Brian Solis's Blog, page 110

Becoming the Future

I’m pretty passionate about changing how we teach in order to create a bridge between analog and digital generations. I recently contributed a short chapter to The Little Book of Inspiration and I wanted to share it with you here.

In an age where knowledge is more accessible than ever, how do we create engaged workplace learners that are inspired to go out and discover the answers themselves? Reed, in conjunction with Learning Technologies and the Learning & Skills Group, put that question to 13 leading experts and L&D thinkers. I was invited to contribute to the mix. This short book is our response and it is now available as a free download.

Becoming the Future

The future of learning is constant.

Technology is evolving faster than we can master each innovation. What isn’t advancing as quickly however is our philosophy on how we learn and, even more, how we teach. Innovation isn’t just about technology. Innovation begins from within.

To quote famed novelist Leo Tolstoy…“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

While I teach, no matter how much I learn, I am forever a student. I understand that it is what we learn that inspires us to see how to change the future for how others learn and teach as well. Sometimes we just need a change in perspective…a change in how we see the world to shape how the world sees us. I am in constant pursuit of accepting who I am today and investing in who I want to be tomorrow. But to grow, we need substance and direction.

It takes vision and courage to take the unknown next steps in a direction that most do not follow.

The distance between who you are and who you want to be is separated only by your aspirations and actions.

Dream:

Uncover what is meaningful to you in the long term and what you aspire to become.

Do:

Do the things that bring your dreams and your vision to life…even if it’s iterative.

It’s the sum of the parts that contributes to the whole and the outcome.

Deserve:

As you act, react, and persevere, you discover the secret to defining your own destiny follows the laws of physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The more you do, the more opportunities you unlock. You earn what you deserve.

This is your time to shape the way we learn and teach!

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+ |Youtube | Instagram

Contributors include:

Clive Shepherd

Nigel Paine

Paul Stoltz

Paul Matthews

Deborah Frances-White

Guy Claxon

Donald H. Taylor

Jane Hart

Euan Semple

Harold Jarche

David Wilson

Jim Kirkpatrick

Beaconizing the Brand Experience

Guest post by Gib Bassett, Global Program Director, Consumer Goods, Teradata

There’s no question that the shopping journey has been disrupted by consumer behavior in online, social media and mobile channels. What’s less certain, especially within the branded consumer products industry, is the best way to serve this now commonplace “connected consumer.” The pursuit of this answer, and the quest to learn more about connected consumers, is commonly referred to as “digital transformation.”

Consumer products manufacturers in food, beverage, health and beauty, and apparel segments are like well-oiled machines, down to the execution of sales with retail partners. Marketing has almost always exclusively supported sales at retail by creating brand awareness. In the past, this took the form of print and television advertising; today it also includes creative served in a more targeted fashion via online display. In spite of this, sales growth remains an industry-wide challenge and marketing is under a microscope.

Brands also are very much engaged in email, website and social media campaigns. Like display advertising, these tend to be an extension of the “marketing as retail support” model. We’re all familiar with email and mobile coupons, website or SMS promotions, mobile apps, and other demand-centric tactics.

Truths

All of this activity overlooks how digital channels have changed shopper behavior. Google’s Zero Moment of Truth and Brian Solis’ Ultimate Moment of Truth illustrate how out of date an in-store and shelf-only view of consumer decision making has become. Also, consider a couple of consumer goods “industry truths”:

- There are a lot more SKUs than in the past from both brands and retail private labels. So consumers have more choices while brands face the challenge of standing out from the crowd. Plus, price still rules for most purchase decisions.

- Consumers tend to buy the same items repeatedly. While coupons help increase consumption, they do so at the expense of already slim margins. The inverse problem is that introducing a new product in pursuit of sales growth faces less than favorable odds at getting added to the shopping list or being purchased on impulse.

More competition and difficult-to-influence shopper behavior makes for a poor fit with display advertising. Awareness and (maybe) a click are the extent of interactions with the consumer.

Conversations

In order to drive demand amid a market of connected shoppers requires engagement with consumers in an ongoing dialog at many points along the purchase journey. The programs succeeding today attempt brand conversations with individual consumers about how even the most utilitarian product lives within and adds value to their lives. Content is not about product features or price – it’s about the individual consumer. Tactics like coupons, promotions, and mobile apps form part of the story developed to convey brand value.

The difficulty in doing this well lies in the details; how do you create relevant messaging for individual consumers that encourages dialog with the brand and sharing among friends, at a scale equivalent to the millions of households reachable via a television spot?

Analytics-driven multi-channel marketing has long served other business-to-consumer industries able to close the loop on their marketing to affect a measurable sales transaction. It’s therefore easily justified.

CPG marketers don’t have this luxury. At best, sales information comes from anonymous and aggregate data some retailers share in the name of volume and category growth. This is why the “easy” digital route is online display media supported with tactics.

Content Beacons

Visionary CPG companies recognize the value of applying multi-channel marketing techniques to the challenge of connecting with consumers without a line of sight into directly correlated sales transactions. They seek to enable their brands to tell stories and measure consumer engagement as a means of optimizing marketing content investments.

Millions are spent on content creation and propagation across many channels and media. Multi-channel marketing concepts can be fitted to this alternate use case by helping brand marketers understand the contribution of content investments to an engaged audience of individual consumers. It’s like placing iBeacons on branded content such that marketing spend can be optimized around the messaging that connects best with consumers. Metrics such as open rates and website visitor dwell times become indicators of content quality comparable on a relative basis.

It takes a blend of informed creative brilliance and technology enablement to pull this off – key is informed. To these ends, it’s essential to reign in the insights digital channels capture to fuel a profile of individual consumers that lives, grows, and evolves just like the person it describes. These insights help both agencies and brand marketers inform brand storytelling with knowledge of their consumers beyond superficial characteristics. In this way, you could say consumers help write the story.

Changing Course

Re-prioritizing around direct, data driven brand marketing isn’t as difficult as it seems. Much of the data to seed an initial snapshot of individual consumers exists; it’s just scattered in various places inside and outside the company and needs to be brought together in a single place. The harder part is implementing the processes necessary to ensure that the contributors to this insight (agencies) adhere to some level of standards with respect to data formats and collection frequency.

Agencies can also be a source for justifying a move to more direct consumer connections. Even brands within the same company tend to work with different agencies or services companies, each of whom gladly bill for repetitive technology development that could be standardized. Without hampering the creativity at the heart of successful brand storytelling, standards can drive significant costs out of website development, data collection, consumer database work, email marketing and mobile messaging.

The upside to brands is more useful and consistent analytics to measure the contribution of content to audience engagement. As shopping decisions shift to an Ultimate Moment of Truth where consumer-generated content becomes the “moment,” brands should find the ability to optimize content around an engaged consumer a valuable commodity.

Download the report about how companies are pursuing digital transformation in detail here.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Report: Digital Transformation and the New Customer Experience

We’re under attack! Social, mobile, real-time, cloud, big data…it’s coming at us all at once! Rather than miss out, many brands are jumping from trend to trend as a way of staying relevant in an increasingly digital market.

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Foursquare, Instagram, Pinterest…we’re covered. We have and had a strategy for a while now.

Mobile. Yep, we’ve got an app for that…plus we’ve got adaptive and responsive web design that makes old sites new again!

Snapchat…our brilliant strategy vanishes in 5,4,3,2,1.

Jelly? We’ve got the answer.

Whisper, Secret…shhh, don’t tell anyone, but we’re already marketing there.

There’s a difference though between marketing AT people in new channels and learning about their behavior, values, and expectations to optimize their digital experiences and introduce mutually-beneficial outcomes.

Social, mobile, and real-time strategies are not enough. These disruptive technologies are merely just the beginning of a still shaping era of connected consumerism.

Each in its own right is significant affecting how business is done. But customer behavior and expectations, and that of employees for that matter, continue to evolve. And, the list of disruptive technologies that’s pushing business leaders and processes out of their respective comfort zones is far more exhaustive and constant.

When we stop chasing trends and fighting for technology and marketing strategies in the moment, we can appreciate that our view of technology and its aggregate impact on markets is far more massive that we initially realized.

- Wearables

- Maker Movement

- Beacons

- Geolocation

- Internet of Things

- Sharing Economy

- Gamification

- Big Data

- Second Screen

- Virtual AR/AI

- Payments

Instead of reacting to technology trends at departmental levels, some progressive, brave and tireless strategists are investing in a more comprehensive campaign of digital transformation. The goal is to invest in informed models that help businesses recognize opportunities, overcome challenges, and make decisions to stay in step, if not ahead of digital customers. Beyond social, mobile, and real-time, digital transformation is in fact, the next big thing in customer experience and ultimately how business is done.

Over the last year, my Altimeter Group colleague Jaimy Szymanski and I set out to learn how digital technologies are impacting customer behavior and in turn how businesses are responding. Through a series of interviews with digital strategists and executives at some of the world’s leading brands, we specifically explored the role of how this new customer behavior along with the relentless onslaught of disruptive technology is influencing how organizations evolve.

The result is our new report…”Digital Transformation: Why and How Companies are Investing in New Business Models to Lead Digital Customer Experiences.” And, we’re proud to announce that it is now officially available for immediate download here!

Defining Digital Transformation

Altimeter Group defines digital transformation as:

The re-alignment of, or new investment in, technology and business models to more effectively engage digital consumers at every touchpoint in the customer experience lifecycle.

In our research, we learned that digital transformation represents the quest to understand how disruptive technology affects the overall customer experience. The investment in change is a direct result of businesses seeking to adapt to this onslaught of disruptive technologies as they affect customer and employee behavior. As technology becomes a permanent fixture in everyday life, organizations are faced with an increasing need to update legacy technology strategies and supporting methodologies to better reflect how the real world is evolving.

The need to evolve is becoming increasingly obligatory.

We do not tackle enterprise-wide digital transformation in this report. Instead, we conducted our research through the lens of customer experience to learn how companies are adapting to new consumerism. The way today’s consumers use screens and what they expect to accomplish does not mirror traditional customers of the past; their values are shifting, and how they make decisions no longer aligns with a traditional funnel model. Expectations are reshaping engagement and, ultimately, the way their relationships with companies unfold. From social and mobile, to customer insights and journey mapping, to IT and training, digital transformation improves how businesses see their customers and create value throughout their lifecycle.

In our research, we found that understanding the digital customer experience is one of the primary catalysts for businesses placing substantial investment in digital transformation. Change must begin with noting the considerable differences between traditional customer strategies and those required to engage and nurture relationships with digital customers. It creates a sense of urgency and affects not only the roles and objectives of marketing, social media, web, mobile, and customer service, but also their intentions and how these typically disparate groups work toward harmony. The result ultimately makes businesses relevant in a digital era while growing opportunities and profits, as well as scaling efficiently in the process.

As companies begin to invest in digital transformation, they are realizing promising benefits.

Benefits of Digital Transformation

Updated company vision

The company vision is modernized and humanized, which earns support from digital customers.

Thriving culture of innovation

This effort creates buzz within the organization and inspires a company culture of innovation and the ability to innovate in product and service development.

Improved customer journey

Customers continue naturally every step of the their journey, which improves conversions and outcomes.

Greater competitive advantage

Businesses build competitive advantage that executives recognize.

Increased internal collaboration

Collaboration significantly improves between business functions.

Empowered workforce

Leadership and employees feel empowered through education.

Improved efficiency

Decision-making and processes become more efficient across departments.

Deeper data analysis

Better understanding of what/where data is across the organization, which translates into the ability to infer insights and deepen customer analysis to prove ROI.

Increased customer conversions and loyalty

A true 360-degree, seamless customer experience contributes to increased conversions and customer loyalty.

While digital transformation means different things to different people, its concept becomes a mantra for earning relevance and establishing leadership in a digital economy.

Change begins with you…

Please take a moment to download the report now!

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+ |Youtube | Instagram

Report: Why and How Businesses are Investing in Digital Transformation and the New Customer Experience

We’re under attack! Social, mobile, real-time, cloud, big data…it’s coming at us all at once! Rather than miss out, many brands are jumping from trend to trend as a way of staying relevant in an increasingly digital market.

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Foursquare, Instagram, Pinterest…we’re covered. We have and had a strategy for a while now.

Mobile. Yep, we’ve got an app for that…plus we’ve got adaptive and responsive web design that makes old sites new again!

Snapchat…our brilliant strategy vanishes in 5,4,3,2,1.

Jelly? We’ve got the answer.

Whisper, Secret…shhh, don’t tell anyone, but we’re already marketing there.

There’s a difference though between marketing AT people in new channels and learning about their behavior, values, and expectations to optimize their digital experiences and introduce mutually-beneficial outcomes.

Social, mobile, and real-time strategies are not enough. These disruptive technologies are merely just the beginning of a still shaping era of connected consumerism.

Each in its own right is significant affecting how business is done. But customer behavior and expectations, and that of employees for that matter, continue to evolve. And, the list of disruptive technologies that’s pushing business leaders and processes out of their respective comfort zones is far more exhaustive and constant.

When we stop chasing trends and fighting for technology and marketing strategies in the moment, we can appreciate that our view of technology and its aggregate impact on markets is far more massive that we initially realized.

- Wearables

- Maker Movement

- Beacons

- Geolocation

- Internet of Things

- Sharing Economy

- Gamification

- Big Data

- Second Screen

- Virtual AR/AI

- Payments

Instead of reacting to technology trends at departmental levels, some progressive, brave and tireless strategists are investing in a more comprehensive campaign of digital transformation. The goal is to invest in informed models that help businesses recognize opportunities, overcome challenges, and make decisions to stay in step, if not ahead of digital customers. Beyond social, mobile, and real-time, digital transformation is in fact, the next big thing in customer experience and ultimately how business is done.

Over the last year, my Altimeter Group colleague Jaimy Szymanski and I set out to learn how digital technologies are impacting customer behavior and in turn how businesses are responding. Through a series of interviews with digital strategists and executives at some of the world’s leading brands, we specifically explored the role of how this new customer behavior along with the relentless onslaught of disruptive technology is influencing how organizations evolve.

The result is our new report…”Digital Transformation: Why and How Companies are Investing in New Business Models to Lead Digital Customer Experiences.” And, we’re proud to announce that it is now officially available for immediate download here!

Defining Digital Transformation

Altimeter Group defines digital transformation as:

The re-alignment of, or new investment in, technology and business models to more effectively engage digital consumers at every touchpoint in the customer experience lifecycle.

In our research, we learned that digital transformation represents the quest to understand how disruptive technology affects the overall customer experience. The investment in change is a direct result of businesses seeking to adapt to this onslaught of disruptive technologies as they affect customer and employee behavior. As technology becomes a permanent fixture in everyday life, organizations are faced with an increasing need to update legacy technology strategies and supporting methodologies to better reflect how the real world is evolving.

The need to evolve is becoming increasingly obligatory.

We do not tackle enterprise-wide digital transformation in this report. Instead, we conducted our research through the lens of customer experience to learn how companies are adapting to new consumerism. The way today’s consumers use screens and what they expect to accomplish does not mirror traditional customers of the past; their values are shifting, and how they make decisions no longer aligns with a traditional funnel model. Expectations are reshaping engagement and, ultimately, the way their relationships with companies unfold. From social and mobile, to customer insights and journey mapping, to IT and training, digital transformation improves how businesses see their customers and create value throughout their lifecycle.

In our research, we found that understanding the digital customer experience is one of the primary catalysts for businesses placing substantial investment in digital transformation. Change must begin with noting the considerable differences between traditional customer strategies and those required to engage and nurture relationships with digital customers. It creates a sense of urgency and affects not only the roles and objectives of marketing, social media, web, mobile, and customer service, but also their intentions and how these typically disparate groups work toward harmony. The result ultimately makes businesses relevant in a digital era while growing opportunities and profits, as well as scaling efficiently in the process.

As companies begin to invest in digital transformation, they are realizing promising benefits.

Benefits of Digital Transformation

Updated company vision

The company vision is modernized and humanized, which earns support from digital customers.

Thriving culture of innovation

This effort creates buzz within the organization and inspires a company culture of innovation and the ability to innovate in product and service development.

Improved customer journey

Customers continue naturally every step of the their journey, which improves conversions and outcomes.

Greater competitive advantage

Businesses build competitive advantage that executives recognize.

Increased internal collaboration

Collaboration significantly improves between business functions.

Empowered workforce

Leadership and employees feel empowered through education.

Improved efficiency

Decision-making and processes become more efficient across departments.

Deeper data analysis

Better understanding of what/where data is across the organization, which translates into the ability to infer insights and deepen customer analysis to prove ROI.

Increased customer conversions and loyalty

A true 360-degree, seamless customer experience contributes to increased conversions and customer loyalty.

While digital transformation means different things to different people, its concept becomes a mantra for earning relevance and establishing leadership in a digital economy.

Change begins with you…

Please take a moment to download the report now!

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+ |Youtube | Instagram

The Millennial’s Guide To Surviving Corporate America

Guest post by Michael Price (@michaelpriceles), millennial and author of “What Next? the Millennial’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World”

A new generation has emerged and they now make up 36% of the U.S. workforce (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics). Many have called them lazy, entitled, and unprepared to take on the challenges of the real world. They can often be seen walking into a hiring manager’s office with a gold star on their shirt, an empty resume’, and a shiny new MBA. Their mom may also be sitting in the lobby cheering them on and they may even come into an interview dressed in jeans, a hoodie and flip flops. In case you haven’t figured it out, the generation I’m referring to is The Millennials. You can discount them or you can hold them in high esteem, but one thing you can’t do is deny that they are here and they’re taking over. Accepting this reality has been a challenge for both Millennials entering the workforce as well as their Baby Boomer counter-parts looking to hire them.

Both Millennials and Baby Boomers are uneasy about working with each other, confused and concerned about what to expect. But none of that matters because despite the preconceived notions that both of these demographic groups have about one another, they must now work side by side. So it’s time to get on board and work together.

For Millennials who are frustrated about the conservative corporate environment, they must first understand the generation gap. Elder generations came up during a time when computers, smart phones and tablets didn’t exist. They didn’t have technology to allow them to do their jobs easier, faster, or more efficient. They also didn’t have the luxury of working remotely. For them, if they didn’t “punch in” precisely at 8:00 A.M. Mr. Boss was waiting around the corner to tap their shoulder and wave his finger in disapproval.

What Baby Boomers bring to the table is raw work ethic. They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty, roll up their sleeves and get to work. Despite the grumblings you may hear at the water cooler, Millennial’s are no different. In fact, Millennial’s are often times more likely to put in the hours than their elder counter-parts who may place more emphasis on a work-life balance. Millennials were born into a world where they’re “always on” and Corporate America loves this because Millennials embrace connectively after hours, as remote working privileges and company-issued smart phones allow constant access to the office 24/7. This may not be great for work-life balance, but in terms of molding an employee you can always count on, Millennials have you covered.

So how can Baby Boomers and Millennials work together effectively?

It comes down to mutual respect.

As outlined previously, there’s a generation gap that both the new school and old school must understand and adapt to. Finding this balance and creating an environment that everyone can appreciate largely rests on the shoulders of Baby Boomers. As long as Baby Boomers remain supreme as the managers and executives of businesses, they must create and re-define the environment and attitudes of their elder employees to embrace the new generation, take them under their wing and be willing to not just have Millennials work for them, but work with them. The generation gap between Baby Boomers and Millennials is unprecedented. Never before have we witnessed such a different perspective of employment from two different generations working alongside each other. It is vital that Corporate America understand this because the companies who refuse to re-define their culture to equally suit Millennials as they do Baby Boomers will turn down and lose incredibly talented people to competing firms that will embrace them.

If Corporate America doesn’t get their act together, Millennial’s will flee from employment in exchange for entrepreneurship. It’s happening all across the world and should we be surprised? Millennials were born into the era of eCommerce where anyone with $100 or less can throw up a website and monetize their passion.

So what are Millennials to do?

I’ve assembled four tips to help Millennials stop struggling and start thriving in Corporate America.

Let’s get to work…

1.) Know Your Role

No matter where you are in life, no matter how old you are, and no matter how much power or status you have, you will always have someone else above you or lateral to you that has the power to check and balance you. “Knowing your role” isn’t about being walked on and stepped over. It’s about being humble enough to realize that everybody above you once stood in your shoes, and as you climb the ladder, you too will one day gain power, respect, and admiration.

2.) Be Valuable

How can you add value to your position and to your company? This is a question you must ask yourself regularly. Adding value will allow you to rise as an asset. The first thing you can do to immediately begin providing more value is to figure out what you can do to make your manager and coworkers jobs easier. On the job, everybody’s overworked and underpaid and nothing brightens someone’s day more than having their load lightened. So offer up yourself to do some heavy lifting to lessen the load for others on your team. Striving to be more and more valuable is the best and easiest way to gain job security. The essence of being valuable is simply making yourself indispensable. Become so valuable that your manager just simply can’t live without you, and watch as raises, advancements, and lack of termination come your way.

3.) Be a Winner. Not a Whiner:

No one likes a whiner. They’re annoying, loud, and they are perceived as being weak individuals. Millennials love to whine because they’re used to getting their way and most of the time they’re used to getting things they didn’t earn. Don’t bring that mentality into Corporate America. Check that attitude at the door. Turn that frown upside down and transform yourself from a whiner into a winner. If something is bothering you, learn to separate real problems from exaggerated problems and ask yourself if you really have a bad job or are you just having a bad day. Odds are you’re just having a bad day. You may not have gotten the promotion or the credit you deserve, but just remember, you are new in your career and you are the low man on the totem pole. Your advancements, promotions, raises, and credit will come in due time.

4.) Know the Difference Between a Job and a Career:

In life, you will learn that there’s a time for everything. This is especially true when it comes to establishing and understanding the difference between a job and a career. Many jobs are undesirable. The hours may not be very flexible and management may not be very fair, but if you’re gaining valuable experience you win in the end. Nothing in life is permanent, so realize that some jobs may be temporary placeholders that you may be forced to endure in order to gain experience, build your portfolio, and move on to bigger and better opportunities.

So what is a Millennial to do when they just can’t seem to land a job that provides them with the environment that’s best suited for their attributes?

Michael Price shares his insight: “If you’re unhappy or dissatisfied with your job it’s important that you do an internal audit. Evaluate yourself and really be honest with the job/career you have chosen. Does it align with your aptitude, your lifestyle, and your values? If your answer to these questions leads you to seek employment elsewhere, you must first set-aside conventional wisdom in terms of your approach to the job seeking process. If you truly want the job of your dreams you must widen your scope of opportunity across the entire country. Be willing to take a job wherever one is available, even if that means you have to move. You must also look at the entire job hunting process differently. Using online job posting sites are great tools, but they are just tools, not the entire toolbox. If jobs aren’t coming to you by way of email via a job posting site, go to them directly. Start by researching every company in your industry across the country. Determine their average salary and employee satisfaction using tools like Glassdoor.com and then contact every single companies HR department on your list. Someone will be bound to hire you, but it requires that you put in the work.”

As Baby Boomers move closer towards retirement and Millennials take the reins of the workforce a transition must take place. The success of this hand-off relies upon the actions and attitudes of work performed today. This isn’t just about Corporate America. This is about the future of American prosperity, because in order for America to continue to lead the world in innovation we must build and re-build our workforce to better align with one another. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but it can be done.

Remember that age-old acronym T.E.A.M? Together Everyone Achieves More. That couldn’t be any further from the truth.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

How a Conversation About a New Movie Made Me Rethink How I Chase My Aspirations

On this episode of Revolution, I invited, or rather subjected myself to the antics of my good friend Hooman while on camera. In San Francisco, he’s best known as one of the main personalities on the drive-time morning show at Alice 97.3. In Silicon Valley, he’s an active participant in learning and shaping how technology affects consumer entertainment.

Now he’s in the movie business…or at least trying to break in. But how and why does he think he can make it in such a tough business. He had an interesting idea…

In 2010, there were 968 films released in theaters. As a budding film producer, Hooman saw mobile as a way to help bring to life a different kind of movie. Wearing many hats as the co-writer, director and producer of Olive, he was able to shoot the first full-length feature film shot entirely on a smartphone.

Inspired by The Triplets of Belleville and Amélie, Olive is the story of a little girl who transforms the life of three people without speaking a word. The film stars four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner Gena Rowlands and features five original songs by Dolly Parton. The film is currently awaiting distribution and that’s when the conversation switched gears.

In the middle of our discussion about his film and the story behind it, we veered into a different, but complementary conversation about the importance of being an active and productive member of communities that are personally and professionally important…in the real world as well as online.

I found this particularly relevant.

Over the years, I’ve found myself going to less and less events, meetings, and meetups. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been coasting along lately.

See, during the rise of Web 2.0, I was everywhere. I invested time, resources, and money in building out the startup scenes in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, and San Francisco. Now I use the excuse more often than not, the same excuse I hear from everyone else, “I’m just too busy.”

With the books, speaking, research and my work at Altimeter Group, I’m always traveling or heads down it seems. When home, I try to catch up on emails, calls and meetings. But, I also unplug. As Bob Russell wrote for Duke Ellington, outside of my everyday work, I just “don’t get around much anymore.”

I’m learning that finding the balance isn’t an endgame but instead an ongoing journey. This current leg of my journey though is creating a routine that’s becoming a comfort zone. The path to achievement may require norms, however I’ve learned that breaking away from routine and stepping out of comfort zones is how we learn and discover new horizons.

Everyone is busy. It’s what you do with your time that defines not just the moment but the course of what you do next and also the actions of the people around you. It’s how you move forward.

As Hooman says, “Get out there!”

He humbly shares that it’s easy to sit at home. But to get anywhere, to bring your goals to life, you must make an effort. You must engage. Help where you can. And, as he believes, “don’t expect anything in return.”

It’s that last piece of advice that reminds me of the power of reciprocity. For Hooman, this is a personal experience and part of the challenge he’s learning to accept. Not everyone thinks this way though. Give and you shall receive. Do so to expect something in return and you shall realize distance between you and the communities you value. He also cautions us to “not be a sucker either. People will try to take advantage of your connections to propel themselves ahead of you. Help because you want to. But don’t forget the role you play in where you are and where you’re going.

You can’t do it alone…

Invest in relationships. Appreciate people who bring value to you and your network. At the same time, ensure you’re surrounded by people who also appreciate you. It’s how you’ll get to where you’re going whether solo or with a little help from your friends.

1) Embrace technology to lead it rather than react to it.

2) Build meaningful relationships, don’t just network to work your way upward.

3) Become part of the community, invest in it and don’t just take from it.

4) Give freely because you want to…because it’s where you can add value.

5) Earn what you deserve.

Please take a moment to watch what I hope is a refreshing discussion…

Watch the Oliver trailer…

Take a look at how Hooman and team made Olive using smartphones…

Subscribe to BrianSolisTV here.

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+ |Youtube | Instagram

The Future of Learning is Stuck in the Past: Why education is less about technology and more about behavior

Here’s a story I haven’t shared much, but I’m doing so now because of an opportunity I recently had to present at the Learning Technology conference in London. Over the last two years, I’ve personally studied learning technology and also learning behaviors to relearn how to engage Generation C through analog and digital media.

While writing WTF, I studied the learning patterns and preferences among Generation C and how they differed from less connected students. What I learned reshaped how I assemble and present material, how I write, and how I visually communicate. Furthermore, it inspired me to restyle the UI, design and layout, and the flow to function and look less like a traditional printed book and instead perform with the familiarity of a digital medium in an analog package. For those who have read the book, this explains the square shape and four-color format as it mimics a screen. This work also represents why there’s a navigation bar throughout the book and graphical breaks that are presented with cadence.

In the end, this experience made me rethink everything. If I could take these learnings into a book, could it apply to conventional text books? Could it encourage a new way to teach rather than force students to conform to customary methods? What was clear though is that technology plays a part in all of this but the real story was influenced by behavior…behavior that’s different than the world I know. As tempted as I was to apply these resources to building a killer digital app for the book, it was a lesson to re-examine everything we take for granted today, everything we do simply because it’s the way things have always been done, and more importantly, a lesson in restraint. By restraint, I mean holding back from using technology for the sake of technology and instead take a few steps back to take something ordinary and make it matter in a digital society.

As a result of this work, I was invited to present at Learning Technologies in London to share my experience and outlook on the future of education and training. Ahead of the event, I spent some time discussing my presentation with Jon Kennard of Training Zone. I wanted to share that conversation here…

Why go all the way to London to talk about the future of learning?

Learning Technologies is one of the most prominent events where the discussion of technology versus behavior needs to gain momentum. I was more than excited to share my research…I was also eager to learn from other experts from around the world.

A, B, C, Easy as Can’t Teach Me

I see Learning Technologies as an opportunity to share and learn from those defining the future of learning and those also confused, frustrated or intimidated by it. Technology, taking learning out of the discussion for the moment, is part of the solution but it’s also part of the problem. In my research, I explore the dynamics of human behavior from a bottom-up or escalation perspective. Whether you’re a student in university or an employee learning new skills or procedures at an organization, the philosophies and systems governing education are traditionally designed from that of a top-down approach. Yet how we use technology in our real life is completely different than how businesses or schools are using it to teach me. There’s an incredible disconnect and the gap is only getting wider.

Let me give you an example…

In the past, education was something designed by experts who assembled the knowledge sources and materials necessary to prepare students for the next related subject or perhaps for a particular profession or overall direction. As technology was introduced into our everyday culture, it did so usually from the top down, typically in work or school simply because of the high purchase and management costs. Here, technology was meant to increase efficiencies, reduce long-term costs, and improve the dynamics for learning. Organizations were initially responsible for how we were introduced to technology and therefore how we used it. This process largely governs how we learn today.

As cost and adoption barriers fell, technology worked its way into consumer homes. With the rise of social and mobile, technology is now part of our everyday lifestyle. The result however, is that consumer familiarity with technology and how quickly they adopt and incorporate it into all they do has outpaced that of companies and institutions. The impact is profound. People are learning, communicating and collaborating differently in their personal life. Yet elsewhere, they’re expected to follow dated protocol that is at best counter-intuitive. This is causing a revolt which is only going to become increasingly dire as time and technology progress.

Students, employees, are fueling an escalation of expectations and demands to do things differently. At the same time, decision-makers are struggling to figure out why investments don’t pan out according to plan. They still see how people use technology as novelty and even frustrating because it’s always compared to the way the world was and not the world as it’s changing. The only way to take a meaningful step forward is to understand how to adapt legacy investments, systems and processes to pave the way for a more engaging and productive future for all.

Right now, we take new technology and give it to an architect who already sees the world differently, the way it’s always been. Therefore they take something that’s native to a new world and forces it to comply within a legacy paradigm defined by dated philosophies, systems, and reward systems.

No matter how creative our ideas, it doesn’t matter. Without defining a vision of what we are trying to do – �something that will matter to people – �we are just going through life the way we always have. We are not moving in any new direction.

“What’s key to understand is how people are using technology and how their behaviors, values, and expectations have evolved. Once you do, you’ll see that technology becomes an enabler for something more natural”

Learning Starts with Unlearning

Said simply, the answer is not technology. Moreover, don’t force conformity because it’s the way you learned or because you’re forced to use legacy as a starting point. If you do, you will follow the ongoing march of complacency that throws technology at problems and each time with similar, lackluster or failing results. What’s key to understand is how people are using technology and how their behaviors, values, and expectations have evolved. Once you do, you’ll see that technology becomes an enabler for something more natural, creating a culture of learning and collaboration that’s more intuitive, organic, and successful. This gives rise to more than IT or technology experts. Digital anthropologists and other social and data scientists will help us empathize with a connected generation or Generation-C as I call them, to lead instead of react to each trend.

Everything starts with you. I understand it’s difficult and daunting. After all, there’s a reason why change is either slow or ignored. It takes courage to break what isn’t yet broken and rebuild it in a way that others can’t yet visualize, appreciate or support.

This is a time to rethink…everything. And, what a wonderful time it is to be alive for those who can see these challenges as opportunities to invent and reinvent all that makes the world go ’round.

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+ |Youtube | Instagram

Image credit: Shutterstock

The Future of Learning is Anchored by History: Why education is less about technology and more about behavior

Here’s a story I haven’t shared much, but I’m doing so now because of an opportunity I recently had to present at the Learning Technology conference in London. Over the last two years, I’ve personally studied learning technology and also learning behaviors to relearn how to engage Generation C through analog and digital media.

While writing WTF, I studied the learning patterns and preferences among Generation C and how they differed from less connected students. What I learned reshaped how I assemble and present material, how I write, and how I visually communicate. Furthermore, it inspired me to restyle the UI, design and layout, and the flow to function and look less like a traditional printed book and instead perform with the familiarity of a digital medium in an analog package. For those who have read the book, this explains the square shape and four-color format as it mimics a screen. This work also represents why there’s a navigation bar throughout the book and graphical breaks that are presented with cadence.

In the end, this experience made me rethink everything. If I could take these learnings into a book, could it apply to conventional text books? Could it encourage a new way to teach rather than force students to conform to customary methods? What was clear though is that technology plays a part in all of this but the real story was influenced by behavior…behavior that’s different than the world I know. As tempted as I was to apply these resources to building a killer digital app for the book, it was a lesson to re-examine everything we take for granted today, everything we do simply because it’s the way things have always been done, and more importantly, a lesson in restraint. By restraint, I mean holding back from using technology for the sake of technology and instead take a few steps back to take something ordinary and make it matter in a digital society.

As a result of this work, I was invited to present at Learning Technologies in London to share my experience and outlook on the future of education and training. Ahead of the event, I spent some time discussing my presentation with Jon Kennard of Training Zone. I wanted to share that conversation here…

Why go all the way to London to talk about the future of learning?

Learning Technologies is one of the most prominent events where the discussion of technology versus behavior needs to gain momentum. I was more than excited to share my research…I was also eager to learn from other experts from around the world.

A, B, C, Easy as Can’t Teach Me

I see Learning Technologies as an opportunity to share and learn from those defining the future of learning and those also confused, frustrated or intimidated by it. Technology, taking learning out of the discussion for the moment, is part of the solution but it’s also part of the problem. In my research, I explore the dynamics of human behavior from a bottom-up or escalation perspective. Whether you’re a student in university or an employee learning new skills or procedures at an organization, the philosophies and systems governing education are traditionally designed from that of a top-down approach. Yet how we use technology in our real life is completely different than how businesses or schools are using it to teach me. There’s an incredible disconnect and the gap is only getting wider.

Let me give you an example…

In the past, education was something designed by experts who assembled the knowledge sources and materials necessary to prepare students for the next related subject or perhaps for a particular profession or overall direction. As technology was introduced into our everyday culture, it did so usually from the top down, typically in work or school simply because of the high purchase and management costs. Here, technology was meant to increase efficiencies, reduce long-term costs, and improve the dynamics for learning. Organizations were initially responsible for how we were introduced to technology and therefore how we used it. This process largely governs how we learn today.

As cost and adoption barriers fell, technology worked its way into consumer homes. With the rise of social and mobile, technology is now part of our everyday lifestyle. The result however, is that consumer familiarity with technology and how quickly they adopt and incorporate it into all they do has outpaced that of companies and institutions. The impact is profound. People are learning, communicating and collaborating differently in their personal life. Yet elsewhere, they’re expected to follow dated protocol that is at best counter-intuitive. This is causing a revolt which is only going to become increasingly dire as time and technology progress.

Students, employees, are fueling an escalation of expectations and demands to do things differently. At the same time, decision-makers are struggling to figure out why investments don’t pan out according to plan. They still see how people use technology as novelty and even frustrating because it’s always compared to the way the world was and not the world as it’s changing. The only way to take a meaningful step forward is to understand how to adapt legacy investments, systems and processes to pave the way for a more engaging and productive future for all.

Right now, we take new technology and give it to an architect who already sees the world differently, the way it’s always been. Therefore they take  something that’s native to a new world and forces it to comply within a legacy paradigm defined by dated philosophies, systems, and reward systems.

No matter how creative our ideas, it doesn’t matter. Without defining a vision of what we are trying to do – �something that will matter to people – �we are just going through life  the way we always have. We are not moving in any new direction.

“What’s key to understand is how people are using technology and how their behaviors, values, and expectations have evolved. Once you do, you’ll see that technology becomes an enabler for something more natural”

Learning Starts with Unlearning

Said simply, the answer is not technology. Moreover, don’t force conformity because it’s the way you learned or because you’re forced to use legacy as a starting point. If you do, you will follow the ongoing march of complacency that throws technology at problems and each time with similar, lackluster or failing results. What’s key to understand is how people are using technology and how their behaviors, values, and expectations have evolved. Once you do, you’ll see that technology becomes an enabler for something more natural, creating a culture of learning and collaboration that’s more intuitive, organic, and successful. This gives rise to more than IT or technology experts. Digital anthropologists and other social and data scientists will help us empathize with a connected generation or Generation-C as I call them, to lead instead of react to each trend.

Everything starts with you. I understand it’s difficult and daunting. After all, there’s a reason why change is either slow or ignored. It takes courage to break what isn’t yet broken and rebuild it in a way that others can’t yet visualize, appreciate or support.

This is a time to rethink…everything. And, what a wonderful time it is to be alive for those who can see these challenges as opportunities to invent and reinvent all that makes the world go ’round.

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+ |Youtube | Instagram

Image credit: Shutterstock

Disrupt or Be Disrupted: Welcome To The Disruption Revolution

Sometime toward the end of last year, I spent some time with David Passiak (@Passiak), author of Red Bull to Buddha: Innovation and the Search for Wisdom. At the time, he was leading an ambitious project to connect over 20 innovators in the tech startup world and share their perspectives in one, free, book…Disruption Revolution: Innovation, entrepreneurship and the new rules of leadership.

The book takes a case study, thematic approach that moves beyond buzzwords and industry jargon [thank goodness] to highlight emerging trends and best practices that are contributing to the future of business, society and culture.

I joined a group of folks that I admire including, Chris Anderson, Sarah Lacy, Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, Seth Godin, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, Steve Rubel, Frank Speiser, among others.

I asked David if I could share our conversation as a book excerpt here and he obliged.

Enjoy…

What’s the Future of Business (#WTF)

Brian Solis is the closest thing that the new media and technology startup industry has to a rock star [I don’t know about that…I can think of people who are really rock stars, but thank you] —relentlessly speaking, author of several bestselling books, producer of Pivot, one of the industry’s most innovative conferences, advisor to hundreds of companies and global brands, and principal analyst at Altimeter Group, a leading firm focused on disruptive innovation.

Highlights include:

• Why Experience Design is the next evolution of social

• The connected consumer and true digital convergence

• Why branding is more important now than ever before

• How constraint drives innovation, and why we should always be in perpetual startup mode

This entire interview focuses on the big picture. It starts with how social media disrupted business, and then moves to the next iteration of the social Web that Brian refers to as true digital convergence. Brian reminds us that there are always constraints on resources. True innovation requires creativity, vision, and empathy and is a way of life.

DP: I remember meeting you with a group of bloggers back in 2006 before social media was considered a formative field. You were one of the first people that I thought really “got it” in terms of understanding the revolutionary potential of these emerging communications platforms to change everything.

Was there an “a-ha” moment when you realized social media was going to be so big?

SOLIS: I’ve been working on this officially since 1997, when I created a new department within the marketing organization aimed at message boards, communities, and influencers. They were essentially the precedent of bloggers writing about trends, but using websites to create online magazines. I believed that this was the future of engagement, marketing, and services, and so I started a company in 1999 called FutureWorks dedicated to that practice i.e. the works of the future, sort of a lab but also an agency. I ran that company until 2011.

In those iterations, there were web 1.0, web 2.0 social media, etc. I always believed that the next thing was on the horizon, so I constantly reaffirmed my belief that it was OK to be in this perpetual startup mode. I always called that company a startup – whatever year we were in, it was a 7-year-old startup, a 10-year-old startup – because we were constantly experimenting and practicing new philosophies. We were adapting or inventing new business models along the way.

Even today, I still wouldn’t necessarily say that we are at that next big thing. Social media was one of those specs, those iterations—albeit, one of the bigger ones—but the next thing on the horizon is true digital convergence. That is what I’ve been focusing on with my last two books and my latest work with Altimeter Group.

DP: Do you think we’ll still use the term social media in 5 or 10 years or is it the new norm now that we are moving to this era of digital convergence that you are talking about in your past two books?

SOLIS: That’s a really good question. I used to be a staunch defender of the term because it was much more than a classification. To me it was a representation of a shift in philosophy. Meaning that you’re not just creating, pushing and distributing media; you are sort of facilitating and democratizing it. That comes with a tremendous shift in the culture.

Five years from now, I could see us still using the term social media, though not as a classification but as a movement. For example, social media is sort of delivering this Undercover Boss moment to a lot of organizations, if you will, by allowing people to better see and reflect on the activities that are taking place outside the C-suite. It also humanizes the organization from the inside out so that it forces people to have conversations that they might not have otherwise had. That would be the context in which I see it being used. But from a technology standpoint we would have been deeply ingrained in this shift from social to digital convergence.

DP: I know in recent years there’s been a lot of focus on disruption, particularly among entrepreneurs and investors. Do you think this has changed the way people approach creating startups? For example, is there more emphasis on a quick exit and repeatable patters vs. trying to think really big and build the next Google?

SOLIS: Well, it’s almost a trick question. Disruptive technology and disruption overall is an effect of meaningful innovation. It means that it is already disrupting something. Entrepreneurs say that they are disrupting something as a form of aspiration, which is to some extent desensitizing or diluting the term and its importance. There are people who are becoming the next AirBnB for dog kennels. And then there are people focusing on true innovation. We see this in some of the most traditional industries going into biotech and green. If you look at Elon Musk, he disrupts anything that he touches. So I think it’s also a matter of your vision of creativity.

The word means innovation and that’s the word I think we need to consider more than disruption. At some point innovation could shift into disruption, but with disruption—this goes back to early economic theory, for example, creative destruction—something comes along and completely upsets the business model that exists only to be disrupted again with the next innovation. So it is a matter of focus, it’s a matter of state of mind. If you set out to disrupt something then you better disrupt it, but if you are saying you are going to disrupt it or that you are working on a disruptive technology, then you are fooling yourself and the people that are investing or trusting in you.

DP: That makes a lot of sense. I know that you work with a lot of advertisers and global brands. With social media, consumers are essentially involved in co-creating brands. What is the value of a brand and how do you help to define it if you have limited control over its creation?

SOLIS: I don’t believe you have limited control. I believe you have more control than you ever had before. I just think it is a matter of understanding what the word control means in this situation. Before, commanding control was “I speak, you listen” but the joke I used to tell everybody was that social media didn’t invent conversations or opinions. They have always been around. It’s just that now they are concentrated, searchable and indexable.

This becomes the future of branding in the sense that it is not just that they are co-created, but that they are concerted into a searchable collective. What I mean by that is if I go to Google and punch in key words, then you can’t control that moment of truth of what comes back. So what happens in a world where I ask somebody their thoughts, whether it is in a network or an app or I just review community exchanges? That’s a world that has completely been ignored up until now, and it is a world that’s been here since the Internet began, going back to the bulletin board system.

My point is that positive conditioning reinforces the types of conversations and exchanges that you want to have. Otherwise, you are just reacting to technology and you are reacting to impressions and experiences. The future of co-creation starts with the owner of the brand, meaning that I am defining what this brand means in today’s economy and what it means for you tomorrow from an aspirational standpoint.

It means that I have to put in a concentrated effort to define what it could be not just from an image standpoint, but from an emotional standpoint—what are you going to feel and what are you going to share?—because the future of co-creation has to do with shared experiences, not your ability to publish a thought but the experience that you have and share. Technology becomes an enabler to facilitate the positive conditioning of the experience you want people to have. That is why I talk about the future of branding as experience architecture. You define and strengthen it in every way and in every place possible.

DP: In your latest book, you are championing a new movement that aligns user experience with innovation and leadership. How does providing experiences create real business value?

SOLIS: If you ask Apple what business they are in, they will tell you they are in the experience business. If you ask Colgate what business they are in they will tell you they are in the confidence business. If you ask Virgin what business they are in, they will tell you they are in the high roller jet set business.

It’s a matter of giving your customer something to align with, not something to transact with. You look at one of the brilliant aspects of the Apple Store and now the Tesla Store, it is not about products, right? It is about experience. The experience is sort of embodied in the product, but it is also embodied in interactions with the company. It’s a holistic thing. That is the value of experience.

You will pay a premium for an experience. Some studies show as high as 15% more for a similar product if you believe you are going to get a better experience with it. So the value becomes something bigger than just the widget. That changes the entire model for business—how you support and interact with customers, how you attract and keep them. And that to me is something a little bit more substantive, meaningful over time.

Think about the future of brands as a collective of shared experiences—there is this disconnect between what you think your brand is and the experience of your brand that people are sharing with one another. So your first step is to figure out how do you close that gap. Second is how do you meet it so you’re not reacting to it—essentially creating value through experience where UX [user-experience] almost becomes like a philosophy or a way of life, a way of business, not just a series of designs for products or screens.

DP: So experiences are essentially qualitative and yet without analysis there can’t be any really relevant insights. How do you use technology and data to optimize experiences and create feedback loops, and where does the human interaction element fit into that?

SOLIS: That’s what I talk about in terms of the human algorithm: it’s that intersection of data science and social science. I think one of the biggest ways to solve this is the balance of quant and qual, where you take the idea of a focus group—intentions, aspirations, etc.— and you solve them with data and a/b testing. The research starts with a hypothesis and then ends with a series of educated questions.

Even outside of this promise of what is possible, you don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t research what you can’t envision. This is why I think the future really comes down to digital anthropology. It’s just better understanding of behavior so that you can meet the needs and expectations of your target audiences before they actually show up as a data point, if that makes sense. That is where the human interaction element fits in, because otherwise you are trying to force people into a box.

DP: I really like this especially—I was a former scholar of religion and culture before I got into social media.

SOLIS: Wow!

DP: I used to study the disruptive impact of the 60s impact and civil rights movements, so I looked a lot at grassroots protest and their use of new and emerging media—things like pamphlets and magazines and how they tried to culture jam and get pictures syndicated throughout the world to facilitate real meaningful changes.

I’m curious, in your latest book you referenced Joseph Campbell’s concept of the hero’s journey. What does it mean to go on a journey together with your consumers and basically evolve as a company focused on great customer experiences?

SOLIS: That’s a great question. Being a scholar and having studied religion and culture, you and I both know that the hero’s journey has deep roots in alternative religious aspects. I didn’t want to tackle that in the book (laughter). Most people actually believe—and I found this fascinating—that the hero’s journey aligns with popular culture (Star Wars and The Matrix) more than with actual religion. Academia really understands its true roots and I thought I would take a gamble to see if I could introduce it in a way that leaders could take at face value rather than try to unravel it.

In that regard, there are two journeys in the book. The first is this idea of digital ethnography and in all fairness you can’t unravel this. The hero’s journey shows you that someone really smart aligned mythology in religion to these certain paths that these characters seem to follow. The point was that it took research and it took someone really smart to draw the lines and draw a map. And you can do the same thing for your customer journey today. You can understand where they’re going, what is the context of what they’re trying to do, and what happens in each one of those stages.

The idea was just to align the digital ethnography to paint your own hero’s journey for your customer. Then, I wanted to inspire you to go along the journey with him or her to reduce the friction and create an ecosystem that was really special to be around before, during and after the transaction.

The second reference is the idea that it is not just about the customer and the journey you need to help and transform. It is also this idea the person within the organization who has to really think about its promise and opportunity is going to meet his or her own path of resistance. You too are going to have to be your own hero in the hero’s journey and that’s why I talk about the psychology of change at the end of the book. In sales, they sometimes refer to this type of person as an internal champion for the customer—the person that becomes the customer advocate within an organization.

You are going on this journey together—you and the customer—each with your own areas of resistance, so you need to know what you should expect to encounter so you can be empowered instead of delusional. You’re going to tackle something that is challenging but is also great, and what you’re about to take on is truly a hero’s journey: something that is bigger than you, something that’s bigger than the customer, because it is co-created. This is at the true heart of relationships and engagement, so you’re essentially changing business, the philosophy of business, in the process.

DP: We’ve heard the term Gen X and Gen Y. In your new book you give us the term Gen C or the connected consumer. So what is the connected consumer and how are they different from traditional consumers?

SOLIS: This is a big, big conversation. The easy answer is this—when we talk about Gen Y, Gen X and Gen Z, or Boomers and Millennials, we really tend to go down the demographic spiral. That limits our view of what is possible.

For example, you and I are both analog. We had to learn how to use digital in every iteration that has been thrown at us and they had to learn analog, which is crazy. And when you start to study behavior, you start to realize that older demographics, once they start using an iPad, a smartphone, or if they start getting a Facebook or Pinterest account, actually start to exhibit a lot of similar behaviors to Millennials. It’s fascinating. While it is not as extreme, there are similarities. This really introduces psychographics.

Talking about Gen C was my way of saying, “Stop looking at demographics and look at behavior.” Generation C is a collective of connected consumerism that just acts, thinks and influences differently than our traditional customer. It is a way to get people to see things differently, not by age but by their behavior.

DP: Without awareness there can be no consideration. How does advertising factor into the whole equation and how do you think advertising has evolved since everything has become so social?

SOLIS: Traditional advertising still works. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a reason why the Super Bowl is amazing in terms of what a good creative spot will actually do. The way I look at the difference between the Super Bowl and everyday advertising is that they’re actually trying to make it a shared experience. They want you to feel it; they want you to talk about it. That to me is the premise of how advertising can be more meaningful. It is not just a creative idea: it comes back to good old-fashioned storytelling, if you will.

The evolution of advertising takes the storytelling format and gets it into the stream in a way that’s much more meaningful. This is why you see native advertising starting to take off, things like social networks, and different blogs starting to plug in in-stream advertising in the form of posts or sponsored posts. But they are all rooted in this idea of a journey. So it’s a story, a clickable journey that makes it a little bit more meaningful. I can’t just send you to a website because that will ruin the opportunity to capitalize on curiosity or an emotional connection we might have. I think awareness is a big deal but it’s just different. It’s much more thoughtful. We are already starting to see this happen today.

DP: Is what we’re saying here related to how the importance of the brand is really, really critical right now?

SOLIS: Yes, it’s more important than ever before. For example, I have a relationship with MTV. You and I probably used to watch music videos and that was what MTV meant to us. And then somewhere in our young adult life, it started to become a TV channel—things like The Real World. It would be videos and then programming, but today MTV is something completely different to the Millennial and to Gen C.

If you look at the relationship they have with MTV and even the relationships they have with artists, it’s no longer the idea of an artist taking on a meaning where I’m going to put posters on my wall because that artist signifies who I am and the artist becomes the avatar for that person. Instead, it’s this notion that the artist becomes part of who you are. You have a direct connection and can have meaningful exchanges across social platforms, which are integrated into your own network of relationships. It’s almost like a piece of your DNA, not your total DNA.

So the idea of a brand has to have an emotional connection that people will feel like you are part of them. This is why customer studies show that things like values, vision, and human empathy are becoming much more important triggers in terms of a brand relationship rather than sexiness or typical paid endorsements, and this is why—going back to your original question about social media—I believe that social media is going to have the true impact because the idea of becoming social means that you are by default becoming human.

The brand is more important than ever before because it’s going to make you re-think what your vision is, what your mission statement is, what your promise is. And then how do you bring that to life in everything you do inside and outside the company.

DP: You’ve advised over a thousand startups. As we were talking before you have essentially treated your own work as an evolving ongoing startup looking at the next big thing. How do you think startup culture has changed? How do you implement essentially a startup culture within an organization?

SOLIS: Startups back in Web 1.0 were really different. Technology was really new, it was really trying to find an early sense of mass appeal and just even the idea of a technology startup would get a lot of really creative funding. You really didn’t have to do much to get the attention of the world. In fact, you didn’t even have to do much to monetize.

Today, there’s still a sense of that legacy where your idea is great because it is your idea but I think the best businesses, the best startups, the best entrepreneurs are realizing that there is a mission to what they are trying to do and trying to solve for. There is a sense of purpose behind the startup and this constant growth hacking. Trying to solve for a problem using traditional means to do so only means that you have traditional outcomes.

So, what if you had to solve for something in a new way? I think the reality would be that you would find a new way. That to me is the source of the most successful startups and the most successful entrepreneurs. They are not satisfied because they are trying to disrupt something. They are not satisfied because they have series A or B funding and a valuation of a billion dollars. They are relentless in their pursuit of actually having an impact and measuring its impact in terms of permeation into a market.

That, to me is the true meaning of startup entrepreneurialism and growth hacking—the relationship between cause and effect and that—believe it or not—even as hot as startup technology is and startups in general are, and how important entrepreneurialism is to the American economy or even just the economy in general, it is still a rare trait amongst entrepreneurs: that true desire and passion to build something so meaningful that you never lose that core fire in everything that you’re trying to do because it becomes the impetus for how you make decisions moving forward.

Hopefully that made sense, because that for me is the spirit of entrepreneurialism in startups that gets missed out on in the allure of money, the lifestyle and publicity.

DP: Related to this idea of constraint, how does constraint relate to innovation?

SOLIS: There are so many catalysts for innovation, but I believe that constraint is the greatest. It’s also the one I mostly align with. I have never had resources. Even today, I don’t have the richest resources that allow me to do all the things that I have to do. Even with my latest book and all that I’m trying to do in my professional and personal life I still have to find creative solutions to do it.

I’m constantly innovating. Innovation, to me, is a way of life and it is not something that I see in a lot of entrepreneurs that I talk to. They are trying to build all-star advisory boards, trying to get celebrities to invest so they can align with names. They are trying to really hustle but I don’t know that they’re trying to innovate as much as they are trying to push. Swimming upstream isn’t the same thing as innovating.

 #DisruptorbeDisrupted

Book website:

Direct download link

The hard copy through Amazon

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#Philoselfie: Science behind selfie-expression

Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year is also one of the most fascinating movements in social is that of the selfie. Part vanity, part communication, part fun, and part absurdity, selfies represent a new generation of #selfieexpression cum egotistical emoticons…but not necessarily in a bad way. Nevertheless, the psychology and science behind selfies are strangely fascinating and therefore I continue to study and report on its evolution.

Selfiecity, a new research project, studies Instagram data from five cities around the world including Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, New York, and Sao Paulo. Wired initially reported on Selfiecity’s initial findings. I didn’t want to be selfie’ish with the information so, I’m sharing the highlights with you here.

Right now, there are more than 79 million pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #selfie. You can add another 7 million for #selfies and 1 million for #selfienation. Not counted though, are the number of selfies that don’t include a meta reference beyond the visual that you are indeed looking at a selfie.

As you can see, selfies is a form of communication among the (early) twenty somethings.

Specifically in NY, more women (61.6%) share selfies than men (36.7%). But then again, there are historically more women active on social media than men as well. The average age for selfie-made women in NY is 23.3 whereas the age skews slightly higher for men at 26.7.

I know this is a burning issue for everyone concerned here. Selfiecity also tracked visual cues such as angle of head tilt. Women in Sao Paulo as you can see, were the most expressive with body position and tilt at 17-degrees compared to 10.6-degrees in Bangkok and 11-degrees in New York.

But wait, that’s not all Selfiecity is tracking. You can learn more about poses, the state of eye contact, how many people where glasses, and whether or not people open or close their eyes and mouth in selfies.

In summary:

#noglasses

and…

Eyes wide open…mouth wide shut.

I found this part particularly interesting. Selfiecity is also tracking the mood in each selfie. For the most part, people are happy, which hopefully conveys a positive sense of selfie-esteem or selfie-confidence

In short, women are clearly smiling more than men. I guess that says something…

Additionally the team at Selfiecity learned…

On average, women tend to take more selfies than men. In Moscow, women account for 80% of the selfies. Yet, as people get older, this trend reverses. At or after age 40, men are more likely to take and post selfies than women.

At 150%, women are more likely to tilt their heads in photos over men.

According to Selfiecity’s mood analysis, people in Bangkok and Sao Paulo appear to be happier than people in Moscow. Perhaps it’s just that they’re more selfie-satisfied.

Please visit Selfiecity to explore the world of selfies for yourself.

 

#philoselfie

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