The biggest challenge is not in the understanding or expertise associated with new technology. We can learn that. The biggest problem is our inability to recognize that the experience we have today is not the experience we need going forward. A notable separation exists between the expertise people have or are learning and the jobs companies need to hire for in an increasingly digital economy. This means that current employees possess expertise to perform jobs that are losing prominence in…
Working for More Than a Living
Special guest post by Tom Rath, author of Are You Fully Charged?: The 3 Keys to Energizing Your Work and Life The concept of bringing people together in groups, tribes, or organizations is based on the fundamental premise that human beings can do more collectively than they can in isolation. Hundreds of years ago, people banded together for the sake of sharing food and shelter and keeping their family safe. The basic assumption was that the association gained by joining a…
When You Share Experiences You Help Strangers Make Decisions
Whether you realize it or not, when you share an experience you have, whether it’s through a post, review, video, image, rant, praise, etc., it helps a stranger make a decision about what to do next. Customers aren’t following the customer journey you designed because they’re too busy hacking it. No matter how much journey work you do, no matter how creative your marketing, no matter how responsive your website is, no matter how much technology you invest in, customers…
Thanks Millennials! The Digital Revolution is Only Just Beginning
Guest post by Maddie Grant (@maddiegrant) author of the new book When Millennials Take Over, exploring the digital mindset and the other three key capacities for recruiting, retaining and engaging Millennials Think about this: the Millennial generation is the first generation to NEVER know a workplace without the internet. The rest of us remember the time we got our first email address, or that time we were irritated because we weren’t part of the lucky few that were allowed…
The 7 Success Factors of Social Business Strategy [INFOGRAPHIC]
Over the years, my partner Charlene Li and I authored a series of research papers and also a short book on the evolution of social businesses, from philosophy to strategy to practice. Along the way, we also produced an effective maturity model and infographic that documented the six stages of social business transformation. This work would eventually pave the way toward my focus on digital transformation and innovation today. Now, after all this time however, I wanted to share the…
Becoming a Thought Leader in the Digital Era
Guest post by Dorie Clark (@dorieclark) is a marketing strategist who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is the author the new book, Stand Out, which is now available. It’s getting harder to communicate these days. Of course, the tools and channels are more ubiquitous than ever. We can blog or podcast or share sepia-toned Instagrams or racy Snapchats or funny Vines. But is anyone actually listening? With more noise and clutter than ever before, how can…
When Hospitality Becomes an Art, It Loses Its Very Soul
The title is credited to Max Beerbohm, English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson. Taken from his 1918 work, Hosts and Guests, I interpret his work for a new era of hospitality. We live in a connected society now and as such, guests and the experiences they have and share, form the foundation of marketing and service. If we try to scale experiences for the sake of doing so, we miss the essence…
How Marketers Can Thrive in an Era of Digital Darwinism
While in London promoting What’s the Future of Business (WTF): Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences, I spent some time with the folks who produce The Digital Marketing Show. In this short video, I share the rise of Generation C and how an era of connected consumerism created the perfect storm for digital Darwinism to accelerate. We also discuss how the future of marketing takes more than technology, it takes a philosophical shift to create meaningful and shareable experiences. It’s…
Habits are the Invisible Architecture of Everyday Life
Guest post by Gretchen Rubin (@gretchenrubin), one of the most thought-provoking writers on habits and happiness. Her new book, Better than Before, is about how we change our habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. Research shows that each day, we repeat about 40 percent of our behavior, so our habits shape our existence, and our future. If our habits work for us, we’re far more likely to be happy, healthy, and productive—and if our habits don’t work…
The Apple Watch Will Make Work More Delightful and Reshape Employee Engagement
Guest post by Jason Shah is the founder and CEO of Do (do.com), a collaboration platform that helps people run productive meetings and do work they love. TL;DR Summary: Apple Watch will make work easier and more impactful. Through a constrained interface, powerful one-tap actions, and intimate data it will collect, people will be better at their jobs and form new bonds with coworkers previously not possible. There is a widespread myth that a new device will only add more…