The Blockbuster Effect

The Blockbuster Effect defined: when we trust that what is working now will always work. Everyone remembers those stores that rented thousands of movies housed in blue boxes. They seemed to be on every corner, yet this once-booming company filed for bankruptcy in 2010. As a marketing professional, I’ve seen many examples of this seismic fizzle […]
Fundamentals of Marketing, Know Thy Audience

Just this week, a major consumer brand experienced the same sort of nosedive as “New Coke.” For those younger than my 57 years, New Coke was a massive error I learned about in depth during graduate school…an error that cost Coke millions in 1985. Fast forward to 2023, Bud Light selects transgender Dylan Mulvaney as […]
Honors Convocation

Although more than 3 decades have passed, my experience at St. Vincent College continues to impact my life in many ways and my prayer is that each of you will share this same experience. I was in the first class of women to graduate from SVC. I transferred from William & Mary where I was […]
Life in Rural Mississippi

This New Year, I’m on the farm worked by my husband’s family since the early 1800s. They settled this area before it was a state, when those willing to move to the outer edge of what was still unsettled frontier. Through land grants bestowed for Revolutionary and War of 1812 service, they staked their claim […]
I Will Not Get the COVID-19 Vaccine

Why? Because it’s not actually a vaccine, it is a type of gene therapy called mRNA and it’s still in clinical trial—making half of Americans the biggest mass experiment on society ever conducted. As a parent of two children with an incurable disease (Friedrich’s Ataxia, a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy) I’m well aware of […]
Addiction in Franklin, Tennessee

I’m crying tonight as I write this. A night out for pizza has become another lesson in the hideous tragedy of addiction. I live in a beautiful small town, Franklin, Tennessee, that I’ve often described as a real-life Hallmark movie. And yet, our children are dying. I’m tired of it. The stories, the babies left […]
Amanda Cecconi invited to join Nashville Business Journal Leadership Trust

Franklin, TN (February 5, 2020) — Amanda Cecconi, Founder and Managing Partner of Punching Nun Group, has been invited to join Nashville Business Journal Leadership Trust, an exclusive community for influential business leaders, executives and entrepreneurs in Middle Tennessee. Amanda was chosen for membership by the Nashville Business Journal Leadership Trust Selection Committee due to her […]
Vision Without Execution is Hallucination

Factors to Close the Execution Gap Thomas Edison’s quote, uttered more than 100 years ago, rings true across organizations of all sizes in the year 2013. In fact, in a wobbly economy where entrepreneurial activity is on the rise, execution is even more critical for success and survival. There was a time when strategic planning […]
Project YOU

A new client joined the ranks of PNG this month and as I typically do—when I see something really interesting that I know they’ll relate to—I send them a link. A post caught my eye this morning; a presentation on SlideShare by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha called Start-up of You. Any PPT that kicks-off […]
Prohibition & Entrepreneurialism

This is Ersilia Conjoli Cecconi. In this picture (circa 1900) she was 22. I believe it to be her wedding photo. Ersilia is my great grandmother, and my hero. In fact, I made Ersilia my confirmation name (for all you Catholics you can appreciate the grief I took for not picking a Saints name—the Nuns […]