Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much!
We talk and write a lot about what we are teaching our children and what they are learning from us – but if we only focus on one side of this teaching/learning relationship, we are missing some of the greatest examples of our lives… let’s remember all we can learn from our children.
There’s a buddy of mine named Tony Luisi, whom I met when I was at 1-800-Flowers. He was on my team and supported me with corporate sales and a lot of other things. A very active guy, a ball player and a Dad, Tony started using the phrase “No Let Up,” with regard to honoring persistence and a relentless spirit, and fund-raising purposes for worthy causes. Tony thought it was a great fit for me, too, so he reached out and suggested I use it in some way. It really resonated with me so I created the hashtag #NoLetUp! and started using it in a number of different contexts and incorporating it in my Return on Relationship and #ThisDadWontQuit message. Here’s what it means to me.
Today we have unprecedented access to information anywhere and anytime. We can multitask using multiple screens, and we can connect and converse on the fly—yet there are still only 24 hours in a day. Do you think that our increased level of “connectedness” today has anything to do with being busier, yet less productive? You bet it does, and I fall victim to this just as much as anyone else. In fact, I notice more and more these days that I need to “unplug” on a regular basis in order to regain some equilibrium. Do you notice that in your life as well? Here are a few tips I’ve gleaned from personal experience that can help you stay productive without being overwhelmed with busy-ness:
Poor work structure not only kills creativity, says Ted Rubin, but also ruins all the factors that create success.
As part of the Workfront “Structure Grows Creativity” project, we asked marketing thought leaders to give us their take on the ongoing “Structure vs. Creativity” debate. This is what Ted Rubin, speaker, strategist, and CMO at Brand Innovators, had to say…
I study disruptive technology, specifically innovative technology that gains so much momentum that it disrupts markets and ultimately businesses. In the past several years, disruptive technology has become so pervasive that I’ve had to further focus my work on studying only disruptive technologies that are impacting customer and employee behavior, expectations and values and affecting customer and employee experiences. I can hardly keep up with today let alone consider the potential disruption that looms ahead in every sector imaginable including new areas that will emerge and displace laggard perspectives, models and processes.
The image above represents the focal point of my work in 2009 – 2012. I called it the “Wheel of Disruption” (WoD) and it was meant to document and convey that the “Golden Triangle” of real-time, mobile and social, surrounded by the cloud, was inspiring incredible innovation and thus producing new and disruptive new apps, tools and services.
Watson Analytics Allows Brands to Use Everyday Language to Identify Hidden Data Connections and Drive Better Business Performance
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today (Dec 3rd) announced new commerce capabilities that help online merchants easily gain the insights needed to evaluate category and product performance and make quick and effective merchandising decisions. Leveraging cognitive capabilities from Watson Analytics, IBM Commerce Insights allows practitioners to gain a real-time view into customer behavior and market factors that are impacting their business, proactively identify opportunities and roadblocks and take informed actions to increase sales and business performance.
The CMO should oversee all marketing, PR, communications, customer service, and customer experience management. Every touch point with the consumer needs to come under her purview. Often this is not the case—customer service and communications are often siloed. This is a big mistake in the new marketing/social world.
Leadtail is a social strategy firm that has built a panel of over 1,000 B2B and B2C CMOs and marketing executives located in North America and active on Twitter that develops social insights reports on CMOs and other decision makers.
They recently released the results of analysis of over 60,000 Tweets during the month of October and determined Forbes to be the #1 publication shared by CMOs during that month. As a Forbes contributor myself, specifically to the CMO Network, I am not surprised to see it come in #1 for we have a great group of contributors for sure.
Here’s a quick legend regarding the colors and what they represent followed by the full list:
Blue = Did not rank in the Top 50 in the previous month
Green = Moved up in ranking over last month
Red = Moved down in ranking over last month
Black = No change over last month
Have we lost the art of conversation? Has the digital age with its shortened attention spans and 140 character limits shriveled what was once our primary form of engagement? Do we bypass conversation via social channels, which allows it to happen 24/7 when used to it’s best advantage, and instead simply continue traditional marketing broadcasting… for business AND personal.
It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since the launch of X. In the last two weeks, I’ve hosted conversations about the promise of experience design in London, Düsseldorf, Oslo, Sydney and Geelong.
Somewhere along the Atlantic, I was asked to answer a few questions ahead of my arrival in Geelong for the Pivot Summit by Courtney Crane of the Geelong Advertiser. Thanks to the magic (or curse) of inflight wifi, I was able to make her deadline. But it was more than a Q&A, it was the purpose of the conversation that stopped time to reflect on how this once bustling city is proactively investigating how to build upon its history to adapt for the future.