As part of my ongoing research on innovation, I’ve been on a quest to visit as many innovation centers in Silicon Valley and around the hen weorld as possible. Outside of my reports with Capgemini, I’m going to share those experiences with you as they happen. The list already includes Westfield, Levi’s, Target, Walmart, Sephora, among many others. So, there’s a backlog of experiences to publish. In this post, I wanted to share two recent experiences with Mercedes-Benz and my introduction to…
How to Get Unstuck
I received a note from a dear friend while on the road with what seemed to be a simple request. “Would you have time to make a 60 second video that shares advice for how to #GetUnstuck?” Easier said than done. We all hit those barriers where we get stuck or worse, go backwards. It’s not just any one thing that causes these moments. And, it’s not any one thing that helps break through them. Sometimes we… …just can’t see…
5 Questions Defining the State and Future of Digital Transformation
I recently presented at event in San Diego. My goal in doing so was to help attendees reframe the problems they were trying to solve and introduce new opportunities that would help them go back to work and contribute to meaningful change. I remember it being a beautiful day. The crowd was electric and more than open to new ideas. When I was done presenting, I playfully threw out that I would be outside on the patio (overlooking the San Diego Harbor)…
The Human Dimension of Digital Transformation
Seems that everyone is talking about digital transformation these days. Not a day goes by when I don’t hear a new voice or see a new book, post, report or conference on the subject. It would be wonderful if all work in digital transformation was aligned. But it’s not. With every expert that joins the conversation, it becomes increasingly difficult to sort the signal from the noise. I suppose that’s not unlike everything in life. The challenge is that those learning about or trying to…
Marketing in the Selfish Economy
The future of marketing is incredibly selfish. It has to be. We’re becoming a generation of accidental narcissists who want things our way, when and how we want it. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s just an inevitable effect of technology’s impact on our lives. It’s how marketing responds that counts. The key though is accept that to reach and engage a generation of narcissistic customers, the future of marketing has little to do with marketing at…
Culture is Either the the Roadblock or Gateway to Digital Transformation
Executives underestimate the importance of culture in an era of digital Darwinism. Most cultures are risk averse at a time when taking risks is the most direct path to innovation… Digital Transformation is the act of investing in people, technology and systems and processes to upgrade how businesses work in this digital economy. Technology is disrupting everything. Beyond market shifts, people too are different because of technology. As a result, behaviors, expectations and preferences are evolving. Our business philosophies and practices though…
Building Dragons: Digital Transformation in the Experience Economy
Guest post by Daniel Newman (@DanielNewmanUV), author of Building Dragons: Digital Transformation in the Experience Economy with Olivier Blanchard (@BrandBuilder) We set out to write a book about technology…but after 10 chapters and still very little technology discussion, we realized that we were in the process of writing a book that was about so much more. At the core, we wound up writing a book about change. More specifically, a book about how companies can align their strategy, mindset, human capital…
An Intern’s Review of WTF: What’s the Future of Business
One of the little known stories about my previous book, What’s the Future of Business: Changing the way businesses create experiences, is that I wrote and published it after I had started my latest book, X: The Experience when business meets design. While it stands on its own, WTF is technically a companion book to X and can be read as a part 2 of sorts. One of the lesser known facts about WTF, is that it wasn’t even on my docket….
How Digital Darwinism Changed Customer Experience
What is experience? What is customer experience? Believe it or not, trying to answer these questions is where the future of digital transformation and experience design intersect. While I was in London at an event focused on innovation in customer experience, I filmed a short video for Oracle to explore the topic. A 20 minute conversation was edited down to a a one minute burst. Knowing that this would happen, I spoke in Twitter-like responses. I hope it helps you in…
12 Innovation Imperatives
Innovation suffocates in a culture of mediocrity. Here’s how to breathe life into company culture to compete for the future. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone seems to have one or more. I just wish that more organizations would appreciate how plentiful and beneficial ideas are to the future of their business. The challenges are all too common. Often, ideas are shared in fleeting moments with the same zeal as observing the weather. Once expressed they recede from view,…
