John Balla is a Principal Marketing Specialist of Customer Intelligence at SAS. During the release of What’s the Future of business, John and Brian partnered on a series of events to help marketers learn how to use technology to become more human and engaging in each moment of truth. Balla recently published his thoughts over at SAS to continue the conversation…

“We live in the age of big data – just about everything is evolving and the pace of technological change is accelerating,” Balla wrote. “More and more parts of our lives are being carried out online, and with the explosion of web-enabled devices, there is some truth to the idea that we’re literally being surrounded by cyberspace. Our customers are changing, too – how they act, what they have at their disposal, as well as what they expect and need.”

I recently viewed a brief video featuring Brian Solis – the speaker, author and digital anthropologist – that has me thinking more about the idea of digital. He got me thinking that it’s as if all those forms of content are really just the means to get at what we really should be focused on – people. It’s the people who want to read our papers and watch our webinars that matter, and they have values, experiences and emotions that influence their state of mind when they come across our content. And Brian believes that’s why we should focus on people for mapping our way to success in the digital economy.

Brian explains his view on two important “gaps” that marketers should focus on bridging to be successful in our digital economy. And yes, both of those gaps are about people and the customer experience.

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