It’s that time of the year isn’t it? Spring is springing. You clean out the garage. You spruce up the whatever it is that needs sprucing up. It feels good, right?

Well, we figured what better way to enter this season of renewal than to refresh the look and feel of Marketing Pilgrim! We hope you enjoy the new car smell of our new design including our improved sharing options that will help you easily pass along content you find valuable and want to share with others.

We have seen some great growth over the past few months and we want to thank our loyal readers for that. Our hope is that this new design will make your experience even better. Thanks so much for your support!

We are suckers for an infographic chock full of information aimed at CMO’s. The 2012 CMO’s Guide to the Social Landscape does just that. We often mock the CMO for their seemingly disconnected existence from the social landscape. We also get a little shiver when we hear that those who climb to the top of the marketing food chain stay there only an average of some 23 or so months. I have said in the past it’s like CMO’s climb a burning rope to the top. What they used to get there is often already being replaced by newer more efficient (and yes cooler) communication channels. Remember, though, it’s not about technology, it’s about communication.

So click through to enjoy the chart. Let us know if you agree or disagree as well. That’s always fun.

Browser wars are a touchy subject, especially around the folks from Microsoft who have seen their Internet Explorer dominance be eroded by the likes of Mozilla’s Firefox and the dreaded Google Chrome browser among others.

Internet Explorer 9 is the latest and greatest from Microsoft. They need to promote its existence so earlier this month this ad surfaced on YouTube. I just saw it for the first time and, from a purely marketing perspective, it’s, well, puzzling to say the least.

Being self-deprecating can be an effective technique in modern day advertising. The humorous take on any ad is one proven way to get the attention of your target and the attention needed to get your message across.

Google has given college hoops fans a neat video of 3D renderings of sites for the early round games in the 2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

It’s even complete with overdone sports ‘theme’ music in the background! Enjoy and here’s to happy brackets!

Normally we are writing about Internet and social media marketing. Many times that kind of information involves talking about companies that have just started up or have suddenly hit a point in their early development where they are taking off (Pinterest is a great example of this).

Venture capital (VC) is a critical component of the Internet industry’s inner workings. New ideas and business plans are flying around as everyone looks for the next great idea that will have the big payoff like a Facebook or (insert successful VC backed company name here).

This is not a post where I try to give you the top 5 ways to handle the overflow of data that we are all faced with on a daily basis.

In fact, I don’t really even have my own top 5 ways to manage and, more importantly, filter the sheer volume of information that comes my way each day. I try different things at different times and they are effective to varying degrees and for varying lengths of time. i beginning t wonder if it’s just me but I doubt it.

When I was a kid my father used to take me fishing. We didn’t go all the time, but because I grew up close to the water, we probably went more than most. One time we went was so memorable I can still remember it like it was yesterday. It was a hot Saturday in the middle of summer. We decided to try our luck in an area of the marsh that we had never fished. So my father rowed our little wooden row boat out in the middle of the creek and anchored it along the bank of the marsh, right beside an oyster bed.