The team at Ode Management asked me to introductory video for their audience of event planners, speaker bureaus and agents. The topic was innovation and my mission was to keep it casual and brief, with a target length of two minutes. I guess I was too excited. On my first take, I overshot that goal by 10 minutes and needed to re-record it. However, I couldn’t bring myself to delete this though! Instead, I wanted to share it with you here. This video was meant…
Why Disruptive Technology is Hijacking Your Customers
Disruptive technology is not just a commodity anymore; it has become a necessity. I recently met with Rilke Thomsen of Sleeknote to talk about how disruptive technology is shaping customer behaviors, preferences and expectations. Our conversation turned into a short but interesting three-part audio series that I wanted to share with you here. What is disruptive technology? Disruptive technology is something that comes along early on and has the potential to disrupt markets, behavior, and processes models. According to Brian, there are three…
Customer Experience Should Be Designed For And Measured By What Customer’s Actually Experience
Customer experience (CX) is the new black and it is, for all intents and purposes, the catalyst for accelerated and purposeful digital transformation. In my research however, I find that customer experience is not truly a customer-first initiative. It is in many cases relegated to enterprise-first approaches to improve customer flow from an infrastructure perspective. It’s not necessarily something I’m calling out as a problem. Optimizing customer journeys is indeed necessary. But, it is not a means to an end. It is…
Why the future of corporate marketing may hang on the personal brand
Guest post by Mark W. Schaefer (@markwschaefer) I hate the term “personal branding.” And yet, personal branding may be the salvation of corporate marketing. Allow me to explain today why both statements are true! For the past few years I’ve been immersed in the world of personal branding as I wrote my new book KNOWN: The Handbook for Building and Unleashing Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age. I started the process by exploring what the experts thought it meant…
Why tech companies are uniting to fight Trump’s immigration ban
In February 2017, My good friend Matt Kapko of CIO asked a few tech pundits, “Why tech companies are uniting to fight Trump’s immigration ban?” The result was published here. A group of 127 technology companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Snap and Twitter, filed an amicus brief (official friend-of-the-court brief) in the pending lawsuits opposing the administration’s executive order. Per the filing, the heavy hitting tech consortium attested that immigration is core to technology innovation. “Immigrants make many…
10 Things Modern Digital Commerce Players are Doing To Thrive and Survive
The future of commerce is already unfolding. Even though everyone says, “yes we know the world is changing,” I don’t believe that executives have shifted their thinking or belief system to change how they make decisions to compete differently. The challenge is that many decision-makers are caught in a state of “future shock,” stuck in the past and unable to move in ways that matter to an incessantly evolving market. Why? Because they still operate in an ecosystem that prioritizes quarter-to-quarter performance while…
Customer Experience is the New Marketing and Customer Experiences are the New Brand
My friends Rob Cottingham, Gerard Francis Corbett and I have had some fun lately. One way to gain perspective on our modern reality is to do so through humor. So when a several big brands in the beverage, transportation, banking and airline industries were suddenly in the global media hot seat, we had a laugh and productive conversations behind the scenes. As a result, we set out to build upon these unfortunate opportunities with a couple of pithy but poignant cartoons hoping to spark a bigger dialogue….
Facebook is Becoming a Social Operating System for Human Beings and Robots
At f8 2017, Facebook aims to become your social network for reality, augmented reality and virtual reality…really. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Facebook once again hosted its highly-anticipated developer conference, which, for the record, appeals to anyone who follows, designs for, or uses the world’s largest social network. Drawing an estimated 4,000 attendees from all around the world, Facebook’s news blurred the line between reality and virtual reality and human and robot engagement for users in their personal and…
Culture is Either the Roadblock or Highway to Innovation – We Need Leadership not Management
After studying customer experience, digital transformation and innovation for so many years, I’ve found that the next big thing in business (r)evolution is culture. The other most interesting thing I’ve learned is that while businesses are readying or investing in change, the definition of meaningful culture is elusive or inconsequential. Yet, company culture is either the number one catalyst or inhibitor to progress. Culture needs a champion. As Peter Drucker once famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast…” Like most aspects in business, management…
Dear Startups: Disrupt Yourself To Disrupt The Industry
Here’s something you may not know about me…Before I focused on studying digital transformation, innovation, culture and digital anthropology, I used to exclusively work with enterprise tech companies and startups going back to the (gasp) early 90s. I’ve been through Web 1.0, 2.0, the rise of digital, social, mobile, cloud and every SW/HW/online/app consumer and enterprise trend in between. In all my years, I’ve probably helped launch/advise over 1,000 companies. I’ve even started and exited a few myself (note: I…
