Geoffrey Rowan

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Posts: Geoffrey Rowan

Geoff Rowan is a recovering journalist, an occasional cigar smoker (outdoors in the summer), a current affairs junkie, wishes he was a stand-up comedian and shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, and loves a well-told story. He is responsible for assembling the best team of communication professionals in Canada, and thinks there is a quote from “The Anchorman” that is appropriate for just about any situation. “They’ve done studies, you know. 60 per cent of the time it works, every time.”

The Trouble with Good Old Sex

by Geoffrey Rowan| May 19, 2015

Marketers have a sex problem. They slather it liberally onto any brand surface where it might stick – the ultimate consumption aphrodisiac. No one gets fired from a marketing job for saying, “sex sells.” But at the same time, they ignore or alienate the source of half of all U.S. household spending because sexy older […]

The World’s Toughest Anti-Spam Law and You: No More Mr. Nice Canuck

by Geoffrey Rowan| June 5, 2014

The caricature of a typical Canadian is hockey-mad and polite to a fault, but that image – true or not – may change when the world’s toughest anti-spam law comes into effect in Canada on July 1. No more Mr. Nice Canuck. The relationship between Canada and the U.S. has been so cozy for so […]

What if “Internet of Things” Doesn’t Include the Privacy Thing?

by Geoffrey Rowan| January 28, 2014

We all got a glimpse of a smarter if not better future at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month in the Nevada desert. Smart cars, smart watches, smart TVs and refrigerators, smart washers and dryers, smart baby clothes, and every other manner of smart device. The problem, as we mark Data Privacy Day today […]

If You Won’t Risk Failing, You’ll Never Create

by Geoffrey Rowan| May 13, 2013

Years ago, I savored the nightly ritual of putting my kids to bed. Packing their freshly bathed and powdered pink limbs into fuzzy, warm sleepers; reading, re-reading and re-reading again the stack of children’s books by the rocking chair, and saying good night to the menagerie of stuffed characters who inhabited the bed with them.

Ice and Whisky: There’s Much to Learn from Century-Old Stories from the South Pole

by Geoffrey Rowan| February 21, 2012

Harvard B School Prof. shows how polar explorers’ world looked like our “new normal” The South Pole has never seen so much traffic, 100 years after Norway’s Roald Amundsen and Britain’s Robert Scott famously (and tragically for Scott) raced to get there first. A steady stream of tourists are making their way to the deep, […]

Occupy Wall Street: You Say You Want a Revolution

by Geoffrey Rowan| November 4, 2011

Changing the world is a messy business, and for the Occupy Wall Street groups camped out in parks and squares around the world, it’s also a cold, damp one. But it can be done. There’s even a pretty good formula for figuring out whether beating a drum and sleeping on the ground is likely to provoke […]