Buzzwords like "big data" and "data-driven marketing" could make you believe that marketing leadership has been taken over by robots -- logical and dispassionate. To be sure, data and science are foundational and should form a marketing framework. But what about feelings? According to a growing body of neurological science, emotional impulses should not be ignored in business situations.

Despite the growth of its tech companies, New York is still largely Mediatown. Seventy percent of all U.S. advertising is still bought and sold here. There are at least 10 things that make New York's media industry great, including:

The finest book I've ever read on how to behave on social media was first published in 1936. It covers everything: customer relationships, brand management, engagement, outreach, and more. Of course, it wasn't meant to address these topics. It simply couldn't help itself. The book is "How To Win Friends And Influence People," by Dale Carnegie.

Last month I addressed a room filled with some of the country's most elite marketers at an ANA Digital and Social Media conference. I spoke about innovation -- specifically, experimenting with early stage startups across the entire innovation continuum (digital, social, mobile, emerging.) To that endI challenged the audience to iproject themselves to Dec. 31, 2013. I asked them what they accomplished in the 6 months between "now" and "then." What one new thing did they implement or execute? What did they do differently? What truly original, creative, disruptive and/or innovative act did they perform?

"I want to be where everybody knows my name. And they're always glad I came..." Not only is this the paraphrased refrain from one of the greatest television shows of all time, but it's also the basis for great customer service.

Remember the analog wristwatch? Thanks to the smartphone, I stopped wearing a wristwatch regularly many years ago. With the dominance of smartphones as timekeepers and growing excitement about smartwatches, now is an excellent time to rediscover the benefits and precision of analog wristwatches for doing their core job: simply, telling time.

It's true that millions of dollars of investment have been poured into companies that were not ready to deliver on the growth that they promised. The result has been that some founders have gotten the axe -- and, in the worst-case scenarios, companies have been shut down. There are a number of reasons for this, including:

Pino yawned, removed his Samsung Visions S3, and rubbed his eyes. It was well past midnight and his code was starting to blur. "Time to go home," he said. From the desk, faintly, he could hear the Visions respond: "Would you like me to hail you a cab?" He sighed and put them back on. "No, Petra. I think I'll walk."

The top trend of the day in the start-up world is sharing. You can share cabs, town cars, your house or apartment, the tools in your garage and just about everything else that you own. From AirBNB to Uber to Lyft and any number of other hot tech companies -- it's a sharing economy. It got me thinking: Do you think media could be shared?

Are you considering a deep professional commitment to someone? A potential hire? A new boss or employer? An agency? A business partner? An investor? It's fine to review provided references. It's also good to review published recommendations on LinkedIn or other venues of reputation arbitration. They're better than nothing, and often reflect reality, though to varying extents. Because everyone has gotten into the game of reputation management, you have to work harder to surface truth.