It's impossible for any organization or business to do a great job being for everyone. We're more successful when we target particular communities or audiences and design experiences for them.

How do you reconcile the desire to be inclusive with the practical imperative to target? In the past, I've subscribed to the theory that an organization should target many different groups and types of people to serve a constellation of specific audiences across diverse affinities, needs, and interests.
 

Facebook rules, at least marketing via Facebook is booming. Social Media Marketing on Facebook produces results, builds brands loyalty, and helps define an image. Among several hundred campaigns being run on Facebook, there are few that stand-out and inspire every one of us!

Last July, Google threw an office party. But this being Google — the third largest company in the world as of January — it wasn't really a standard ice-cream-cake-and-canned-beer office party. The event was luau-themed, so the company hired staff to dig big holes in its Mountain View campus' lawn and fit spits inside for the purposes of roasting pigs, according to people who were there. There were tables full of food and drinks scattered around. Also on offer: a sophisticated wave machine so employees could try their hands at surfing — miles away from the ocean.

One year into building our agency, Enso Collaborative, we’ve learned a lot from our clients in Silicon Valley--and a lot of what we’ve learned is antithetical to the traditional advertising agency model and culture. We’ve come to believe if advertising agencies followed the culture and approach of Silicon Valley, then agencies, brands, and people would benefit, so we decided to share what we’re learning.

We’ve identified several key shifts. Among them:

As Urs Fischer stood inside the Geffen Contemporary last month preparing for his big MOCA survey, the museum's much-discussed financial troubles did not seem to be weighing on him.

"I don't care about any of that; I care about art," said the beefy 39-year-old artist in jeans and a long-sleeve black T-shirt, with assorted tattoos snaking up his arms. And he noted that his show has not been shortchanged because of any budget crunch. "Putting on a sculpture show always takes a lot of effort, but we didn't have to compromise much. Whatever compromise was needed, we found a solution."