In today's digital marketing world, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest have become a powerful identity and communications grid that establishes intelligent connections between marketers and their prospects and customers. It is crucial to understand how social connections overlap with your internal prospect and customer databases, how these segments differ, and how they can affect business outcome.

This past weekend I served as an officiant at a wedding for a dear friend from the media industry and his beautiful bride. It was a thrilling and moving experience. As I performed the ceremony, I glanced out into the sea of faces and was struck by how many of the people that mean so much to me are in some way connected to the media industry. Almost every significant relationship that I've formed in the last 10 years is a result, in some way, of working in New York.

I had breakfast recently with a friend from college who is doing very well for himself. His company deals in public utilities. They work all over the world. I asked him his greatest piece of advice. "Our company was doing fine until a few years ago," he replied. "But it really started to go ballistic when we changed the way we structure our contracts. Now we make sure all our contracts bring into alignment the direction and timing of everyone's interests. We all want the project to succeed, because we all get paid when it does. If someone gets a …

I love it when companies innovate new ways to deliver products, and services that can flip legacy business models, products and companies upside down. That's probably why I'm now running my third tech start-up. Roiling markets is the only way to roll.

I hate politics. Politics is like your underwear -- I know you have them on, but I really don't want to see them. This time of the election cycle, and with the advent of social media, politics and political messaging has become close to unbearable.

I've expressed concern over the rapid spread of LCD backlit screens, which disrupt and dominate attention. Lost focus is one negative byproduct of more screens, but they're also a big security threat - especially since so many distributed screens and devices connect online with our unique profiles and require deeply personal information, like Social Security numbers, passwords, credit card numbers and more.