Tag Archives: Change

Dec 12 2019
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Brand, Business, Business Change, Business Transformation, Consumer Experience, Consumer First, Customer Experience, Digital, Experience, Leadership, Loyalty, strategy, The Future, Uncategorized, User Experience

I’m comfortable being uncomfortable

It’s six months since I started the biggest job of my career to date. My days bring with them a constant Wile E. esq feel of laying the tracks as the train speeds to the cliff edge whilst I’m speeding one step ahead to build the bridge that will carry everyone over safely to the other side.

I don’t actually know what the other side looks like yet, but since jumping in to this role I’ve learnt once again to trust my instincts and the many years of experience I have leading change.

Allow me to give a little background; I’m a CXO. A what? Great question. A CXO, a ‘Chief Experience Officer’. A fairly newly created space on the expanding c-suite of companies that design for the next rather than the now. Over the course of 27 interviews, 3 countries and 6 months a handful of my now team and I crafted a job description that is part ‘sh*t to get done’ and part ambition statement. This was the first hook – we don’t really know how this will go but what I do know is that I feel energised.

I constantly seek to make a difference with every small action and to balance positive disruption and forward impact. When I’m in our agencies I look around me and the small but rapidly growing teams assembling are passionate, excited and if they were honest probably a bit scared. Most of all though we are hungry.

I’m frustrated (as always) by the ‘we don’t do it that way’ computer says no mentality of some of the structures and processes in place but hey, whilst I can’t (and don’t want to) break all the rules, we can definitely create better more modern and future proof ones.  I’m excited by the gravity of people pulling together and that excitement wouldn’t be as sharp without the frustration to balance it.

Everyday I turn my phone on in the morning to watch my emails argue out my day and my calendar level up in Tetris – the demand on my time and my brain is exhausting. I love it.

It’s reminded me that I thrive amidst an assembling puzzle, playing out the chess board whilst figuring out what piece you are on any given day. I’m glad we have the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ agencies out there and people to run them because that’s boring to me. Got a problem but you don’t know where to start? Great. Losing customers with only a vague idea what to? Excellent. Your market’s been thrown into turmoil by a #movement? Bring it on.  Your business is chaos and a watertight process won’t stop the sinking feeling? That’s us.

We’re building a practice that meshes business transformation, creativity and technology to address growth challenges anchored in human centred design thinking – in doing so we’re helping our clients design and build their futures.

I don’t have a crystal ball but I do have faith in how things change because the system of change is always fundamentally the same. The pace will be different, the complexity governed by how many people do, or don’t know what they’re doing. But it will happen, it will keep happening and we’re at the front of it.

What a brilliantly uncomfortable journey to be on.

WileThatsAllFolks

Image found on Google and likely sourced from Looneytunes originally – Thank you!

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Apr 04 2017
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Business Change, Business Transformation, Innovation, Leadership, Uncategorized

Creating Cultures of Innovation

Innovation is such a loaded word.

How do you constantly reinvent yourself? The team around you? How do you think like a start up when you hit 150 people, 300 people, 500..?

I come across two sets of people every day; the ‘No, but’s’ and the ‘Yes, and’s’. It’s the latter that drive change because they disrupt with positivity.  My starting point is always to invite these guys in and let them thrive for as long as possible.

Once positive disruption is in place (and it needn’t take many people to create a stir) quickly focus on negating potential risk of that running for too long. Once you have something that you intuitively feel is right, start making it. It doesn’t have to be slick, rough and ready is good, but play with it, test it, let others do the same.

Ask yourself; if you were to put money into this how confident would you be that it will succeed?

I can promise you this; regardless of what your idea is you will be more confident once you start making it. You simply can’t get the insight and feedback loop you need from a deck with some words and pictures in it. It’s not the same.

Once you have something tangible, look at what makes it fit for brief, or purpose (depending whether you’re coming at this as an agency or client). The idea itself will die if it’s not put into practice, and quickly.

At this stage you should involve your audience in your beta, this is where you get the ‘authentic truths’ from and where your product will start to improve quickly. This will also help you identify where scale and profitability will come from, which in turn will shape your ‘go to market’ approach.

If you’ve reached this point, well done! You should feel like you have a desirable product or service and this is where sh*t gets real.

There are many ways to go to market, especially with ‘the internet’ enabling us to reach the masses quickly and effectively. Don’t forget to include the audience you’ve just built in your testing, include them as you plan your approach.

Hacker marketing, or growth marketing should never be underestimated, I recommend this book if you’re ready to start getting something out there and you’re a start up, or try this one if you’re an agency or client with an internal team changing the status quo. Obviously feel free to read both!

It doesn’t stop here, once you’re up and running, never stop innovating or disrupting. If you sit on your laurels, someone else will come along and disrupt you, which doesn’t feel good.

Keep pushing, interrogating, improve your product, or move on to something else.

Whatever you do, don’t sit still.

In the words of Steve Jobs ‘If you don’t cannabalise yourself, someone else will.’ And look what he achieved.

stevejobs1image found on Google – thank you

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Dec 12 2016
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Advertising, Beyond Broadcast, Brand, Business, Business Change, Business Transformation, Connected Technology, Consumer First

Success in 2017 means Disruption as standard

One thing stood out to me this year more than anything else; the fact that senior clients are finally seeing disruption as the new norm within their businesses.

Good news for me. Great news for them.

In 2017 more brands and industries will be shaped by technology and models that challenge their internal legacy frameworks. In marketing ‘traditional’ is no longer broadcast, that’s simply archaic. Traditional encompasses straight forward digital advertising, social at the heart of your conversations with consumers and hopefully semantic designs and processes.

So brands looking to be ahead of the game, or even just quick to follow, will need to go beyond sticking digital plasters over the cracks in their swim-lane plans for reaching and engaging audiences.

Mobile centric should now be standard, consumer concentric planning should be something your agency is talking to you about on every brief, and if you’re not already thinking about smart solutions that step towards AI integration into your service offering at the very least, then be prepared for next year to be the year you fall behind.

The internet is no longer contained in our laptops or phones. The Internet of Things (IoT) is here and very much a part of consumers’ lives. So if you’re a senior marketer then get ready to disrupt your marketing, chuck out the old rinse repeat model and shake up the business.

Brands that embrace innovative thinking next year will be the ones that establish new rules of engagement in a window of opportunity to explore and be brave.

Consumers want to work with brands and more importantly buy from brands that are seen to be innovative. The key is to take that first step, getting it 100% right doesn’t necessarily matter as long as you involve them in your journey, bring them into your beta; innovate, deploy, ask, listen, innovate, deploy… you get the picture.

So as you look to 2017 and wonder what it holds for you and your business, my advice is simple; disrupt your norm.

 

fish

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