In April 2012, I wrote a piece that explored online social behavior and its impact on commerce and decision-making. The work was inspired by a series of studies based on the work of Robert Cialdini that identified six universal heuristics that shoppers use to make decisions. The importance of social psychology can not be overstated. This branch of psychology deals with how people think about influence and how individuals relate to one another. The social economy is shaped by how…
Employees are as or More Important Than Customers: Why Ignoring Employee Engagement Hurts Business
In a late 2013 study, Gallup found that only 13% of workers actually feel engaged at their jobs. What’s worse is that 63% of the workforce is not engaged at all. But wait, the news gets even more disheartening. An astounding 24%, one-quarter of the global workforce, is actively disengaged right now. Essentially we have a significant number of workers doing their best impression of corporate zombies who go through the everyday motions to collect a paycheck. So are employees…
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…
Community is Much More Than Belonging to Something; It’s About Doing Something Together That Makes Belonging Matter
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…
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…
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…
