Expedient MEANS

Notes on Film, Art, Writing, Technology and other things by Steve A Furman

  • Sizing your Social Media Audience

    Forrester Research publishes and tracks a social engagement “Ladder of Participation.”  It’s a framework, based on consumer research, for categorizing users of Social Media by activity and age. This construct has some longevity and I would recommend you spend some time with it. But companies already have their own ways to segment customers or identify Read more

  • Will the Next Agency be the Client?

    I’ve worked with agencies nearly all my professional life. Big, small, east coast, west coast, midwest, south, you name the region, I’ve worked with a company based there. Always thought I should switch sides at least once in my career and work for one, but so far the opportunity hasn’t presented itself. Perhaps someday it Read more

  • Monsters vs. Aliens – Film Review

    A snowy, spring day in Chicago seems like a perfect time to catch a flick. Have been waiting anxiously for the Dreamworks Animation production of Monsters vs. Aliens since I read about it over a year ago. Maybe it was the fact that my expectations were too high, but I was disappointed with the experience. Read more

  • Sunshine Cleaning – Film Review

      Spring is typically drought time for Holllywood. It’s post-Oscar so studios are trying to squeeze as much out of their winners as possible, and pre-summertime, when the majority of box office is earned. So if you find yourself with a few free hours on your hands you probably don’t have the title of a Read more

  • Kosmix.com – Table of Contents for the Web

    My roots are in books. I ran a chain of retail bookstores in the ’80’s, became a buyer at a wholesaler responsible for making fiction and non-fiction merchandising decisions for dozens of national chains, and eventually evolved to publishing. As the web emerged one of the obvious shortcomings I observed was when you landed on Read more

  • All the News That’s Fit to Digitize

    There is a precipitous drop in printed newspaper readership. Digital media delivers the same information more quickly, more efficiently and of course in an interactive manner that paper can’t touch. But touch is an important distinction. You can touch a newspaper. How many of us love to wake up Sunday morning and reach for a Read more