I love TED Talks. They have such a great format for packing a really interesting phenomenon, observation, or story into ~15 minutes of focused narrative. Giving one myself — even an independent TEDx Talk — has long been something I’ve aspired to. And so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to do so at TEDx Boca Raton earlier this fall with a presentation on how Everyone is a Software Developer now. Here’s my attempt …

The explosion of code — and “no code” — in marketing and martech, presented at TEDx Boca Raton Continue Reading »

Last month, I declared that the 10-years war between marketing and IT was over. This was in response to Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020 that showed a remarkable reversal in the relationship: IT went from being one of the “top inhibitors” to marketing’s vision and strategy to being a “top supporter.” Actually, IT vaulted into first place as now the very top supporter of marketing. This week, Gartner shared their new Marketing Technology Survey 2019 …

Martech collaboration between marketing and IT, and the real impediments to martech success Continue Reading »

About a month ago, I received an odd comment on my blog, “Martec’s Law was quoted by the Portuguese navy with respect to asymmetrical warfare. It is definitely a law now.” Huh? That mandated an immediate Google search. Sure enough, Martec’s Law had just appeared in Jane’s Defense Weekly — what AdAge is to marketers, Jane’s is to defense industry professionals — in the article, Portuguese Navy reveals existence of “tech guerrilla” unit. (Ironically under …

What do martech and the Portuguese navy have in common? Continue Reading »

There are notable inflection points in the history of martech where you simply have to pause and say, “Wow, the world sure has changed.” Crossing more than 1,000 solutions on the marketing technology landscape in 2014 was one. Digital ad spend surpassing traditional ad spend earlier this year was another. And now here’s a big one: “shadow IT” is going from bad to good — even in the eyes of IT. Shadow IT is coming …

A martech milestone: IT leaders embrace the upside of “shadow IT” Continue Reading »

I was reading Gartner’s latest CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020 — spoiler alert: average marketing budgets have fallen to 10.5% of company revenue and the percentage of the marketing budget dedicated to martech slipped from 29% to 26% — when something truly remarkable popped out at me. On page 20, Gartner included the chart at the top of this post, listing CMOs top supporters and top inhibitors. The IT Organization was the top of the top …

The 10-years war between marketing and IT is over Continue Reading »