Tag Archives: Digital

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 25 2019
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Advertising, Analytics, Brand, Business, Business Change, Business Transformation, Connected Technology, Consumer Experience, Consumer First, Conversation, Customer Experience, Digital, Experience, Uncategorized

Good Businesses DO Good Business

I am thrilled to be embarking on a new chapter that builds on my last 15 years of collective experience to start defining what a new era of ‘Experience’ looks like. If like me, you’ve been trying to design for the world of connected everything, in and around audiences of ‘I want everything now’, then you too will know how hard it is to actually deliver something impactful.

And impactful is a big word. To distill that I don’t mean worthy, but put simply I do think we have a responsibility as marketers to enable good businesses to do good business.

I’m excited to be joining a team of brilliant minds who want to help design and deliver the next series of experiences for brands who are built around business ideals that have stood the test of time. If you instantly scathe this thought it’s probably because you’ve been spammed by crappy ads for too long and that’s what you think marketing is now. Sadly a lot of brands/ businesses are still just worried about selling stuff first then listening second.

Let’s pause here… pick a brand you’ve worked with or for, then go right back to the beginning of their existence and you will likely see that their success grew from standing for something, and dig further you’ll find that ‘something’ had the intent to impact positively.

What I have seen over the last few years is that the pressures of technology on a brand, whether in the shape of; Google as a search engine or as a competitor, Amazon as delivery partner or a competitor or trail blazing brands breaking the expectation barrier – is that sh*t got really fast and they struggled to keep up with the pace of life it delivered.

So, as most emerging technologies slide into the Gartner trough and we have a little breathing space to pull our brand pants up a bit, I personally find the millions of connections that need to be woven together properly are a brilliantly complex challenge. It’s a bit like smashing a Rubik’s Cube into Connect4, throwing in Twister and trying to nail the game.

Now we’re talking.

My aim is to spend the next chapter working out and proving the scales of impact for individual businesses. Impact that is built on their original true values, shifting them into modern thinking behaviours and realigning them against the moving needs of their audiences. By doing this I believe ‘Experience’ will become an understood term that not just couples, but instead intricately weaves ‘Digital’ and ‘Traditional’ marketing together.

Creating value for the first shared connection to the last and back again. Designing for the consumer first, not just wrapping a brand around them. Building business thinking principles not just design thinking ones.

This is good business practice which will hopefully return good business whatever the measure of impact.

 

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Jan 21 2016
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Commerce, Connected Technology, Consumer First, eCommerce, sCommerce, social commerce

Click to Predict

Last year eCommerce saw a rise in click to collect behaviour, pop up millennial hubs, drone deliveries, shoppable store fronts and mobile payment systems like Apple Pay leapfrog forwards. So what does this year hold?

Here are three things I think will start to take off:

  1. sCommerce: 2015 saw all of the major social players roll out their version of the ‘buy now’ button in order to bring shopping to the masses acting on impulse in social media around the world. The trend is set to spike into this year as the tracking of associated likes and comments enable brands to quickly grasp and react to what consumers want.
  2. Pre-cognitive commerce: Is the art of knowing what consumers want before they know they want it. In a connected world where immediate gratification is an increasing expectation, brands will need to be reactive more quickly, not to what shoppers ask for, but to what they may ask for next. 
  3. Truth-based purchasing: Technology has provided a level of connectivity that means brands will not be able to hide anything about their products in the future. Clothes will communicate with washing machines as to how they need to be washed, food will talk to fridges about when they’re going out of date, the national grid will talk to homes about when they are switching to ‘bad’ energy. The margin for creative license in communicating brand truths has narrowed further and will continue to do so.

I wonder who will get it right…

Keep-Your-Heels-Head-and-Standards-High-Coco-Chanel-Poster-Textual-Art-A89P389P1824

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Apr 18 2010
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Client questions answered, Debates and Discussion points

are we Google pawns?

It’s pretty difficult to fully get your head around the epic scale of the ongoing battle between Microsoft, Google and Apple. Ridiculous sums of money at stake, entire business strategies hanging in the air and umpteen routes to a delicate balance between success or failure hang in the balance.

It’s not so much the size of these businesses, in the 90’s monopolisation was defined in the dictionary as ‘Microsoft’. Where there was a computer there was Microsoft.

And then along came Apple, they conquered music, revolutionised mobile phones (sorry to all the blackberry/ HTC/ Android phone lovers), I might be so bold as to say they made the computer industry sexy (gasp). However Apple only really dominate (controversial I know) closed information appliances with lots of third-party apps.

And then there’s Google, all roads lead to the internet, and the internet is pretty much Google.

So are we all just pawns in Google’s worldwide game of chess? Discuss…

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Apr 17 2010
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Interesting things on the vine, new technology

speccy 6 eyes

So the long awaited 3D TV is on the horizon with anticipated launch dates any time soon (samsung have a 10 day count down on their site as of today)

So what’s the hype all about? The first reviews are in and according to critics the idea is relatively positive and this is really the biggest thing since high definition. Park the flat picture, there’s an incredible depth to the image that sucks you into the drama making you feel a part of it, if you’ve seen Avatar you’ll have an idea of what the effects will be like (although developers are promising that this will be easier on the eye so you won’t get the headache that comes with it – bonus).

You’re looking at around £2-3k for something along the lines of a 50 inch Panasonic TC – P50VT20 but that comes with just one pair of active shutter glasses so everyone else gets the 2D version (unless you fork out an extra £100-£150 for each extra anticipated guest).

The main drawback at the moment is there’s very little 3D content available. Some TV’s will be accompanied by a smart 3D processor, able to take 2D content and convert it to 3D. This doesn’t deliver the clarity that you experience watching a 3D Blu-ray movie but it will mean you can take a step towards the 3D experience, unfortunately though most current experiences will be run from a demo disc… soooo how long until they’re a living room essential?

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Apr 16 2010
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Interesting stuff

Aliens revolt against digital TV

Okay, so you’re probably wondering what on earth aliens find revolting about digital TV…?

Well, I was reading an article recently about SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) and their ongoing conquest to prove that we are not alone. Fascinating in itself, but what really grabbed my attention is the fact that they blamed digital television for being the reason that aliens couldn’t find us and have a theory that, for similar reasons, we can’t find the aliens.

I thought this was quite interesting so dug a little deeper and thought I would share my findings with you all.

The problem is that digital TV is making Earth invisible.

The process for converting analogue to digital offers more stability, as it is less vulnerable to noise. This means that, whilst we’re happy because we get a nice viewing experience at home, it does make life very difficult for the aliens trying to find us.

In the world of analogue, a digital transmission looks like noise, and radio astronomers have to filter out noise to locate signals indicative of extra-terrestrial life. However, with the complexity of digital signal processing (DSP) to measure or filter continuous real-world analogue signals, this noise is getting crowded and indistinguishable. So, whilst sticking astronomers on a lunar observatory on the moon may help us look for ET, the Digital Switchover could be making it harder for ET to find us.

So, if you don’t want aliens to land on Earth, keep watching digital TV!

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