Viginia Coutinho is a dear friend who just released a new book (in Portuguese) that helps strategists think differently about social media. She is also the organizer of Upload Lisboa, a fantastic event in Portugal that focuses on innovation and disruptive technologies. Earlier in the year, she surprised me by asking if I would consider writing the foreword. Even though I don’t write much about social media these days, I couldn’t let her down. Now that her book is available,…
1 Short But Important Prediction for Marketing in 2015
It’s that time of year when experts share their predictions and others assemble them into long lists. Yay! I’ve only managed to write one officially so far. And to be honest, it’s less of a prediction and more of something for a wish list, not just for the future of marketing, but all of business. I’d love to say that by 2015 we will truly see digital strategies that are integrated across digital, social, mobile, advertising, marketing, comms, et al….
The Gap Between Big Data and Big Insights: Turning data into engaging stories
Have you seen the popular HTC One TV commercial featuring Gary Oldman? It’s quite brilliant really. A highly celebrated A-list actor is paid millions to say little more than “blah blah blah” throughout the entire commercial. I’m reminded of it because that’s the reaction I tend to have these days when I hear the words “big data.” It’s almost as if I’m transported to the classroom in a Peanuts episode listening to the muted voice of the teacher muttering incomprehensible…
Curate This! We are the Network Now
My good friend Steve Rosenbaum released his new book, “Curate This,” to help us learn the ins and outs content curation. This is his second book and also the second time I’ve had the privilege to write his foreword. In fact, this time around, I wrote two. I’d like to share the first with you here. I’m sure I’ll publish the second at some point in the near future. I’ve known Steve Rosenbaum since the mid 2000s. We’ve worked together…
The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to Thought Leadership
LinkedIn and I have worked on several research projects together over the years ranging from the future of Native Advertising (private) to the state of Relationship Economics. Now, we banded together once again to explore the art and science of thought leadership. Although this time, I was on the contributing side of the research project and Jason Miller, LinkedIn’s senior manager of content marketing, was the lead. Thought leadership is one of those things that’s easier to talk about than…
Digital is Just a Means to Reach People…It’s How and Why You Use It That Matters
Splendida Notizia! #WTF is going on in Italy? The future of business is turning a new page…that’s what. I’m excited to announce that What’s the Future of Business: Changing the way businesses create experiences is now available in Italy. To celebrate the launch, I spent some time with Luca Conti, new media strategist, Italian blogger, journalist, and author of several books on social media. In our discussion, we explored the future of business and why the time is now for…
Only companies with impeccable customer service will survive the Zombie Apocalypse
Guest Post by Peter Shankman, Author of Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans Imagine a world where decisions aren’t made based on anonymous reviews with no validation on sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor, but rather, through trusted sources in your own network. Imagine that world is automatic – If you want to take a vacation in Fiji, you don’t have to ask which of your friends have gone, you simply start searching for Fiji – on any…
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 Total Digital Experience
The Pivot Conference in NYC in October is unique among events in that, each year, it shifts focus to deeply reflect the needs of its community of senior business transformation executives from leading brands and organizations. To make that happen, I serve as Pivot’s Executive Producer along with Pivot CEO, Mike Edelhart. For four years in a row, we’ve put our heads together to develop a story arc that covers the hottest, emergent trends, presented by the industry’s most engaging…
A Manifesto for Building Relationships in the Digital Era
Not too long ago, my dear friend Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) and I set out to explore a new world of visual communication that combined an intentional form of written storytelling illustrated through clever yet pithy cartoons. That work was originally brought to life in #WTF (What’s the Future of Business). The engagement around Hugh’s work eventually spilled over from print to online with readers sharing their favorite Hugh cartoons via Tweets, Instagrams, Vines, Pinterest, et al. We were inspired to…
