The Agitator

From our Agitator backlist … Happy Holidays! Presidential candidate Bill Richardson is running two of the best political ads ever in Iowa and on YouTube. These spots communicate his experience and record — easily the match (or better) of any other candidate — in a wonderfully ...  Read more

From our Agitator backlist … one of my favorites of all time. Happy Holidays! I apologize in advance to all the international child support agencies whose crucial work on the ground (and direct marketing) I fervently admire. But I can barely pick myself up off the floor after reading this ...  Read more

From our Agitator backlist … Happy Holidays! Richard Conniff in his “Basic Instincts” blog/column at the New York Times propounds the Rule of the Decent Interval. It holds that the value of a good deed decreases in direct proportion to how badly you need the resulting good will ...  Read more

From our Agitator backlist … Happy Holidays! I don't know what this post has to do with anything, but here goes … Just saw a pie chart depicting how New Zealand government was going to spend its 2007 budget, totalling NZ$56.1 billion. A whopping 3%, or NZ$1.7 billion is ...  Read more

To get into a wonderful holiday spirit, listen to this remarkable rendition of Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.AudioPlayer.embed("audioplayer_1 ...  Read more

And we love it! Today she takes a whack at those who complain that there are too many nonprofits out there. (The Agitator confesses to having “fewer is better” days.) Her argument in a nutshell: If our political system was remotely responsive (jabbing her finger in particular at ...  Read more

Claire Kerr thinks her colleagues at Toronto's SickKids Foundation deserve an Agitator raise for making it easier for donors to make tribute gifts online. Here's her story … Hi Agitator ! I was inspired by your ‘You Deserve a Raise’ column to tell you why I think a group of ...  Read more

Thanks to Ann Handley at Marketing Profs for this post about a marvelous piece of creative. Not just creative to please its creator, but an effort to make a routine communication — a mundane one in the hands of most marketers — both stand out and trigger an emotional connection. What ...  Read more

Marketing Sherpa has done another of its Benchmark Guides, this one on Email Marketing. An executive summary gives a preview of what over 1,000 email marketers are doing, and what's working for them. But the serious comparative data comes with a price tag … $347 plus S&H. If I ...  Read more

Here are ten principles to consider as you go about defining and communicating your brand. Offered by marketer Max Kalehoff, they distill neatly what others take books to say. As a nonprofiteer, whether you think of your organization as being in the brand-building business or not, you are ...  Read more