Brian Solis's Blog, page 106

Curate This! We are the Network Now

My good friend Steve Rosenbaum released his new book, “Curate This,” to help us learn the ins and outs content curation. This is his second book and also the second time I’ve had the privilege to write his foreword. In fact, this time around, I wrote two. I’d like to share the first with you here. I’m sure I’ll publish the second at some point in the near future.

and I wanted to share it with you

I’ve known Steve Rosenbaum since the mid 2000s. We’ve worked together and over the years, we’ve grown to become great friends. Before we met in the real world however, I was also a fan of Steve and his work at on MTV News: Unfiltered in the mid 1990s. Little did I know that this person whose work on a show that had a profound impact on me would become someone whom I would continue to admire and respect as his work continued to challenge convention and pioneer new fronts.

Curate This! We are the Network Now

MTV News: Unfiltered wasn’t an ordinary news program. It was crowd-sourced, where everyday kids and young adults would curate the news based on what was important to them. It was my first real foray into the world of user-generated content. As producer and creator of the show, Steve was essentially a master curator of content and exceptional programming. Arming the MTV generation with cameras and a voice, we were introduced into world that didn’t receive popular airplay as told by people who would have their 15 minutes of fame. All of this was well before YouTube and all of the social media we take for granted today.

Steve figured out that if you open the doors to people and what’s interesting to them without influence of what mainstream media fed us, he could not only inform us in new ways but also build vibrant communities around people and curated, interest-driven content. This premise would influence my work in media and research.

Steve’s vision and subsequent work with Magnify and now Waywire with Corey Booker would also shape a new wave of technology startups, platforms and media channels. These new technologies would eventually empower everyday experts to create and curate content for networked audiences around the world. More so, content too would evolve in ways where viewing or consumption was no longer enough. Networked audiences too would become part of the story in how they shared, remixed or reacted to the content of others. Impressions used to be a big deal, but its no longer enough. That’s for yesterday’s programming. Now it’s all about impressions that transform into expressions and how and what people say and share in response to what they find fascinating, though provoking or simply entertaining.

That’s the power of the human network and it represents the future of curation, broadcast, connections and media at large.

By the people for the people…

The art of curation combined with social media, its partner in enablement, allows for content to travel to and also through people bringing to life a human broadcast network. This vibrant and highly efficient distribution channel is powering a new era of consumption, dissemination and engagement around relevant information and the communities that form as a result.

In our own way, we are each now programmers of our own digital channels now. Our audiences are the people to whom we’re connected and those who are connected to us. Our communities are defined by what we share and what they share and how we interact respectively. We are what we see and hear. We are what we say and don’t say. We are watch we share. We are the network.

That’s pretty amazing when you stop and think about it.

Now…go curate this!

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The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to Thought Leadership

LinkedIn and I have worked on several research projects together over the years ranging from the future of Native Advertising (private) to the state of Relationship Economics.  Now, we banded together again to explore the art and science of thought leadership. Although this time, I was on the contributing side of the research project and Jason Miller, LinkedIn’s senior manager of content marketing, was the lead.

“Thought leadership is an essential part of any successful content marketing strategy. Both B2C and B2B companies can benefit from the many advantages of thought leadership to build a more competitive reputation and ultimately drive more revenue,” according to Miller.

Miller along with his team at LinkedIn interviewed several experts to assemble a gorgeous and useful ebook to help brand marketers learn how to optimize thought leadership strategies. Experts include Joe Chernov, Ekaterina Walter, Shannon Stubo, among others.  You can download .

To celebrate the launch of the new ebook, LinkedIn gave me the go ahead to share my part with you here.

Hope it helps!

How important is thought leadership for gaining a competitive advantage?

If you define thought leadership as thinking about people and how to provide these people with value, how to help them solve problems, and how to help them achieve aspirations and goals, it’s absolutely critical. If you define thought leadership as personal branding, the opposite is true. People often confuse thought leadership with personal branding. There’s a difference.

For those looking to create thought leadership content for the first time, what are the best opportunities to get started?

I was once asked how to be a thought leader. The answer is: You have to be one. That takes understanding of the market and the people you are trying to reach and engage. You have to understand the state of the world, and also have ideas on how it should evolve. But it starts by being human. This is a part even successful thought leaders miss, and it’s mostly driven by ego: “I’m better than the voices that are out there, so I’m going to add mine.”

True thought leadership starts with empathy. Can you tell me the top ten problems your audience has at any given time? How about the top ten aspirations? Are you thinking through where your audience wants to be, compared with where the market is going? That’s what inspires me. Someone who is honestly trying to better understand the people they are trying to help. And if understanding and helping is the goal, I don’t think any thought leaders would call themselves thought leaders.

Can you think of a brand that is nailing thought leadership? What are they doing right? What are they gaining from it?

For a while American Express Open Forum was one of the best examples because they didn’t just try to put their own voice out there. They made it a point to bring in relevant outside voices. Their model became the benchmark, as did Mayo Clinic’s when they offered thought leadership by helping people answer common questions about health conditions. Same with H & R Block and their selfless approach to answering questions. When you are selfless as a brand, when you are providing value, the natural response is reciprocity. Reciprocity can lead to ROI.

Intel (client) has catered to the B2B audience as well as B2C which is pretty stellar for a semi-conductor company. They continue to break ground, using new and existing channels in leading ways, and demonstrating to the rest of the world what is possible.

What LinkedIn marketing tactics can brands use to implement thought leadership campaigns?

Recently, Altimeter Group (where I am a principal analyst) and LinkedIn partnered on a research project that ultimately showed how genuine communication and engagement in social media helps businesses improve relationships with both customers and employees. The key to ‘relationship economics’ on social media is no different from real-world relationships: the more you invest in terms of time, openness, value, listening, and engagement, the more likely it is that relationships will flourish.

It starts at the top. We found that executives at companies that reap the rewards of social media engagement are much more active on social media than executives at companies that are not socially active. They also play a bigger role in driving a socially engaged culture. Yes, there are specific tactics companies can use on

LinkedIn, but the most effective social media strategies are derived from a culture of relationship building where the executives lead by example.

You’ve mentioned before that engagement is really about A.R.T. (Actions, Reactions and Transactions). When crafting a thought leadership strategy, do you recommend starting with the story you want to tell or the A.R.T. you want to achieve?

A.R..T. is less about following the trend of trying to be a storyteller, and more about just trying to be engaging. I believe the story comes naturally when you are inspired by the empathy of being human, and what humans find compelling, useful, and meaningful. Most brands think about one audience, one campaign, and one emotion, but there are so many types of emotional elements to consider. The culture of each social network is different. Each channel features different people, with different needs and motivations, in a different context. The actual story is the bigger purpose or aspiration. And it unfolds in so many different ways, like the movie Crash. More companies need to think like that.

A.R.T. is really about what happens next. Everyone should design for what happens next. Attention is precious. Once you have earned attention, it’s what you do with that attention that counts. Too many companies emphasize attention. They come up with amazing headlines, clever GIFs, and great infographics, but there is rarely a defined strategy to do something with attention once it is captured.

In your mind, what is the biggest differentiator between those who try to become thought leaders and those who ultimately succeed at it?

Philosophically I wonder if anyone really knows if they are successful. How do you define success? The people who want to be helpful, do they have to justify ROI? It comes down to campaign vs continuum. One turns off and the other is part of life. The A.R.T. of engagement was always about assessing the value in real-time, adding to what you’re doing, and measuring. You should know more as you go, so that you can effectively refine as you go.

There are too many content marketers who suffer from mediumalism and there are too few strategists who can turn attention into a human moment. It’s about designing for the embrace, not the channel, and then for the journey.

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Digital is Just a Means to Reach People…It’s How and Why You Use It That Matters

Splendida Notizia!

#WTF is going on in Italy? The future of business is turning a new page…that’s what. I’m excited to announce that What’s the Future of Business: Changing the way businesses create experiences is now available in Italy.

To celebrate the launch, I spent some time with Luca Conti, new media strategist, Italian blogger, journalist, and author of several books on social media. In our discussion, we explored the future of business and why the time is now for leadership to rise from the middle. I wanted to share this discussion with you here…

If in Doubt…Begin

What would you suggest to a family-sized medium business in Italy? How could they embrace this positive change? Where should they start from?

Disruptive technology is just that…it’s disruptive. Every so often, something new comes around and completely upsets the balance. Now, innovation is part of our society and it’s only accelerating. The key to success is to simply accept that this is the end of business as usual. The way that things were done only evolve to accommodate the expectations and preferences of evolved customers and employees. And, that’s where we begin. We need to understand what’s changing so that we can learn and adapt. This isn’t anything to fear nor is it something that we should discount. But ignoring how technology is affecting customer or employee behavior isn’t an option. In the end, that’s what this is about…behavior.

What’s different about your connected customers over your traditional customers?

How are they using technology to make decisions?

What do they search for? What do they ask? Where do they go?

Most importantly…what comes back in their search or what answers are given to their common questions?

Answering these questions makes change approachable because you can see and feel what’s different. Any impassioned business professional will realize that technology doesn’t present challenges or obstacles. The word change here is similar to saying improvement…improvement to chase new opportunities and grow your business.

On Digital Influence

Is this a key topic for consumer goods and big companies or it could interesting to leverage for SMB too? How could You manage it with only a few resources to spend on that?

Digital influencers are those experts and authorities in any market that customers and prospects find when in search of information, direction, or validation. This is a bit different than advocates, which may or may not be customers, but share a passion for the company’s products, services or purpose. Regardless of the size of the business, it’s imperative for to learn who influences and advocates for your business and your competition. There are of course many services such as eCairn and Traackr that make it easy to identify who they are, what they talk about and where. But, this is a future that shares much with the past…relationships are everything. Getting to know them is just the beginning. Recognizing their work. Engaging them to learn more before you need something is also key.

In a connected world where people trust others like them, finding influential people in networks where customers and prospects engage with one another will only help you learn more about expectations, challenges, and opportunities. More so, you’ll learn about the people whom others trust and how to build a relationship with them. Taking the time to learn and engage helps you expand your reach from one-to-one to one-to-one-to-many. Word of mouth is more powerful than ever before. I understand that time is limited, but you get out of relationships, whether in real life or online, what you put into them.

Generation C and The Connected Consumer

What about B2B companies? I believe we should address this topic from a P2P (people to people) point of view, what is Your opinion?

One of the first things I often hear from b2b marketers and strategists is that all examples of new media are inherently b2c. They then venture to ask how new technologies apply to their world. It is for this reason that I begin referring b2b and b2c as simply p2p, people to people. That’s what this is about…people.  The question is how are your connected customers different than your traditional customers? Decision-making takes place online of course. Connected customers use different networks and tools to discover, engage, and share. This really is about journey mapping to uncover the new touch points, technologies and the behaviors that shift as a result.

While the networks and apps may change, your customer’s journey is increasingly shifting from older touch points to new social and mobile communities.  It’s true for everything.

The one thing that I’d also like to mention is that because everyone is becoming more connected, customers are changing. This is particular interesting for b2b companies as their customer’s customer may be changing faster than the value chain that is designed to serve them. In many ways this is an opportunity for b2b companies to help their business customers adapt to better serve their connected consumers (b2b2c)

The Story Behind The Book

You used a cool format, very visual, colorful and straight to the point. What’s the story behind the book?

The book is a testament to the fact that technology is changing people’s behavior and we have to change along with it. I recently stumbled across a statistic that shows teenagers can only focus for six minutes while doing homework until they have to reach for a connected device to plug-in.

How can I help businesses change if I can’t change myself? I’ve written many books but this is the first where I stepped back to approach the opportunity differently. Rather than publish a book the same old way with the same paper, shape, and font, I decided to study how connected consumers or Generation-C (connected) as I refer to them, read and share content online and on devices. What I learned is that multitasking is part of the experience now and that information can be presented on paper in a way that’s familiar, and appreciated, on digital devices. Essentially what I set out to answer is if we know consumer behavior is changing what would the ideal book look like to be accepted and valued in today’s digital lifestyle.

When you start with a different question you get a different result. And, that’s the point. This is a time for innovation and reinvention. I partnered with my friends at Mekanism to create what is a digital UI in printed book form. We call it an analog app. It’s rich with visuals, infographics, and also cartoons that summarize each chapter drawn by my dear friend Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid).

Also, each chapter includes a navigation bar to help readers easily jump from section to section. It’s also important that I share that as a write, I had to change how I write. Here, my sentences are presented in burst formats, similar to Tweets, to help connect with readers in a more dynamic way. It also makes the content shareable.

Nothing is simplified however. It’s still a deep book. It’s just modernized to reflect how we interact with information now as a result of our connected lifestyle.

The State of Social Technology in USA (and the World)

I met Your partner Charlene Li in Rome a couple of years ago and she told me even USA companies have not fully embraced social technology inside their business. Are we still at the beginning of a new era? Why millions of people are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and online but companies still invest not enough on digital? Do we have a cultural problem or a generational one?

The problem is purely philosophical. Social is part technology but it is what social unlocks and also empowers that is truly transformative. It’s a great equalizer. Social flattens markets and connects people to other people. As we become more connected we become more informed. With information comes power and empowerment. And with empowerment, consumers become more demanding.

It’s not just generational however. This is about everyone who lives a connected lifestyle. Sure Millennials are digital natives. But everyday people who are over 40 who use a smartphone or a tablet or social networks and apps start to exhibit Millennial-like behaviors. Businesses must not only embrace the technology that their customers use they must understand how technology is affecting discovery, perception, decisions, and loyalty.

Many companies think that the answer is digital. But digital is just a means to reach people. It’s how we change and evolve our philosophy to adapt to new expectations, behaviors and values to not just reach to markets, but to lead them in meaningful ways. That’s the future of business. This is a time for leaders…not managers.

Photo credit: Ana-Maria Leonte

Only companies with impeccable customer service will survive the Zombie Apocalypse

Guest Post by Peter Shankman, Author of Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans

Imagine a world where decisions aren’t made based on anonymous reviews with no validation on sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor, but rather, through trusted sources in your own network.

Imagine that world is automatic – If you want to take a vacation in Fiji, you don’t have to ask which of your friends have gone, you simply start searching for Fiji – on any network, on any of the major “social” sites, and the posts, photos, videos, and comments of your friends who’ve visited Fiji come up automatically, sorted not only from good to bad, but “most trusted” to “least trusted,” depending on your interaction with that person in your network.

Imagine that this applies from everything in your life – from the diner at which you eat Sunday brunch, the airline to which you become loyal, the pet-spa to which you entrust Fluffy to get her summer coat.

Brian Solis said it before, countless times. In this new economy, the differentiating factor, that above all else, will be the concept of trust. If we have a good experience with a vendor/merchant/restaurant/business/service, and we appreciate what that business did for us, the sentiment of our interaction will be posted automatically, sometimes even without us doing anything.

Think about this: If I have a favorite Mexican restaurant on 49th Street, and I go there frequently, well, who knows that? My phone knows where I am, based on GPS and how long I’m there, as it pings my location to cell towers close to me. Thus, Facebook, Google+, they all know, too.

If you’re in my network, and we’ve connected in the past, then when you’re geographically close to me, and go searching for a Mexican restaurant, guess which one is going to come up first in your list? It’s already happening on Google Maps, while Facebook knows with whom you want to connect before you do when you land in a new city.

So what’s a business to do? If Yelp doesn’t matter (did it ever?) and advertising and marketing doesn’t have anywhere near the hold that a trusted recommendation does, what will save the business of today and long into tomorrow?

Customer Service.

Nothing else. The economy of the next fifty years will be powered by Customer Service. Why? Because in the very near future, only the sentiment of a customer’s interaction with you will determine whether that customer brings in new ones, or lets your business die.

I’ve spent the past year researching customer service around the world, and have discovered some amazing facts:

88% of all businesses believe that they deliver “top-notch” customer service. Unfortunately, only 8% of their customers believe the same thing.

The average amount of money a company loses after an unresolved bad customer service interaction is $289. That adds up to $83 BILLION dollars per year in this country alone.

Those numbers should scare you more than any Zombie Movie should.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. All the research that I did for my latest book, Zombie Loyalists, shows that good customer service – heck, just one level above crap – is enough to get a customer to come back, because the bar is set that low! Create something out of the ordinary, whether it’s a smile, a discount, or a free drink, and you’ll create Zombie Loyalists, customers who will go out of their way to drag their friends back to your business with them, every. Single. Time.

And that, my friends, is real revenue for the next century and beyond.

Peter Shankman is best known for founding Help a Reporter Out, which changed how journalists and sources interact around the world. Zombie Loyalists is his fourth book, and is the follow-up to his best-seller, Nice Companies Finish First. He blogs at Shankman.com, and tweets random hilarity at @petershankman

The Future of Business Starts with Us

I often share a quote by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

And that’s where are in business. We all talk of change but very few of us start with changing the very things that will help us more effectively compete for the future.

It’s changing or it should change…

What we see (perspective and vision)

What we create (product)

What we do (work)

Why we do it (purpose)

How we do it (process)

Who we do it with (people)

How we define success (objectives and metrics)

What we do next (planning and strategy)

We are change.

What’s important to remember is that the future of business has been widely speculated but not documented. This means that the future is being written as we go by what we say and do and also by what we do not say and do.

I spent time with SDL CMO Paige O’Neill to discuss our role in the future of business and what possibilities will unfold when we put people first in this digital era. The resulting video is something that I wanted to share with you here.

In our fireside style discussion, we explore the rise of Generation C, market disruption and the role of empathy in your business strategy. It’s very conversational and fun while still tackling tough subjects.

Other important topics include:

Customer experience (CX) is becoming more important than the product itself.
Disruptive technologies and customer behavior are changing how we do business.
‘Generation C’ – looking at the customer, not by age but how they behave and become digitally connected.
Digital experience and the journey.
The importance of empathy combined with understanding the customer.

Please take a moment to watch the video now. (Note: Email gated)

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Pivot: The Emergence of Digital Compels Businesses to Transform

Guest post by Mike Edelhart, c0-producer and CEO of the Pivot Conference

Historic shifts in business fundamentals don’t occur smoothly; rather they happen in sudden, sharp shifts which open unexpected chasms companies must traverse or plunge.

Today, the deep change in human behavior brought about by the emergence of social media marks the latest such shift, perhaps the most dramatic since the Industrial Revolution. Gone are the traditional success factors of operational efficiency and price advantage being uprooted by the conversational, consumer-centric nature of the emerging business environment. Already, quick response, collaboration and flexibility are trumping traditional competitive advantages. And this shift seems to be accelerating into an ever-more-social future.

”Digital transformation is causing a tectonic shift in how companies are structured and led, and how they perform and compete…Digitization is increasing the pace of change throughout the economy, even in sleepy mainstream industries” notes Pierre-Yves Cros, Chief Development Officer of international consulting firm CapGemini. “These shifts are broad and deep and they’re just getting under way… No firm is immune from digital transformation.”

A  study by CapGemini and MIT’s Center for Digital Business found that companies that have already responded most deeply to social challenges are 26% more profitable than laggards. Two measures separated those winning companies from others: Digital Intensity, the penetration of social, mobile and other emerging technologies deeply into customer engagement and business operations. Transformative Management Intensity, where a clear vision of how digital is changing the company expresses itself as alterations in governance, customer management and IT-business relationships.

Moving from rhetoric to reality in response to digital transformation is anything but straightforward. Current corporations have hired, trained and compensated a generation of employees around incremental operational improvements. They have, in short, an army optimized to fight the old war, as a new war roars upon them. This new war demands effective, quick response to whatever social/mobile data reveals and collaboration with a diasporic customer and influence population, all in a word where ownership of the prime relationship stands to overpower any other advantage.

A recent massive study by the Harvard Business School Forum on Innovation indicated that, in the end, only two variables may matter. This rigorous analysis of what separates successful companies from others uncovered these two rules: Better before cheaper—companies that compete on differentiators other than price win. Revenue before cost—companies that prioritize increasing revenue over reducing costs prosper more highly than others. How important are these two variable to success? The report concludes: “There are no other rules…. so change anything you must to follow Rules 1 and 2.”

So, the keys to digital transformation may come down to how companies can use social data to make their products “better” in the eyes of empowered consumers and so find new sources of revenue.

We also don’t need to look much further than my co-producer and someone with whom you already know very well. Brian Solis also published research on the state of digital transformation and found, in his two reports this year alone, that companies are undergoing change to compete in a digital economy but most don’t know why. In his most recent study, Solis found that 88% of digital strategists and executives claimed that the digital customer experience was driving digital transformation efforts yet only 12% launched efforts to understand the digital customer journey.

Wow. Just wow.

Companies won’t fail in response to digital change because they don’t see it coming; they will fail because their organizations aren’t set up to respond in ways that can really save them. “Big companies are really bad at innovation,” says Harvard’s Maxwell Wessel. “Because they’re designed to be bad at innovation.”

Pivot Conference talks place October 16-17 at the NASDAQ Marketsite in Times Square NYC.  Pivot is an invitation-only event for senior executives who lead social, mobile and business transformation initiatives for major corporations.  Requests for invitation should be directed to: Matt Godson, matt@momentumevents.com

Pivot: The Total Digital Experience

Pivot Conference in NYC in October is unique among events in that, each year, it shifts  focus to deeply reflect the needs of its community of senior business transformation executives from leading brands and organizations.  To make that happen, I serve as Pivot’s Executive Producer along with Pivot CEO, Mike Edelhart.

For four years in a row, we’ve put our heads together to develop a story arc that covers the hottest, emergent trends, presented by the industry’s most engaging experts over the span of two days. They bring to life my work in digital transformation and the digital customer experience and Mike’s perspective as lead partner for the Social Starts investment fund.

To celebrate the upcoming event next week, Mike and I got together to talk about the story behind this year’s Pivot.

Mike – This is Mike Edelhart, the CEO of The Tomorrow Project, the producers of the Pivot Conference in New York, and I’m here with Brian Solis, executive producer of Pivot, author, partner of the Altimeter Group, and friend.  Hey Brian!

Brian- Hey Mike, I can’t believe we are back at it again – it seems like yesterday we did the last Pivot Conference.

Mike- I know, we’ve been at this now four times, I guess, and each time, at least in my experience (and I expect in yours) it’s been  a little different – and we do that on purpose – so  maybe that’s a good way to start. From your point of view, what do you think has made Pivot unique and what do you think makes it particularly unique this year?

Brian- You know, the thing that I love about Pivot is it first starts with working with you, working as friends, it becomes a real personable conference.  We all go to these conferences to get smarter, to meet people and network. Then there are conferences like Pivot where you really start to feel a part of a community – part of a movement is probably a better way to describe it – and I think that’s what made Pivot really special for me and what keeps me coming back every year is that you can actually see progress in the themes and in the people we bring together and in the careers of those who advance who attend Pivot – we’re really pushing things forward and I feel a little proud to be a part of it.

Mike- Yes, same here. We’ve talked about this since the very beginning of Pivot – the senior executive community we serve, the world that’s being transformed by social and mobile technology, keeps changing and we need to change with it and at least for me, one of the things about this year that’s  most exciting is the notion that we have a two day conference where each day is essentially a one-day event unto itself, trying to get our arms around the breadth of what’s  happening out there for the companies we serve now. We’ve all decided that the first day is about business transformation.

What does business transformation mean for you? I know you’ve written about it.  When we say to folks: “come to Pivot on the first day – we’re doing business transformation” – what does that mean for you?

Brian- There’s this way of doing business, the way that always been done – you look at the classics, the business models that we’ve been taught in school. But you have technology that has continued to evolve to the point where now the machine is an extension of the person. Everybody sort of jokes around that the next evolution of human beings is that everybody’s hands are going to be little bit longer so that they can accommodate texting and multitasking on one screen a lot more efficiently.

In all seriousness, transformation starts to look at people first, it’s going back to the basics of just who are the people that we want to do business with? And why would they want to do to business with us? Who are the people that we want to work with us to do a better job and how do they want to work? This is the transformation – a much more human approach when we say “wow- those processes, those systems, those reward-mechanisms, those policies that we have, I mean everything is open to change.

That’s what really inspires me.

Mike- I think that’s right.  I’ve sometimes described it as the companies that we work with are being compelled to reconfigure and redecorate the house whilst still living in it and that’s a significant challenge. We know Pivot – we’ve been doing it for a while – we know the community that comes to Pivot but obviously not everybody does. So, if somebody is listening to this or reading about this conversation, what kind of executive do you think will get the most value out of what we are going to be doing on Day 1 of Pivot, which by the way is the 16th of October; Pivot is going to be 16th and 17th at the NASDAQ this year, which is a pretty cool venue.

Brian- I am really excited about that. I love the approach that we’re taking this year – we’ve always been a two day conference and it was always a lot for people to digest and, by breaking it up into two different groups, the first group I see really as the decision makers or the lead strategist. Anybody who really is looking for the vision and the inspiration to go back into their organization and lead from the top down – to bring the right people together to lead in new directions or to research new opportunities but to be able to do so with authority.

I am truly curious to see how well that day evolves or unfolds because we’ve put together, as you know, a really incredible program for Day 1 because we really want to show those executives and decision makers what’s changing, how it’s changing, why it’s changing and then give people the full rounded story and the details necessary – but at a high level – so that they’re going to go back with “we are going to do this, or we need to know this and this and this” –  and that’s pretty interesting to me.

Mike- I agree and we’ve talked a bit here about the fact we have two days and two different areas of focus, so we should probably talk about the second day as well which is going to be focused on where things stands now for big companies struggling to stay ahead of change related to marketing and influencing communication, and it gets me thinking back to that very first Pivot where all we cared about was Millennials –  “the kids won’t behave” – well, actually everybody is behaving differently; The rise of the social consumer in the second Pivot and then the question of social brand and social business in the third Pivot.   So, it leads to the natural question: What do you think the current state of social marketing is now? When we talk about social marketing at Pivot, where do you think we will be focusing our attention?

Brian- Well, I hope to be focusing our attention on areas that really show the breadth of social impact because what it really does come down to, in my view, is that social has democratized information, democratized audiences, networks, markets and that’s only becoming more profound as every day passes. So, when we talk about social, what we’re talking about is this great equalizer and how do we look at everybody who is not behaving the way you think they’re behaving.

One of the things that still surprises me, for example, is when a company says, “ok, the customers are different and technology is different, so what are we going to do?  Let’s map the customer journey so that we know where to make investments and prioritize those on a road map”. Yet they’re still making the same assumptions they’ve always made about their customers.  When we talk about social, it is exactly that – becoming part of the community, understanding your customer or your employee or your influencer or your detractor and where those touch points are. How do you use them for advances?

So that you can become part of those communities and redefine what the journey is. Not what you think it is but what it should be and then make the investment not just in technology and road maps but also in processes. How should things be different?

Do I really have to go through six different screens to be able to make a decision or a purchase because your process doesn’t work on the back end?  There is one company that I was working with that said “our best customers get the worst experience” and by that they meant that they had so many different product lines but none of those product lines act as one company – every product has its own company and none of those systems talked to one another.

The whole idea of social, to me at least, and what I hope people will take away from that is to recognize that, in order to become relevant in any market or any community, you have to become part of it and that’s a philosophical switch as much as it’s a business and a technology investment.

Mike- I agree completely. It’s all in the end about human beings and the fact that we can now see through analytics and emerging capabilities, the complexity that the variety of human experience make. So across this big arc of experience we are going to have at Pivot this year, I’m curious as to what part of the program are you most looking forward to being part of?

Brian- There is a one part that I am really looking at and is that around the sharing aspect of the economy and how this is gathering a lot of momentum. The taxi medallion, for example, was always considered one of the best investments and there was a real interesting piece done out of Chicago that shows how that medallion is a great risk because of challenges like Uber, and we all tend to look at Uber and AirBnB as the most common examples of disruption in the sharing economy. But what we’re really going to look at, and what I am excited about, are two things, and – putting the share in the economy in the whole buzz around it aside – what is it that businesses need to do or understand about this disruption in order to still be relevant three or four years from now.

That’s such a huge discussion. What are the psychological drivers for consumers as to why this stuff is even interesting to them. There’s another one too -  the whole idea of just the intelligent supply chain and democratization of the manufacturing process – where GE, for example, is  investing in 3-d printing of certain parts but they’re  also bringing the internet into things and turning parts into communication devices.  Those are the things I am really fascinated about because they really represent just two aspects of what the future of businesses looks like.  What are you looking at, Mike?

Mike- What I call the aggregation of everything – the emergence of the impact of this upon the supply chain is really fascinating and I can’t wait to hear what guests say about it at Pivot this year.  At my end doing my job as an early stage investor, we’re starting to see companies emerge and challenge the big companies. Organizations that don’t own the goods, that don’t own the transportation network, that don’t own the factory, that don’t have any stores – and produce a great product at an amazing price and a customer service experience superior to traditional companies. That’s something that was almost unimaginable even a few years ago and I think it’s going to be central to the way the rising generations choose to do business and I think it’s going to be a critical and fascinating topic at Pivot this fall.

Speaking about Pivot and some of the work that you have done –  I mean you have written about the ends of things, the end of business as usual and you have written about the future of things, the future of business;  so I am curious -  Pivot changes each year, we talk each year about how the world we’re part of is changing and how the executives we’re here to serve keep getting challenged in new ways. So, what do you think the future of Pivot holds?

What do you think we’ll be doing next October? What do you think we’ll be doing five Octobers from now?  Where – sort of as the mind behind Pivot – would you want Pivot to go or see Pivot heading?

Brian- Well, Mike, you’re turning this conversation into a strategy session. Let’s see, I didn’t do my homework on that one but if I had to think about it, I would want to see us continue –because I don’t want to say we’re not doing that – every year the event is different because we practice what we preach and looking at how we can make the event better; how we can make the experience better.  I think that’s really what I am looking for the future of Pivot – is that why does it has to be just one event and why does it have to be just that one event once a year?

What if we made Pivot alive every day?

What if we were bringing the most amazing people in front of the most amazing people in various ways every week, keeping the Pivot spirit alive, because change is only going to accelerate, right?  Disruption is only going to accelerate, so the need to get inside and find inspiration and information is going to happen more than once a year, and we’ll find ways to bring people together in real world because that is just as important but I think that, following this theme, by 2015 we might start to see a living and breathing Pivot.

Mike- I think that would be terrific and I think events like Pivot are going to be subject to the same transformation and change related forces as every other business and I think we have to not only follow that but, being Pivot, lead and understand how the world of being a senior executive in a company under stress is changing and how we can constantly look at new ways to reach out and help our community, help themselves and get ready for what’s going to be a fascinating but challenging future.

I think on that note we can maybe wrap it up with one last thought from you-   if you’ve got one – for both our community and for folks who may not know us yet but we’d like to have come join us and get to know what we can do with Pivot this fall.

Brian- I think that people should know that in Pivot you’ve got a couple of folks here looking out for you – your job, your business and we’re thinking about the stuff that we know you’re thinking about too. What we’re really trying to give you is the confidence and also the information, the evidence necessary to go back and bring about change wherever you are in the organization and, while there are a lot of great conferences out there, a lot of smart conferences out there, we think of you as the stakeholder trying to do something and we are trying to help you to do that and that’s our motivation

Mike-You know, I think that is absolutely it – a couple of Pivots ago you created an epiphany for me when you said from the stage: “Pivot –  this isn’t a conference, this is the physical embodiment of an extra ordinary community”  and I think that gets it exactly right.   I think it’s what we were trying to do then, it’s what we are trying to do now and, as much things may change in the future, it’s what we are dedicated to do going forward – it’s been great ride – I have huge respect for you and have had great fun working with you and can’t wait to do it again next week.

Brian- I am really excited for this and, as we know, it will be over before we realize it and then we’ll be up for 2015. I can’t think of a better person to want to work with on that front.

Mike- Same here and I can’t wait and look forward to see everyone here in New York, October 16th and 17th.

Pivot Conference talks place October 16-17 at the NASDAQ Marketsite in Times Square NYC.  Pivot is an invitation-only event for senior executives who lead social, mobile and business transformation initiatives for major corporations.  Requests for invitation should be directed to: Matt Godson, matt@momentumevents.com

A Manifesto for Building Relationships in the Digital Era

Not too long ago my dear friend Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) and I set out to explore a new world of visual communication that combined intention storytelling with clever illustrations. That work culminated initially in #WTF (What’s the Future of Business). The engagement around Hugh’s work eventually spilled over from print to online with readers sharing their favorite Hugh cartoons via Tweets, Instagrams, Vines, Pinterest, et al.

We were inspired to revisit our initial collaboration in a dedicated online series that told the story behind each image. We eventually assembled everything into a short eb00k that you can download for free here.

We learned a lot from our work. And, there’s something to be said for the always on, TL;DR, over sharing, over consuming activity that defines today’s short attention span theater. That insight could be best encapsulated by a famous quote by Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, writer and philosopher, “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.”

To zero-in on exactly what you want to say, what you want someone to take away and what you want someone to do is critical but just the beginning we learned. When you then need to distill everything into something snackable, engaging and shareable, the amount of work and thoughtfulness intensifies. Essentially, to visually communicate through byte-sized narrative and imagery takes focus, time and intention. Needless to say, we were inspired to further explore this new form of storytelling…

Well, we’re back at it. This time, Hugh and I partnered with Vocus and Cision to design a visual manifesto that helps marketers and strategists build relationships in a digital era. And, we’re happy to announce that it’s available now. We hope you love it.

What If PR Stood for People and Relationships By Brian Solis from Vocus

*The quote by Blaise Pascal is often attributed to Mark Twain, but it is indeed Pascal.

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Introducing N3TWORK, A Mobile Television Network Powered by Interests and Context

Early on, I was one of the first analysts to explore the dynamics of the interest graph versus the social graph in social networks. Think Twitter vs. Facebook. I learned right away that interest graphs tend to share connections based on topics rather than relationships. I also found that every person possesses a series of 6-10 interest graphs that together form a social graph.  Google refers to these groupings as “Circles.” The notion of manually organizing people by interests though proved daunting and necessary.  It happens naturally and rather than leave it to humans for organization it requires a human algorithm to help people behind the scenes better manage their contacts and information by analyzing and gauging interests in real time. It’s one of the reasons I always believed that Google’s social strategies suffered from the lack of expertise in and diminished sense of importance for the subject of humanities.

The difference is that aside from the overlapping and unique connections we share, each interest graph represents a series of distinct conversations and subjects. People are important. But in a world where context is king, it is what we consume, curate and create (The 3 C’s of Information Commerce) and those who also engage with these social objects (inbound and outbound) that makes things more interesting and predictable. These can be studied and but also can be processed through sophisticated algorithms that can better serve information, products, content, etc. to people based on their actions, words, and network connections. Remember, technology is most effective when it is invisible.

Nothing terribly groundbreaking about the notion of interests and relationships today, but it is definitely still far from mastery.  Much of my early research though helped to set in motion new platforms for marketing, advertising and also technology that improved social streams, feeds and recommendations. The future of interest and social graphs is playing out in many ways right now. Just take a look at Facebook’s Atlas platform for an idea of what’s possible.

One such company that caught my attention recently is N3TWORK, a new startup aims to leverage the interest graph to serve video to people based on who they are, what they prefer, and how they engage. N3TWORK is a mobile app that strikes an interesting balance between AI, traditional TV and also in a way, YouTube. Like the interest graph, N3TWORK connects content based on your explicit interests and actions serving you content rather than relationships. Unlike Youtube that serves videos based on search and keywords (think Google), N3TWORK learns as you watch. And, there’s always something new and interesting to watch.

We’re creating an entirely new way of experiencing video on your phone, your tablet and your television. Something that is always on, that anticipates what you want, presents only what’s relevant and that lets you watch, share, curate & create with a simple swipe of a finger.

I spent some time with the founder of N3TWORK Neil Young to talk about the app and the future of video in a world connected by interests and context. Enjoy!

Brian Solis interviews Neil Young, N3TWORK CEO from N3TWORK on Vimeo.

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WTF of Business at Saddleback Leather Co.

Guest post by John Bergquist (@JohnFlurry), who leads Content and Communications at Saddleback Leather Co.

So much has changed in business in the past 20 years. And it continues to change daily. As Brian has said before, today a business has to engage… or die. And you know what? That delights me. It is the way it used to be. Shopkeepers knew their customers very well. They didn’t need mechanical analysts or teams of test consumers to determine how to best serve them; they heard it directly from the customer.

A year ago el Presidente Dave Munson asked me to build a relationship team for his Saddleback Leather Company.

The best way to describe a relationship team would be to first look at the core mission of Saddleback, “to love people around the world by making excessively high quality, tough and functional leather designs.”

Love is the key ingredient to any good relationship. Saddleback already had a world class customer service team. What was missing was a team of people that could consistently add the ingredient of love to social media, engagement, public relations and our community at large.

Luckily, Saddleback had connectedness and social built right into irs DNA. To this day, Dave still engages with as many customers as time allows (Dave and his wife even met each other on MySpace!)

As the company grew, so too did our thriving Facebook community. By the time I showed up it was nearly 30,000 strong. Thirty percent engagement was normal. What was missing was a consistent, cohesive and unified approach.

Looking back, one of the greatest resources I had in my quiver was Brian’s book WTF (What is the Future of Business).  I had many folks on the team read it. I had Jenny, our resident people-watcher, also read Brian’s much heavier and more academic book, The End of Business As Usual.

Engaging Our Customer

Brian’s concepts brought detailed clarity to how we sell and connect with our customers. From design concept to advocacy, the customer today is the source of brand awareness and often consumer decision making. As a business we are faced with the challenge of giving the customer resources and opportunities for those roles. The more we include the customer in what Brian calls the Influence Loop the more power they have. Every interaction, content share or product release becomes an opportunity for them to be reviewers, testers, loyalists and advocates.

The Saddleback Leather relationship team became that glue between every stage of the loop. We shared the design process through photos, social posts and blogs from the very moment that Dave had the first idea all the way through to a customer expressing excitement opening the box. We delighted customers with over the top care whenever a question was asked. We gave them the tools to best share about the products on youtube videos and EDC (every day carry) photos. And all along the loop a well trained and talented team is there, learning, advocating, educating, engaging and certainly entertaining the crowd.

So, what is the future of business? Well for those like Saddleback Leather who are willing to learn, grow, and take risks by including their customers, the future looks like an ever-growing, fervent, and contagious community. Their advocates will continue to glady lead others to what they have experienced.

If you have a vision worth catching you will only find success. If you don’t? Well, you better find one soon. The world is shrinking.