• Ready, Set, Goals!

    February 02, 2015

    A little over a year ago, Forbes published an article entitled “Can In-House Agencies Ever Be Great?” Now, I’m not one to obsess over things (or maybe I am…), but that question and the assortment of editorials that followed debating both sides really stuck with me.

    One of the things I see in-house …

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  • Better Than Sliced Bread

    September 17, 2014

    What did we ever do without BrandMaker? BrandMaker is the marketing resource management tool that our in-house agency uses to automate project workflow. Looking back at the jobs we used to outline on scraps of paper and the index card boxes full of projects at every stage of completion, it’s hard …

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  • Collaborating on Creative Reviews

    September 15, 2014

    There are lots of challenges that go along with project workflow, particularly during the creative review and approval process. Oftentimes creative content is reviewed by a group, not a single individual. And groups of reviewers tend to have different perspectives on how content should be revised, …

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  • A View from the Top

    September 08, 2014

    Workflow. Look it up on dictionary.com. It’s defined as “the flow or amount of work to and from an office, department or employee.” Scroll down on the page and you’ll also see it used in a sentence: “But even after years of practice and experimentation, her workflow remains breathtakingly …

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  • Licensed to Drive

    September 02, 2014

    There’s this terrific quote from the book Slammed by Colleen Hoover that goes: “As I make a final right-hand turn onto our street, my GPS informs me that I've reached my destination. ‘My destination,’ I laugh aloud to myself. My GPS doesn't know squat!”

    This month at IHAF, agency workflow and …

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  • Seizing Opportunities for Improvement

    February 24, 2014

    Seven months ago, I was given the opportunity to lead the Corporate Marketing team at Nationwide. Prior to this, I served as CMO of our Property & Casualty business unit and most recently, led of our Financial Services marketing team.

    Now that I’m on the “other side of the desk,” there are …

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  • Meet Two New Board Members

    February 17, 2014

    This month, IHAF is exploring the topic of Operational Excellence and what it means to in-house agencies. As part of this series, I asked the two newest members of IHAF’s Board of Directors, Mark Gibson, Assistant VP of Creative Services at State Farm and Wayne Barringer, Director of Creative …

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  • Do You Want it Fast, Cheap or Good?

    February 10, 2014

    We may be witnessing a harmonic convergence of sorts in the name of operational excellence. While the inclination for any business may be to try to do as much as it can with the resources it has on hand, that’s not always effective. Sooner or later, what seems like the fastest, easiest path to …

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  • Operational Excellence: It’s How We Do It

    February 03, 2014

    Some years ago I had the privilege of attending an industry event that included CFOs from top-shelf advertising agencies. At the time, I had been in my current role for a short time. I was eagerly seeking nuggets of wisdom that I could apply to the day-to-day operation of the in-house agency for …

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