Podcast: The Impact of Digital Innovation on the Customer Experience
I was recently honored to be a featured guest on IBM's Big Data Podcast with David Pittman. The "Digitization of Everything" is quickly changing how organizations find, engage, and respond to their customers, and we dug into some of the ways this is playing out, and how organizations should be … Read More»
Ascending towards the Social Business Summit
There's the Social Media Summit and the the Social Business Summit, the Social TV Summit, , and the Social Good Summit, but I'd like to present a different view on the Social Business Summit. In 1856, buzz grew as people first began to hear that the tallest peak in the world had been … Read More»
Location Revisited: Marketing’s cornerstone takes on a new paradigm
Location, location, location. The concept immediately brings back to mind college marketing classes and textbooks; clear lessons from industrial age distribution models. The focus has slowly faded away, however, over the past couple of decades with the invention and growth of a digitally … Read More»
The era of asking great questions
I’ll never forget meeting some people in a remote village of Laos (Southeast Asia) a few years ago. The village had no electricity. Not only was it a journey across culture and geography, but a journey back in time. Our translator helped us to ask about how they lived. They told us how they farmed, … Read More»
Leveraging Social Business & Gamification to achieve Organizational Flow
Between Arousal and Control lies Flow. We could probably stop there (but don't - read on). Think on that for just a minute. Lots of Mindsparks emerge quickly for me. Between arousal and control lies 'flow' via @Mich8elwu at #digitslsurrey— guy stephens (@guy1067) May 26, … Read More»
Improving the known, exploring the unknown, and innovating to be well-known
"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency." - BILL GATES The statement by Gates underscores the importance … Read More»
Global CEOs chart the course into unchartered waters for the Next Generation Enterprise
The average time that a company spends in the S&P 500 is 15 years, continuously trending downward over the past 80 years. In fact, as recent as 10 years ago, the average lifespan was 25 years. Perhaps a decade from now, the average lifespan could be as short as 10 or maybe even 5 years. Change is … Read More»
A Heroic Story – and a Powerful Social Business Metaphor
In the early morning of September 11, 2001, I was driving through downtown Los Angeles, shocked at what I was hearing on the radio, and awestruck by the police and military helicopters circling and protectively watching over the City of Angels skyline. Like many of you, as that day progressed, I … Read More»
Toothpaste, toilet paper, white matter, and jam: Clues for better decision making
Several years ago, my wife and I ran out of toothpaste in a remote part of small Southeast Asian country. We spent half the day trying to find a place that carried a halfway recognizable form of packaged toothpaste. It was more of an adventure than you might imagine. We ultimately found one unopened … Read More»
Your organization 8 years from now
Wayne Gretzky is by most accounts the greatest hockey player ever. His father gave him a piece of advice that has been almost immortalized in business circles over the past several years. "Go to where the puck is going, not where it has been." So, where will the puck be 8 years from now? … Read More»