The comfort and challenges of running a family-owned business
Posted On March 6, 2020
There’s something special about a family-owned business. And in many of them, no one knows that better than the employees. “I think when you have a family-owned business, I think you get very close to employees, especially employees that have been around a really long time,” said Brent Barkin, president…
Categories: Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
Why advertising can be important for law firms — and their clients
Posted On February 22, 2020
If you drive in Alabama or watch TV or listen to the radio, you have seen or heard an advertisement for a personal injury lawyer. They’re everywhere – on billboards, on the sides of buses, in newspapers and magazines, maybe even embedded beneath the lacquer on the tables in a…
Categories: What's Working with Cam Marston
How our love for pets is changing the veterinary industry
Posted On February 20, 2020
Pets have become an increasingly important part of American life. Pet ownership has grown from 56 percent of the households in this country in 1988 to about two-thirds of them today. More pets means more demand for veterinarians. But those larger numbers of pet owners also have different priorities than…
Categories: What's Working with Cam Marston
Keys to the workplace of tomorrow? Flexibility and autonomy
Posted On February 12, 2020
What will the workplace of the future look like? To answer that, perhaps we should look at the trends that have shaped the workplace of today. In the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” two members of Mobile Bay Monthly’s “Forty Under Forty” shared their ideas about what’s…
Categories: Uncategorized
Knowing your customers is important to every business — and that goes double for casinos
Posted On February 6, 2020
Most casinos have similar characteristics. They’re relatively dark, with few or no windows – nothing to distract the paying customers from the lights of the slot machines or the cards on the tables. They’re owned by large companies that run casinos in multiple markets. And they’re typically fairly secretive about…
Categories: Uncategorized
Why advertising can be important for law firms — and their clients
Posted On February 5, 2020
If you drive in Alabama or watch TV or listen to the radio, you have seen or heard an advertisement for a personal injury lawyer. They’re everywhere – on billboards, on the sides of buses, in newspapers and magazines, maybe even embedded beneath the lacquer on the tables in a…
Categories: What's Working with Cam Marston
A gift from God? Or a Lucifer?
Posted On February 3, 2020
One of my joys is writing these weekly commentaries for Alabama Public Radio. They make me flex my creativity muscles. I’m very proud of the awards they’ve won and I’m deeply grateful the leadership at APR allows me to do them. I was disappointed when they told me this one…
Categories: Keeping It RealDissecting some Generation X cliches
Posted On February 3, 2020
What does it mean to be Generation X? Are we forever doomed to be the quintessential middle child, overlooked between the Baby Boomers and millennials? Are we the slackers described in the Douglas Coupland book that spawned the name? Are we the Forgotten Generation? Last year, the New York Times…
Categories: Blog, Generation X
How to throw a party: Hanging out with the man behind the Hangout Festival
Posted On January 26, 2020
In a few months, some 40,000 people will converge on the beach in Gulf Shores for one of the biggest music festivals in the Southeast, the Hangout Festival. What does it take to put together an event of that size? It’s probably not surprising to hear that it’s more than…
Categories: Uncategorized
For selling whiskey, a bootlegger’s story helps, but the proof’s in the bottle
Posted On January 17, 2020
How important is a good story to branding? It certainly doesn’t hurt. In a crowded marketplace for whiskey, a great story helps set Clyde May’s Alabama Style Whiskey apart. May was a bootlegger who never sold a legal bottle in his life. But he was also an innovator who found…
Categories: What's Working with Cam Marston