Lithium bets big and acquires Klout: Published deal size in question
When Kara Swisher broke the story last month, it seemed implausible, and perhaps even ridiculous to many at first. I theorized shortly thereafter why it might make sense for Lithium Technologies, known primarily as a customer community vendor, to acquire Klout, often considered both “the standard” … Read More»
Driving Customer Advocacy in a Social World: Reflections from #SocialShakeUp
We tapped on the window of a disinterested taxi driver and asked if he would take us to the stadium. He gave us “the tightlip”, and slowly accommodated us by opening each of the four doors. When asked how long it would take to get there, his thickly accented, Eeyore-like response was simply “We’ll … Read More»
What REALLY Matters Now? Beware of “Outlier Amplifiers”
Social Media, Big Data, Marketing Automation, and Mobile are the only things that matter now, and all the "cool kids" are heavily investing in gamification and customer experience initiatives. Of course none of the above are true, but if we are to believe the media around us, you'd think that if … Read More»
Rapid digital innovation fueling vast complexity and opportunity for customer experience executives
I was recently invited to keynote a series of executive events hosted by NICE Systems. For those unaware, NICE serves over 25,000 organizations in the enterprise and security sectors, representing a variety of sizes and industries in more than 150 countries, and including over 80 of the Fortune 100 … Read More»
Creating Measurable Business Value through Social Collaboration
This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya Well, it's only taken us 3,000 years, but we're finally getting back together. You may be familiar with this story from Genesis. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If … 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»
Exploring new frontiers of real time customer feedback
This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya Growing up, I spent much of my time playing competitive team sports. I played soccer, basketball, and (American) football. In each case, almost immediately after some level of effort, I knew how I had done. I got immediate feedback … Read More»
Blog World LA: The State of the Blogosphere & the New Media Wisdom Void (#BWELA)
Last week, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Blog World Expo appeared in its fifth incarnation. I spent a couple of days watching, listening, and engaging with a dense concentration of experienced and enthusiastic new media evangelists. The keynotes were well done. Peter Shankman is … Read More»
In an era of crisis & revolution, is your company the next target?
We are living in interesting times indeed. Geo-political revolutions, financial crises, economic uncertainty. Try as we might to ignore them, the fact is that the very fabric of capitalism is being re-evaluated, and perhaps even rewoven. What we have assumed and known for at least 150 years is at … Read More»
Networks, Signals, Reputation and Delight
The era of mass marketing, sales driven information gathering and sharing, and being "just good enough to win" is being shattered by the rapid emergence of a smart, networked, and increasingly demanding generation of empowered customers. In the fragmented and fast moving world of concepts, … Read More»