Is marketing to blame for lack of alignment with sales?

According to Christina Hall, probably more than likely, yes. She makes an efficient case for why and where marketing needs to adjust to align with sales. Decent read and worth going to the fire-hazard hoarder house of content that is Forbes’ website.

Content marketing donnybrook

Marketing Week has instigated a spirited debate about the merits of content marketing, with some big-name brands weighing in and dropping stats. Worth the read, not just for the debate, but because of the little morsels of advice and stats on content marketing sprinkled throughout the article.

Bombardier and Airbus vs. Boeing

We’ve been watching the back-and-forth between Bombardier and Boeing closely as many of our clients are involved in aerospace, but also, wow. Is it just us or is this one of the best shows on TV right now?

First, Boeing won a ruling that dropped duties of 300% on Bombardier’s C Series, then late Monday of this this week, Airbus announced that it bought the majority of shares of the C Series, a move that not only reportedly skirts the 300% tariff, but reverberates throughout the industry.

The Financial Post takes a deeper look at that reverberation here, while CBC was one of the first news outlets on the market reaction — Bombardier shares jumped somewhere around 25 – 26% on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg takes a solid look into Bombardier’s C Series and how it stacks up against Boeing’s offering in the same class-size.

NAFTA talks

This probably goes without saying, but the outcome, and perhaps even the current state of negotiations, will affect many of our clients in North America, specifically our the ones in manufacturing.

Hard to distinguish the signal from the noise on this issue, but we’ve been trying, like really trying, to follow this issue since Trump took office, but… we’re exhausted trying to keep up, truthfully.

Still, important stuff. Round four of NAFTA talks wrapped recently, with the U.S. negotiators coming hard at Canada’s supply management system. Bloomberg has a sober take on it here and also makes this important observation: “Talk of mere Nafta "tweaks" are long gone.”

No kidding.

IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO TRAIN ROBOTS TO FIGHT?

Our answer is a “hard no,” especially given the 8-foot chainsaws, but we will admit that we’re very interested in the engineering side of this little story.