Millennials and the younger end of Generation X are rapidly taking over the bulk of the work force, and with that comes change. They stay at jobs for shorter periods (one Deloitte study says a hire under the age of 34 might stick around for three years) and each time they move gunning for higher positions and more leadership. Those are the jobs the older Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are currently holding and trying to retain due to increased costs of living requiring later retir

This is the latest in a series of blogs on what we at Present Tense LLC call a “Master Story”. In this installment, Elana Duffy examines how the Master Story can help your company find its true identity, and then communicate it to each other and to your market. Read the first and second parts of the series on our blog. Action is the key to any business. Whether it is signing a contract, buying a retail product, or filling out a user survey, you are looking for someone to take

- Elana Duffy Serve your customers well and they will serve you in return. That concept sounds so easy, right? Two run-ins lately have made we wonder whether some companies care at all about customers or what their customers think. Delayed packages. Rude employees. Double charges on credit cards that take 53 minutes to resolve on the phone. And of course, it is always our fault, not theirs, as if we should diligently plan for every possible way they can let us down. In 2015,

- Frank Luby Two of the most frightening business headlines over the last three weeks both involved the state of California and a couple of guys named Cook. Benjamin Cook, a NASA scientist, co-authored a new study which claims that the western part of the United States will face its worst drought in 1,000 years, worse than anyone has previously expected. Fellow NASA scientist Tom Painter warned that "Water demand has passed supply in some areas. Throwing 30 years of drought o

- Paul Mooney Let me begin by directing you to the earlier post from Present Tense partner Elana Duffy highlighting the good business sense to be taken from Joseph Heller's classic novel Catch-22. It inspired me to write a similar article about my favorite novel, but since that's also Catch-22, that was a no-go. And since my second favorite novel is Frank Herbert's epic Dune, I figured I'd choose a different medium as I'm not quite sure how to tie a tale of space witches, sem

We’ve published our first “self-help” ebook on storytelling skills Present Tense LLC is launching a series of ebooks aimed at executives, managers, and others who would like straightforward, simple ways to improve their storytelling skills. The first one has finally hit the ebook shelves: 10/10: How to write business content that is memorable and effective. Now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes and other major platforms, this quick read will help you generate

- Frank Luby An Inc. article this week asked whether Apple could kill the freemium music model when it relaunches Beats Music. It also cited some data and interesting analyses from Venrock’s David Pakman on how much people spend on music. Think about that phrase for a moment: “how much people spend on music”. Music spending and music pricing are third rails that I usually grab eagerly with both hands. Instead of letting those sparks fly again, though, I would like to use the

- Paul Mooney In my last post I covered one of the biggest impediments to creativity in advertising and business: fear. This time I'll be addressing an even more universal hurdle to creative progress: laziness. While it’s certainly not as daunting a word as fear, laziness is an equally pervasive problem. So how do you identify it, prevent it, and stop it? Obviously, laziness is a pretty broad term widely used to describe personal faults. Lazy people or groups of people are, b

- Paul Mooney When was the last time you saw a television commercial that really made you laugh or, even less likely, positively affected your feelings towards a product? If you can actually recall that happening, I imagine the experience was so extraordinary that the ad in question springs immediately to mind. Most of the time, we either ignore ads or spend the time on something more interesting and less annoying, such as using the restroom. Ads share the same themes and gim

A story is personal; you don’t want to tell it to a stranger. This post is to provide perspective and information, and ultimately to be a little less of a stranger. This is Lana: Founding Partner, Writer, Editor, Engineer The best stories are ones to which the receiver can connect. Be it that they are told with passion, that they create a vivid picture, and in such a way that the storyteller’s voice can be heard. I am going to tell you a bit about me, and hope that through th

The world is full of great ideas and great stories no one knows about. A few of them are probably in your head right now. Our mission at Present Tense LLC is to get those ideas and stories out of your head and into something your customers, fans, or friends will want to read. The goal is to get those ideas out now, not when you “find the time”, because that will never happen. We are a team of multi-taskers, and we know you are, too. Between managing your people, developing yo