education Tag

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Former Music Industry Guy… Many marketers get called “rock stars” — though most are more Milli Vanilli than Mick Jagger. Then there’s Bobby Borg, who is literally a rock star in the field…Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + College Grad Still Deciding What He Should Have Majored In; image credit – modification of photo by Jakub Kriz on Unsplash… As much as I love reading and writing, I was just reminded how much I fear and loathe the study of it. Decades ago in high school, I enjoyed discussing The Heart of Darkness and Grapes of Wrath, and hearing the myriad ways we teenagers misused the word “irony.” Then I entered college and slammed into the GREAT FOG BANKRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Marketing Professor; photo by Manuel Cacciatore via Wikimedia Commons… So you’d like to learn more about business but can’t take a class right now. Or maybe the idea of school gives you nightmares about forgetting class until the final exam. (Been there, dreamed that.) No problem. While I teach university courses, I understand the need to learn on your own. So I compiled this business reading list to enlighten, inspire, even entertain. Academic vs Commercial Most of these books are lightRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango & Ph.D.-Program Conscientious Objector; photo by Jonathan Daniels on Unsplash… Lots of dirt being dished about Ph.D. programs these days. Take this amusing quicky critique: “The Illustrated Guide To a Ph.D.” For a more elaborate evisceration, read “The Ph.D. Problem” by Prof. Louis Menand in the November-December 2009 issue of Harvard Magazine. Here’s a quote from that diatribe that bullseyes some of my professors at Harvard and in business school: “Professors are not themselves, for the most part, terribly practical people, andRead More

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango & Hardcore Caffeinated Beverage Addict So Pepsi is skipping the Super Bowl, ending a 23-year run of entertaining ads. Contrary to what the social media cultists would like to believe, Pepsi is not doing so because it prefers social media. (As much as I use social media — including this here blog — I find its cheerleaders to be about as endearing as televangelists on crack.) Indeed, Pepsi will be heavily plugging another of its products, Doritos, so it’s hardly abandoning theRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Guy Who Loves To Question The Answers… Sometimes you look at a chart and it seems clear as day. Then you look closer and that “day” turns into a foggy afternoon at San Francisco Airport with everything completely grounded. For example, check out the above Cato Institute chart of school staffing, spending, and test scores in the U.S. I received this from a Republican (yes, I really have Republican friends) who argued that, “While spending has increased 150% per pupil andRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + PhD Conscientious Objector… Since I love teaching and talking about marketing, friends often ask why I don’t get a PhD. I’ll think about it… and then I stumble upon an example of the actual work perpetrated by PhD’s in my field…Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + No Longer a Young Professor… Dear Young Professor: Congratulations, you’ve been hired by a Top 20 business school… well, it WAS a Top 20 business school, but you know how these things go. So let’s just say, congrats, you’ve got a job with health insurance! But now is no time to rest on your laurels, because first of all, newbie, you have no laurels. You have to earn those. And around here, you accomplish that by getting published…Read More