Learning from "The First 20 Hours" a Book About Starting

Can you learn a complicated (or simple) programming language in 20 hours? Josh Kaufman says YOU CAN

It may sound a little ridiculous, but we have seen these claims from all kind of books and "guru" trainers: "buy the book: 'Learn [fill in the blank] in 24 Hours', and you will be wealthy, healty, and SMART!" A quick search on Amazon for "learn 24 hours" gives the result: 

1,389 results for "learn 24 hours"

 It starts out with "the Bible" (yes you can learn this classic tomb), to programming a dozen languages and many more technology topics (SAP, SQL, Microsoft Excel and Office, etc.), all the way to piano and guitar, and finally, French, Spanish, and Chinese. So what's the problem with internet or content marketing? or copywriting and graphic design for the web? You could learn anything in 24 hours, do it in a week or two, get a blog or site up and going in a few more weeks, and be happy, healthy, and wealthy. 

Are Branded (Luxury) Marketing Methods More Effective?

Seth Godin predicts the end of luxury brands as the digital age moves to content, agree?

In a post about marketing style, Seth Godin wrote a post on the effectiveness in the digital age. Essentially he notices how digital channels are making branding of luxury items different. Maybe even "worth less"!

The question is actually:

How are branded (luxury) marketing product's efforts more effective than (traditional) content marketing? 

The question is simple. It's been with us for hundreds years. Yet today we still see emphasis by business marketing using branding instead of content. Branding, or luxury marketing according to Godin has been the money machine of the last 50 years:

It's this selling of the logo, of Hermes or Chanel or Champagne that made the last fifty years of luxury production such an extraordinary opportunity.

All Work and No Play: After the Design and AdWords

When first evaluating content creation, especially as an outsourced service, the process seems like "real work" / you are "getting it" (sarcastically saying) / Jean-François Millet- TheGleaners

This month I started looking for new "serious" customers. "Serious" customers are ones which not only need my services, but also actually benefit immediately. This may mean getting business right away (i.e. at Tikal Networks), or getting attention or a unique advantage over competitors (i.e. SolidRun). The process is simple: I contact a CEO or marketing director, they tell me what they need, I pitch an idea and sometimes write a short proposal or sample. Then we are off to the races. If the CEO is not sure how unique content, targeted at his market will help, they will usually ask the "hard questions". Which means, answering about the same questions every time (after 7 years this is normal), and showing some examples. Either this works or it doesn't. If the initial screening process works, then comes the real shock: "oh this is real work! I tried this before and it has not really worked for me!" This may sound sarcastic, but believe me, it is not.