• Is AutoCorrect Destroying the English Language?

    You’ve seen them. Typos and strange words in the New York Times, in the Wall Street Journal, and Politico. These are all publications that should know better. Yet nonetheless, sprouting like weeds, they’re there. Sentences that have an odd ring, Word choices that don’t fit. What’s going on here?

  • The Grammar of Google: From Keywords to Conversations

    Google’s somewhat muted announcement of a major upgrade to its search algorithm, named “Hummingbird,” is a much bigger deal than it looks, and much more of a milestone in our relationship to computing than we might think. So what’s going on here?

  • Seven Branding Lessons from iOS 7

    Now that the pixels have settled a bit on the iOS 7 release (which, despite some early detractors, is turning out to be one of the more successful releases in the company’s history), let’s look at what all this signifies about Apple as a brand, and what branding lessons we can take away from the…

  • The Funny Language of Branding

    As with all disciplines, brand strategy comes with its own set of largely agreed-upon vocabulary. From positioning to messaging, values and benefits, the conversation is guided by a set of understandings of the key elements of a successful brand program, and how they should be worded. But what are we really talking about?

  • BlackBerry’s Demise: The End of the Beginning of the Era of Mobile?

    Finding my old Palm Pilot in a kitchen drawer led me to ponder how brands can fade away. Is BlackBerry, the formerly ubiquitous mobile business tool (and iconic case study for naming–thank you, Lexicon!), finally a victim of its own early popularity? It’s hard to say the word now without thinking of pleated khakis, PDAs…