Blog - joanne tombrakos -

The Cost Of Overpromising And Underdelivering

One of the negotiating tips I received in my neophyte days of selling was to always underpromise and overdeliver. I was told it was a much easier way to keep a client happy. Overpromising was a surefire way to get yourself in trouble – especially when it came to advertising sales where the actual delivery […]

Thinking – the Underrated Skill AI Is Trying To Make Obsolete

I often tell my students that if they want to stand out from the crowd they need to take a moment to pause and think because most people don’t. And now we stand on the precipice of a new world order in which LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity want to do the thinking for us.

When There Is No Skipping To The End: Learning To Live In The Middle Of The Story

For many years I had the habit of being so anxious to see how things were going to end in whatever novel I was reading that I would skip to the last pages to find out. I’d like to say it got in the way of my enjoyment of the story line but it didn’t. […]

Where Too Many Pitches Fail

I’ve lost track of the number of pitches I have sat through in the last few weeks. It’s that time of year. Finals. And when you teach marketing and real-world classes every final is a pitch. I’ve heard new business ideas pitched. I’ve heard new product lines for existing businesses pitched. I’ve heard campaign pitches for brands. […]

How to Get a Job in an Age of Uncertainty

I get questions every day from current and former students about finding a job. Lately, I’ve seen an increased frustration whether they’ve just graduated or are about to graduate. They are not alone. These are uncertain times. While I’ve lived long enough to know that there is little certainty in life, there’s no doubt I […]

When Optimism is a Struggle: 7 Tools to Balance Anger with Action

This week I was discussing the attributes that apply to the personality profile of a design thinker in one of my NYU classes. When I got to optimistic I found myself taking a long pause. Here I was standing in front of a room of the best and the brightest of our future leaders. I want them […]