People, process and technology are consistent in all these innovation stories along with buy-in and support from senior management and strong governance processes. Change management is often overlooked in many attempts to innovate, however, it was an important parameter in these innovation successes. And for the most part customer experience management is one of the primary objectives of each innovation initiative. Continue reading

Many companies think they can simply “silo bust” and force feed a collaborative culture and bam they get innovation. It doesn’t happen that way. Technology can be a key enabling platform especially for innovating the customer experience, but it is nothing without the innovators. Continue reading

In analyzing data from a recent research project with the Society of New Communications Research; our team defined what we call “the social media crescendo effect.” Continue reading

The data tsunami has arrived. According to recent research from the MIT Center for Digital Research, digital Information is doubling every 1.2 years and will exceed 1000 Exabytes in the next year. Continue reading

2011 is the year of the social customer. Never before has the power of one been more powerful in the history of business as we know it. You cannot hide from the social customer as I have demonstrated on several occasions with big brands like UPS and Starwood. Those of you who read my blogs last year know that I became a social customer, blogged about it and demonstrated how it can impact brand, reputation, product and service. I must admit I had a lot of fun becoming a social customer. Continue reading

Know your social customers; there are many more of us every day. As a consumer of products and services, I feel tremendously empowered by the ability to express my opinion in the hope of changing a poor experience into a better one. I want more value for my money in this age of global economic restructuring, because now I have morphed into a new consumer, and I can be your social predator if you ignore me. Continue reading

Social media is accelerating the purchase decision making of SMBs and enabling them to purchase more technology faster. This is something that early SNCR research identified last year in The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks study which can be found on this site http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/143500. The growing level of trust in social media peer groups is now certainly a factor in many B2B business arenas and definitely a major factor in purchase decision making in anything B2C. Continue reading

Social networks are radically changing the way we do business and are a new ecosystem of influence. They are virally creating communities within communities that are driving brand recognition and experience, product innovation and everything else associated with communications. Social networks facilitate and automate vast interactions, connections and networks of people by enabling collaboration with colleagues, clients and suppliers anywhere and at any time. Continue reading

Culture and innovation go hand in hand. Without a culture of tolerance and acceptance of other people, and diverse thinking there is no collaboration, no trust, no knowledge sharing and in the end no innovation. This is what differentiates Silicon Valley from many parts of the world, although India, China and other regions are innovating in different ways. Continue reading

The Internet is now delivering on its promise of instant gratification and with the current advances in information and mobile technologies we can get information on just about anything anytime and anywhere. So in some ways everyone is a journalist and every company has the opportunity to become a media company. Continue reading

Know me I am the social customer! Continue reading

The societal and anthropological aspects of social media peer groups are just now beginning to be understood and the ramifications of these interrelationships are just being felt. These new platforms are enabling communications that leads to interrelationships between people, and groups that has never been seen before. They now enable us to create, build, maintain and reestablish previous relationships from other points and times in our lives, and are enabling new relationships with our government, NGOs, and the companies we consume products and services from. Continue reading

I expect more for my loyalty, don’t you? What many companies don’t understand is that they no longer control their brand, the social customer does. All of us should become social customers; this will enable us to drive up the overall quality of products and services in many companies and industries globally. Most importantly companies need to know who their social customers are; here is a real world example of how social customers are impacting business today. Continue reading

British Petroleum’s lack of governance and risk management combined with our own government’s absence of regulatory compliance and oversight marks the beginning of a new era. In this new era governance, compliance and corporate social responsibility will be driven primarily by non government organizations that are the voice of the people. Continue reading

Enter the business influencer, innovators like: Brent Leary, CRM Essentials, Jesus Hoyos of Solvis Consulting, Lior Arrussy of the Strativity Group, GigaOm Pro, (mentioned in Steve King’s blog this week) Jeff Kaplan of Thinkstrategies, Eric Kimberling of Panorama, Esteban Klosky, Thinkjar and Paul Greenberg the new father of Social CRM are addressing the business value of IT. And are now disrupting the business models of traditional market research companies and enjoying a new revenue stream. Continue reading

The social media tsunami is disrupting and impacting many aspects of business today including product development, CRM, thought leadership, corporate marketing, sales and lead generation, brand management and influencer relations. Continue reading

Small business failure is all about customer engagement, not just the seven pitfalls of poor management. Continue reading

Data, data everywhere, but no one knows where it is or how to find it, let alone use it to create a customer centric enterprise. Organizations and companies are so siloed they can’t get a 360 degree view of their customers. They are so siloed by politics, organizational structures, culture,... Continue reading

According to Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media lab, the social media bubble is about to burst, here is an excerpt from his post on HBR March 23, 2010, “I'd like to advance a hypothesis: Despite all the excitement surrounding social media, the Internet isn't connecting us as much... Continue reading

According to Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media lab, the social media bubble is about to burst, here is an excerpt from his post on HBR March 23, 2010, “I'd like to advance a hypothesis: Despite all the excitement surrounding social media, the Internet isn't connecting us as much... Continue reading

When I think about what to post each week, foremost in my mind is how I can leverage my startup experience into actionable information that you can use in your business. Startups and small businesses as you all know operate at business velocities that are significantly higher than most companies.... Continue reading

Today, perpetual optimism is the force multiplier, now more than ever (Colin Powell, My American Journey). These are perhaps the most turbulent days of our lifetime, rampant uncertainty about the global economy, our jobs, our friends and families’ livelihoods, health care, education, global warming and to make things worse a... Continue reading

How to make marketing accountable is an age old question that keeps rearing its ugly head in nearly every organization. And every time sales slide we hear the same old song: our marketing is not working, we don’t have enough leads, we aren’t sending the right message, our positioning is... Continue reading

The movie Julie and Julia inspired this week’s title and I was pleasantly surprised to see blogging so prevalent in a movie, but I wont’ ruin it for you. Creating, managing and sustaining startup culture is all about selecting employees with the right stuff and empowering them. I have been... Continue reading

Pennsylvania State University’s Institute for the Studies of Business Markets (ISBM http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/ and part of the SMEAL College of Business) is another example of academic thought leaders who are working directly with industry to understand and capture competitive advantage in B2B marketing. Ralph Oliva, the Executive Director is what I... Continue reading