The potential for breakthrough innovation is at its greatest when there’s purpose. And in an age of disruptive technology, humanity is becoming a killer app. Often in my research on digital transformation and innovation, I find the most compelling catalyst for finding purpose and accelerating change and improvement is customer experience (CX). Think about it. Who owns the customer experience? Yes. The customer owns it. That might seem like one big “duh.” But, believe it or note, many organizations are…
The CX Imperative and The Role You Play in Making Business Personal
i Every now and then, I am asked to write the foreword for a great book. And, every now and then, I say yes. The deal is always the same. Once the book is released, I ask that I’m able to publish the foreword in full to share with you here. My friends Lars Birkholm Petersen, Ron Person and Christopher Nash wrote a book, Connect: How to use data and experience marketing to create lifetime customers. As they describe, marketing is…
X Marks the Spot Where the Medium is the Message
Several years ago, I embarked on a crazy journey to reinvent the book to make it a physical metaphor for the purpose of the book. I had no other choice. It was a book about designing meaningful and personal experiences in a digital economy. It would have been to ironic to tell you do do so in a traditional print format. It also would have been unimaginative to simply release an ebook or app. The point is that you can’t…
Experience Happens: Design What You Want People to Feel
“Experience” is one of those words that is both aspirational while also meaning something uniquely different to each person who uses the word. No matter who you define it, the important thing to remember is that experiences lie in the value of the beholder. The reality is that experiences are something you feel, you sense, and they’re defined by the people experiencing them. Whether they’re amazing, meh or terrible, they’re either forgotten or they turn into memories. Either way, reactions…
Designing the Experience: My Ongoing Experiments with Book Trailers and Storytelling
I’ve always been fascinated by Hollywood trailers. So much so, that 10 years ago, I was determined to develop a trailer for my next book at the time, Engage!. Since then, I launched every subsequent book with a trailer. You can see a compilation here. With my latest book X, I broke that tradition. It wasn’t intentional however. I simply got so caught up with the launch and the following book tour that I couldn’t get to it. That didn’t…
Enhancing Customer Experience With Wearable Tech
Guest post by Blake Morgan (@blakemichellem), Customer Experience Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author of the new book, More Is More In X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, author Brian Solis talks about how Disney created its MagicBand—an all-in-one device that connects users with their vacation options—embedded with technology that allows customers to make purchases without a credit card or cash, get in and out of the park, review and optimize wait times, book FastPass, open their hotel room door, make dinner reservations, and…
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….
Is Your Marketing Strategy Aimed at the Present or the Future?
If you’ve designed your marketing strategy around what your market expects today, you may want to revisit it. Why? Your market will expect something different in the future. And that future is starting to arrive now. When I’m not deep in the weeds studying Digital Transformation, Innovation, Experience Design and Culture, I’m incessantly thinking about brands of tomorrow and what it takes to be relevant to an evolving society. I recently spent some time with Qlutch CEO Jim Sagar to explore…
Customer Experience Versus Just Experience: Why the difference is key to brand relevance
Customer experience aka CX is one of the most important trends changing business today. And, experts believe that it represents the next big competitive advantage for companies that invest in it. But what is customer experience exactly? It’s one of those terms (and movements) that is defined and interpreted differently depending on who’s talking about it within the organization. But without a common appreciation for customer experience and what it represents to customers, not just our view of them, our…
Techonomics: Disruptive Technologies and The Effect on Business and Humanity
My friend Jason Middleton hosts a fascinating program on KGO 810 in San Francisco/Silicon Valley…Techonomics. On the show, he interviews some of the most interesting minds in tech to explore the latest trends and what’s on the horizon. Jason recently invited me to join the program and I jumped at the chance. I wanted to share our conversation with you here… In 9 action-packed minutes we discuss: – The need for changemakers and rainmakers – The importance of digital anthropology…
