With every new year comes a landslide of predictions and trends to guide us into the new year. While the year advances, rarely do such transformative trends or changes take place in alignment with one of the top calendar apps. Not even Y2K could do so 😉 Now with that said, I was asked to present my thoughts on what lies ahead in Vegas during CES at Brand Innovators “Mega Trends” event. By the first week of January, there were…
Crossing the Experience Divide: Creating positive, lasting experiences is a crucial mandate for any brand
The Technology of Us I’ve been in the technology business for a long time and what I can tell you is this: Technology enables us to invent new products and services at rates that humans never before experienced. Whatever the next big thing is in tech doesn’t matter as much as the fact that anyone today has the power to disrupt entire industries with a single, smart idea. In fact, resilient companies, whether they’re startups or they merely acting like…
Untethered From Tradition: How I Got Here
I didn’t set out to be an author, speaker or digital analyst/anthropologist. It just happened over the years. When I was younger, I studied economics and journalism. I actively experimented in online marketing. I was also a musician/songwriter. So, how did I get here? I spent some time with my friends over at Onboardly to answer just that. I’d like to share the transcription of our conversation with you here… The Freedom to Experiment 1. You’re a best selling author,…
Skully Systems is About to Change How We Drive
Skully Systems changed my life and I don’t say that lightly. I’m a motorcycle enthusiast. I’m also a father. Most of the time my bikes stand proudly in my garage showcasing their beauty for an audience of one. I ride on occasion, usually an exceptional opportunity that manifests in the form of weather, stress and guilt. But even then, as I get older, the rides become less frequent, shorter and less ambitious. With the AR-1, Skully is going to change…
Digital Transformation: A Year in Review
When I published the first in a new series of reports exploring the state and future of Digital Transformation, it was almost the antithesis of a typical technology report. It didn’t talk about tech trends for automated marketing. It mentioned zero platforms, software or apps for improving processes, manufacturing or customer or employee engagement. It also didn’t talk about the latest enterprise cloud services to improve marketing or CRM or process big data and the like. Instead, I, along with…
Customer Experience Happens To You Not Because of You…But It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way
Earlier this year, I was asked to write the foreword for a new book focused on experience marketing and CX. The opportunity appeared while I was in the throes of researching and writing my (not yet announced) book. As hard as it was to pull away from it, I must admit that it was a welcome distraction. So, I stopped what I was doing and read the manuscript for Connect: How to Use Data and Experience Marketing to Create…
Spotify, Taylor Swift and The Music Industry’s Missed Opportunity
Guest post by Monica Corton (@momusing), Executive Vice President, Creative Affairs & Licensing Next Decade Entertainment, Inc. If you have any connection to the music biz, it’s been hard to ignore story after story of the pull out of Taylor Swift’s catalog from Spotify. As a music publisher, I have to say that I too share all of the frustrations that both Swift and Big Machine’s, Scott Borchetta have with the bad royalty structure that exists with regard to streaming…
Digital Transformation is About Empathy First and Technology Second
Every day, there’s seemingly yet another disruptive trend that emerges out of nowhere which affects consumer behavior and the future of everything along with it. Many of you already follow some of the most notable trends disrupting markets today and I know you’re devising new strategies as a result in order to compete in these ever shifting markets. – Real Time – Social Media- Mobile – Sharing Economy – Peer-to-Peer Economy – Maker Economy – Internet of Things – Crowd…
The Future of Business Starts with Us
I often share a quote by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” And that’s where are in business. We all talk of change but very few of us start with changing the very things that will help us more effectively compete for the future. The evolving state of technology, customer behavior and expectations and our role within each is changing or it should change… What we see (perspective and…
Pivot: The Emergence of Digital Compels Businesses to Transform
Guest post by Mike Edelhart, co-producer and CEO of The Pivot Conference (@pivotcon) Historic shifts in business fundamentals don’t occur smoothly; rather they happen in sudden, sharp shifts which open unexpected chasms companies must traverse or plunge. Today, the deep change in human behavior brought about by the emergence of social media marks the latest such shift, perhaps the most dramatic since the Industrial Revolution. Gone are the traditional success factors of operational efficiency and price advantage being uprooted by…
