John Shoemaker

It can be a bit intimidating the first time you assign yourself the task “come up with something cool.” How do you tackle this challenge? What’s the first step to making awesome things? Most people know about brainstorming, but many may struggle to describe what this actually looks like. I will attempt to struggle less […]

With nearly two years of real world work experience under my belt, I’ve had my share of ups and downs. Here are 10 things that I’ve learned along the way. Talk is cheap.  Gain the boss’s trust by mastering the little things. This was one of my biggest challenges. I am a very prideful person. […]

When I was in high school, my friends and I had a garage band. We played a lot of classic rock covers but we also had a few originals we felt proud enough of that we decided to record an album and get it copyrighted. Yes, it’s pretty amazing but no, I’m not going to […]

See the Video Below! Let’s talk about budget. Whoops. Things just got awkward. It’s ok. The topic of budget tends to be a difficult one whether you’re a client or a vendor. In the end, I really think it comes down to making sure both parties understand each other. Hence, my frequent use of analogies. […]

There’s a phrase that goes something like, You can’t have one without the other. This is true when it comes to advertisements. Since Halloween is right around the corner, what better way to kickstart the holiday then with a list of the best and worst Halloween Ads!     WORST ADS: Silver Shamrock– Hands down probably […]

It was a cold autumn evening, not unlike this one, roughly ten years ago when five guys met around some pizza to discuss the name for their new film company. After what I’m sure was a good two hours of joking around and getting sidetracked, we attempted to settle on a name. Unfortunately, the winning […]

Picture this: You’re sitting on your couch with your family after a long day at work. Your favorite show just came on and you’re all excited to find out whether Barry is actually going to get together with Iris or if these star-crossed lovers will remain apart forever. After all, Barry is the fastest man […]

Imagine yourself in your pre-teen years. You’ve been dragged along to the grocery store with your Mom as she shops for the school’s Halloween social. You watch in horror as she picks an off-store brand of sugar free, low carb, quarter-sized oatmeal raisin cookies, under 50 calories each. You know it won’t go over well. […]

  What’s that? You hear that, too? The empty void in your comment section. The mockingly limited retweets on your Twitter feed. The deafening silence of engagement on your blog post. You’re not alone. Though we have an established blog, twitter account and other forms of social media, there are times I find myself hearing….nothing. […]

The goal of content marketing is to produce valuable, relevant, and consistent content for your audience. For many marketers, this means a shift in thinking about “what type of media to create” to “what type of media fits the content we’ve created”. Let me explain what I mean. I’ve never heard a screenwriter say, “I […]