Everybody's talking about "big data." It's the summer's biggest buzzword. Talk about abstract terms like terabytes and petabytes all you want -- I'm a Ph.D. and I can barely tell you what a petabyte is. But here's one element of big data that should rock the collective world of any publisher. Over the next 24 hours, 10 billion bids will be placed on digital display impressions, according to Quantcast. It's a daunting number. But like any huge number that gets thrown around these days, there's opportunity. In fact, that 10 billion number represents 10 billion opportunities. RTB has a huge …

If you're a content marketer, you know that content calendars are a lot like New Years resolutions: hard to stick to. In fact, both content calendars and resolutions tend to fail for many of the same reasons. Perhaps you committed to a goal that's too big or your support group falls apart. Maybe you just don't know where to begin. Instead of giving up on your content marketing plans, as four out of five people do with their resolutions, make a plan that works for your company.

For publishers wondering how to protect their paying business with Internet pay walls, there is a very interesting lesson in the story of two great American sports. Boxing was as popular as baseball in the 1940s. A. J. Liebling, the great New Yorker writer, wrote about "The Sweet Science" in the 1956 book called "the greatest sports book ever" by Sports Illustrated. But something happened over the last few decades to keep boxing from growing with the times, while Major League Baseball has built its success through thick and thin.

Question from a salesperson: I won't say that I've been guilty of burying impressions at the bottom of our pages, but I certainly haven't forced everything to the top either. Is the recent news about "viewable impressions" going to help or hurt the business?

True story. After a promotion to vice president of sales at a publicly traded dot-com publishing company, I started attending the weekly executive staff meetings. This executive team was in charge of executing a business plan for a company that made 99% of its revenue from selling advertising, and I was the only person sitting in the room who had ever sold an ad.

For many of us, it's hard to believe change can indeed accelerate, but now it can be said that change is the only constant. Change has been accelerating in how our readers and viewers access our media, and therefore we must change how we publish to our market.

Question from an advertiser: So I have more and more digital sellers asking me for upfront dollars. How do I explain to them that they aren't getting any?

Agencies and publishers are showing more interest in programmatic ad buying and selling based on positive results from early adopters of real-time bidding (RTB). For publishers, RTB is creating more demand and driving up CPMs. Here's why:

Everyone needs water -- and, not that long ago, we used to get it for free. But I'll go out on a limb and guess the last time you quenched your thirst with some refreshing H2O, it wasn't from the tap. Most of us have grown accustomed to purchasing bottled water, whether it's an economy brand or some esoteric brand touting water from the oldest glacier in the world. The bottom line is, we're fueling a billion-dollar industry profiting from something that is essentially free and abundant. This is where publishers can learn a valuable lesson.

I know you have been told by an advertising or media agency; "you don't need to call on the client." They may have even said "the client doesn't see reps," or "you are not allowed to call on the client." So how do you reconcile that with your understanding of the way decisions are made?