As carriers look to replace declining voice and data revenues, the concept of mobile bloatware is once again making an appearance. At a time when switching costs are virtually non-existent, can carriers and brands afford to irritate their customers?

Your personal brand can be defined through 3 key elements – your niche (your professional focus or passion), your voice (how you communicate and express yourself) and your story (what made you the person you are) - each of which has its own set of three defining attributes. Defining your brand takes both a dispassionate self-assessment and trust in those who know you well in order to dig under the surface to identify and assimilate your defining attributes into a cohesive personal brand.

As a society we’ve hidden ourselves behind television sets and social media feeds. Forgetting that what we were seeing and actually participating in was just a show – an illusion made for public consumption but never meant to be taken literally. Unfortunately the illusion has become reality and the effects of this will be far-reaching and long lasting.

The Dreamer's Disease, a narcotic like state that infects all entrepreneurs. How have founders managed this, in order to further their businesses.

Has political correctness and the networks insatiable appetite for cop drama and soft porn killed “appointment TV”? How ABC is bringing back family comedies that aren’t shy of addressing important topics in an informative, heartfelt and funny manner.

My latest blog post where I look at the growing gap in accountability among startups and early leaders.

I've talked previously about the growing basic human need to remove ourselves at times from social media’s public stage; and our search for new apps that will offer us a means to express ourselves freely and without regret. However our partial escape from the theater of Facebook and Twitter to what we hoped was a new digital oasis in apps like Snapchat and Secret has turned out to be a mirage. Huge and glimmering, they and others like them have failed to keep us or our moments private and safe.

If Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the stage, then apps like Snapchat, Wickr and Confide are the new digital oasis. Places that move us from being public performers, to just being our true selves. These apps and others like them have the ability to remove the “documentary pressure” of the web and turn it back into a regular method of conversation – one that is unavailable for third parties to hear, dissect or disseminate.

Read any employee review on Glassdoor.com or elsewhere and you’ll undoubtedly see a consistent refrain from current and former employees to management – “Be More Transparent.” You’ll also hear the same thing from advisory and corporate boards, albeit a bit more pointed: “Give us the full story damnit!”

The traits that make up what I call the “Creator Gene” are many and varied. A tendency toward natural leadership, a disregard for tradition, a willingness to fail, excessive self-motivation, competitiveness, and a deep, deep curiosity – all bound together by a little OCD.

I’ve written previously on new technologies or services in the content distribution space that scream about how disruptive they are, the new found efficiency they bring, or my personal favorite – the “democratization” of content they unleash. Unfortunately, when you strip away the made-for-TechCrunch adjectives, we are (in many cases) simply left with a Rube-Goldberg like contraption built for one thing and one thing only – stealing someone else’s content and monetizing it.

Over the past decade, educators and lawmakers have all sought new and unique ways in which to advance the learning process for students. However, they have failed to approach the problem from the perspective of the student or taken real advantage of technology and how content is and will be consumed.

There is no greater challenge than turning around a business. Ask any leader who has been in this position – from Meg Whitman to Jack Welch – and they will tell you it’s an arduous process that if not done correctly can have disastrous consequences for all involved.

Simply put, irrespective of the goals or KPI’s we establish to justify our media spend, changing consumption patterns via social media bear continued examination and media plans require continue fine tuning as these platforms continue their evolution.

Today, as always, agencies are in a state of transformation – moving from simply the art of ad creative and tech driven branding efforts and optimization to one of messaging, engagement and storytelling.

The concept of virtualization at the service provider level is nothing new. We’ve seen this in many instances in the mobile space for example, with Amp’d, Virgin Mobile, Boost and others becoming Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO’s) – albeit with mixed success. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before this trend moved into the cable space.

In my mind, price comparison sites such as Travelzoo and others are likely to benefit handsomely from these increases, which should ultimately be accretive to their public equity. If that ends up being the case, you’ll find me and other like-minded folks standing on the side of the boat. Smiling and waving…

Expectations for 2012 in the technology and digital media spaces have never been higher – even with the backdrop of global economic uncertainty and the less than stellar IPO showings of the industry’s best and brightest.

I recently started using new online music service Senzari and candidly have been pretty impressed. Billed as the new competitor to Pandora, Senzari brings a lot of eye candy, deep social networking ties to Facebook and a whopping catalogue of over 9 million songs – compared to Pandora’s 900,000.

Like a boomerang, brands and the meteoric rise of their proliferation on various social networks to increase reach and engagement – is the appropriate one given the reach social networks have to offer. However, now that they’ve thrown themselves into the social cloud, will it come back to them as they intend?