The military term "Broken Arrow" defines the point when military calls in all available aircraft to a friendly position that has been overrun by the foe, creating a high probability of "Blue-on-Blue". I think we may have hit that position over the past week with the recent increase in phishing attacks driven by the breach of security at a major ESP.

>What's more valuable, an email address in your database or a Facebook "Like?" Is it better to excel at email marketing or social-media marketing? Pick one: email or social media? Which would you rather have: a click on an email link or a Facebook Like? Maybe people offer these two extreme positions just to get conversations started, but for me, there is no "either-or" about email and social. You can and should include both of the channels as part of your digital marketing and communications strategy.

There is a lot we can learn from the novelist's craft when approaching our own, not the least of which is to think of email as a craft, and not some form of e-manual labor. If we think like writers instead of marketers, we may enjoy a wider audience for our work. Who knows? We may even find ourselves with a bestseller on our hands. So dust off your Hermes 3000, crack your knuckles, and let's create a real page-turner: