Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make!

Every company that manufactures something is causing some damage either to the soil or water or air. Most companies treat these as externalities. But the growing movement of sustainability calls for companies to internalize these costs. Once companies do this, they will have a strong incentive to reduce their carbon footprint.

When it comes to efficiency and effectiveness, I would always start with effectiveness. I am interested in achieving a certain outcome. Only secondarily do I worry about achieving it as efficiently as possible.

People who lack material wealth, who are poor, won't be very happy. They will be obsessed with meeting their bills at pay day. And people who have an abundance of material goods are often not happy.

The size of the U.S. middle class has been shrinking. Wages have been stagnant. We don't have those factory jobs that paid a living wage and enabled a family to have a home where the wife did not have to work. But we sent our factories abroad and there is no likelihood of getting them back. Equally worrisome is that some managerial jobs and professional jobs (such as lawyers) which support middle class life are threatened by automation.

Too much of the income gains go to too few people, even though all of the stakeholders worked together to make their companies successful. By failing to put enough income into more hands, the GDP grows slower and consumers manage to meet their needs by incurring high levels of debt.

The key to branding, especially for smaller firms, is to focus on a limited number of issue areas and develop superb expertise in those areas.