So much content, so little time...

A weekly round-up of the themes and posts I found particularly interesting or useful.

A new year brings with it both optimism and reflection. It also unleashes huge amounts of advice. 2013 didn't disappoint, with much advice offered around mobile, the importance of customers, and inevitably, the changing nature of marketing.

Call me, maybe...
If there was one theme around Holiday shopping this year, it was "mobile", as retailers started to wake up to the transformation that these devices will bring over the next few years.

How To Plan For Mobile Commerce Beyond The Holidays served as a reminder for marketers that mobile this Holiday season was just the tip of a very big iceberg, and offered advice on how to navigate the mobile landscape.
5 Lessons Learned in Mobility Marketing: a 2012 Retrospective provided some useful learnings, to help layout a path going forward.
Walmart is Mobile Retailer of the Year offered many good examples of mobile applications, from Walmart and other brands.
While, Retailers: Mobile is for "serving" your users was an essential reminder that mobile is not just another communications tool, but a service provider.

Where the rubber hits the road...
Although it ought to be second nature, several posts felt compelled to remind brands that customers are the lifeblood of their business.

Memo to the CEO: Customers Are the Key to Growth showed how successful companies today are developing new approaches and competencies, to get customers to market and sell for them.
Customers Create Two Kinds Of Value highlighted the need to measure in some way customers' lifetime values, to escape the trap of short-termism, which can damage those lifetime values, and long-term shareholder value.
In Search Of Customer Insight... offered a tried and tested approach to gaining insights from customers. 
While Has the Word "Customer" Lost Its Impact? looked at how some organizations have used different words for "customer", to influence the attitudes and behaviors of employees towards them.

Marketing, schmarketing...
With all the challenges that today's connected world provides for marketing, there was no shortage of advice for 2013. Among them:

Six Things Every CMO Needs To Know In 2013 provided a useful list of must-dos for running a successful marketing organization going forward.
To complement it, 7 Things Marketers Should Stop Doing Today offered a pretty good list of things to stop doing.
While, Is the Marketing Campaign Dead? urged marketers to take a long-term view of their brand, message, and voice, and to start being helpful and interesting.

Finally, Sure, Big Data Is Great. But So Is Intuition. was an excellent reflection on the issues surrounding this most hyped of subjects.

Have a good weekend...