I'm proud that Traction has been honored to work with some of the world's greatest brands and that publications like iMedia Connection and BtoB Magazine have recognized us as one of the top advertising agencies in the U.S. But what I'm most proud of is that in the last ten years, less than ten employees have ever chosen to leave our agency.

I didn't think it was possible that we could find an infomercial more ridiculous, offensive and as wrong as the one Adam found for Sheet energy strips—until we found this one.

Good taste be damned! Let's drive these bad jokes into the ground until everyone groans. (sorry, I couldn't resist)

You might not realize it, but Tai Chi is a martial art. 

While the movements are practiced slowly so we can internalize proper body mechanics, those movements are the foundation of how Tai Chi can be used in a martial interaction.

Think Ralph Macchio waxing on, waxing off.

Google announced a few weeks back that they were launching a new feature to their Google News product—human beings. Last week, they upped the ante by buying Zagat. 

Have human beings become the next algorithm?

For the past five years, I have practiced tai chi with the disciple of a great master in Beijing. My teacher is very wise.

Of the many lessons I have learned, there are several that I apply to my life in business. So much so, that I've considered writing a book about them. For now, however, I'll begin with a series of blog posts I'm calling Tai Chi for Business.

Every good agency, design house, marketing company or interactive shop does some kind of strategic thinking. Whether they are transparent about it or not, this thinking is integral to creating work that is successful.

Yet so many clients consider outside strategic thinking as "fluff" work that is costly and irrelevant. Oh how wrong they are.

Theo's post on Vaginas in Advertising got more traffic than any other post we ever had on the Traction blog. I thought things couldn't go much farther downhill than that.

I was wrong.

If your job is to manage your company's or your client's Facebook and Twitter feeds, there are a whole new crop of (reasonably priced) tools to help you make smarter decisions about what kind of posts actually work.

This week, I had two friends in the industry show up at Traction to show me a couple of these tools—Doug Schumacher of Zuum Social and Chase McMichaels of InfinGraph.

There has been a growing trend in advertising over the last year that has been a little hard to miss: Vaginas are popping up everywhere. Perhaps some think it is edgy or liberating or educational. Or maybe they believe that referencing them liberally makes ads more current and viable. Anyway you slice it, the vagina is here to stay...

There is "innovation" (i.e. how do we use this new augmented reality technology to create an app where we hold up a sneaker to our web cam and it shows the user running in a marathon?) and there is innovation (i.e. how do we drive our business forward in an unexpected way?).