The creative director of the future needs a different skill set — he or she will need to come out of the ranks of public relations, social media and interactive digital.

In 2009, there was a terrific documentary on advertising called Art & Copy. It’s an inspirational film that celebrates the most influential creative professionals of the past five decades. And there is something very telling in the title. Most of today’s creative directors rose out of the ranks of art director and copywriter — art and copy. In the era of print, TV and radio, this made perfect sense.

But if, like me, you are one of those creative directors, you may find recent trends to be frightening. Broadcast television ratings have been going down for decades. Newspapers and magazines are struggling to survive. Broadcast radio is competing with iPods and Internet radio. And now, here come the Millennials. This generation is larger than the boomer generation. The oldest of them are entering their 30s. In the next 10 years, they will start to dominate as consumers, employees and clients. Not only do they distrust paid mass media advertising, they’re finding it easier than ever to avoid it completely.Read full post...

Serves 8-12 (party size)

• 1 lb. dried navy beans
• 2 large white onions, chopped
• 3 tbs garlic, chopped
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups half-and-half
• 2 teaspoons Tabasco, or to taste
• 1 tbs chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 2 teaspoons Mexican oregano
• 1 teaspoon aniseed
• 4  4-ounce cans mild green chilies, drained and chopped
• 4 skinless chicken breasts cooked and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 cups grated Monterrey Jack
• 1 cup sour creamRead full post...

“My time is spent fighting insurance companies and doing paperwork instead of caring for patients.”

My father was a family medicine doctor for more than 40 years. Running a single-doctor practice, he wore many hats. Not only did he need to be a healthcare expert, he was also a small-business owner, accountant, HR director and IT person—roles he was never trained for. All while facing the challenges of practicing medicine: malpractice insurance costs, low reimbursements, government regulations and the uncertainty of healthcare reform.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised by what I heard from doctors who left private practice to work in urgent care. Read full post...

The problem isn't "too many clicks" — it's "too many wrong clicks".

On the cartoon show The Jetsons, Jane Jetson is a full-time housewife (although the show was set in the future, it was written in the ’60s). She would push a button, and a robot vacuum cleaner would pop out to clean the rug or mechanical arms would place a fully cooked meal onto the table. That is until, in one episode, she gets “buttonitis” — stress from pushing too many buttons. Ridiculous — or is it?Read full post...