Heading into Year 12
My blog is becoming a teenager. Starting in 2021, the blog is 12 years old. Nearly 1,100 blogs later, the journey seems to just be starting.
Birthday candles celebrating 12th birthday
New technologies are changing how we communicate. New viruses will change how we relate to one another. From climate change to the new economy, we will be challenged in ways we’ve never imagined.
I’m hopeful during this holiday season. You can’t blog this long about marketing and not be optimistic. Each new change has brought incredible opportunity to do things better and more relevant.
However, heading into my teenage blogging years, I do wonder if artificial intelligence will be a force for good or bad. The more I read, the more excited I am, but the more frightened as well. I do look forward to covering how AI will change marketing forever in the coming years.
We know the teenage years can be troubling, but they are also the years of growth refinement. Cheers.
Blog note: This is the last blog of 2020. There are times when readership is extremely low, and this is the lowest time. The weeks surrounding holidays always have low readership, so I’ll take a break until mid-January. Thank you for reading.
Mark Mathis III is chief creative & strategy officer, partner and cofounder of AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
