Contributions
— Thought leadership and writings for publications.
2018 Trends Brief
Cultural shifts the 2018 Trends Brief will emerge or continue to shape our behaviors, capture our aspirations and impact industries across culture. These trends represent some of the most important influences in the coming year ahead. Our research took us on a roller-coaster journey where polarization, accelerating technological advancement, and evolving social.
Analyze Your Social Media Activities With Excel
If you don’t have the budget for expensive software, spreadsheets and a little of your time can produce some useful data. In this article I share with small businesses how to analyze the engagement and impact of your social media posts using Excel.
25 Social Media ROI Tips From the Pros
For most businesses, being able to substantiate the allocation of resources into social media is a necessity. But it’s not always easy. Cindy King asked 25 online marketing pros to share their best ROI tips. I contributed #23.
Honorable Mentions
This Agency Recaps the Entire Internet Each Day in One Hour
According to Omnicom’s self-described “next-generation” agency Sparks & Honey, the future of advertising is, quite literally, out of this world. “We’re here to talk about space. It’s been described as the final frontier, the next odyssey,” said the agency’s director of cultural systems Merlin Ward in the session’s opening. The day’s co-moderator added that it’s an area the agency “thought we should pay attention to.”
Holding Company of the Year: Omnicom
MediaPost got a firsthand look at how the system works during one of Sparks & Honey’s recent culture briefings — a daily session in which the agency’s analysts mix it up with advisory board experts and special guests… The agency’s Director of Cultural Systems, Merlin U. Ward, served as a moderator and facilitator, taking cues from the Q platform’s AI-powered prompts and then engaging industry experts to weigh in on the meaning of the trends it identified.
On Trend: The Business of Forecasting the Future
The New York offices of Sparks & Honey are open, embracing, and nonhierarchical. Perimeter walls burst with color–Sparks & Honey’s hallmark hue of fuchsia dominates, but colors often background ideas, and the surfeit of ideas here has rendered the walls a rainbow… Merlin Ward and Ben Grinspan, bespectacled thirtysomethings, stand near the front of the room, readying notes…
New York Real: Daily Culture Briefing Q&A w/ Merlin U Ward
The Daily Culture Briefing is a live discussion on the trends bubbling up in culture over the last 24 to 48 hours. It’s curated and hosted by sparks & honey staff at their in-studio office in NYC. Enjoy this field trip adventure featuring a Q&A session with Daily Culture Briefing host Merlin U Ward!
