How to Deliver Patient-Centered Care: Learn from Service Industries

According the to the HBR, over the past decade, patient-centered care has become a mantra for high-quality health care. Policymakers, researchers, physician-leaders, and patients have all cited the need for care to be tailored to patients' unique needs and preferences. And there is solid evidence that patient-centered care can help improve care quality and reduce costs. However, in the rush to become more patient-centered, the health care system has misplaced its focus.

More here: How to Deliver Patient-Centered Care: Learn from Service Industries - Brian Powers, Amol S. Navathe, and Sachin H. Jain - Harvard Business Review.

What is your mobile strategy?

According to Latha Maripuri, Director of IBM Mobile and Security Services, mobile technology has unquestionably changed how we interact in both our business and personal lives. In fact, mobile devices have quickly moved from a nice-to-have technology to a necessity for most of us.

But the integration of mobile within our lives doesn’t stop there. We’re using mobile technology in innovative ways and countless places across every industry. For example, doctors can track therapeutic effectiveness through remote monitoring apps, keeping them updated on patients even when neither is in the hospital. The examples are endless.

More here: Mapping Out the Top 4 Strategies for the Mobile Enterprise « A Smarter Planet Blog.

How to Build an Online Cult of Customers

Speaking at Inc.'s 2013 GrowCo conference in New Orleans, Baratunde Thurston shared tips on how businesses can use personal stories online to attract customers, motivate friends and customers, and ultimately drive business results. The comedian, founder of social media consultancy Cultivated Wit, and author of the best-selling book “How to Be Black,” used examples from his own youth, his time running the digital arm of satirical news website The Onion, and from his efforts to sell and promote his book online using everything from Twitter and Facebook to live broadcasts of his open word processor as he wrote it.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"] Baratunde Thurston[/caption]

“Tell your story. For any new business, that story is a big part of how customers will find themselves connected to you”

Here are highlights from his talk:

Use the entire animal. Don’t be afraid to multipurpose things you already have created. After he wrote his book, for example, Thurston created a spreadsheet of its funniest sentences, and then edited each one down to a Twitter-length message. “Don't be afraid to recycle,” he said. “I wrote 60,000 words, you think I need to write new tweets? They’re already in the book.”

Piggyback on a bigger story. The most efficient way to gain visibility for your product or service is to find a conversation that's already happening online, and join it. “There is very little value in going totally against the grain, creating extra work,” said Thurston. “How to Be Black,” for example, was published during Black History Month. “It just made sense.”

Start a cult. Or an army. To promote his book, Thurston sought help from friends, family, even “the people who used to rob me.” In one promotional activity he sent out advance copies of the book, asking the recipient to discuss the book over Thanksgiving dinner, and then report back on the book’s Facebook page. The promotion didn’t drive a lot of sales—but it did result in many 5-star reviews on Amazon.com.

Ask for help. “Specifically, make it easy for people to help,” Thurston said. “You already know them, you went to school with them, you worked with them...they are already invested. They really care.” Even if they don’t have money, there's probably something else they can do, Thurston said.

Growing Constituents And Revenues Are Top Priorities For 2013

As more signs point to strengthening economic activity in the US and selected regions of other parts of the world, corporate austerity is fading and growth is back in the spotlight. Acquiring customers, improving the customer experience, and growing revenues have returned to center stage. Forrester Research recently asked more than 2,000 global business decision-makers at large organizations what their “critical” and “high” priorities are for the next 12 months. We found that:

• Their top priority is acquiring and retaining customers (73%).
• Tied for the top spot is growing overall company revenue (73%).
• The third most important priority is addressing the rising expectations of customers and improving customer satisfaction (68%).
• Lowering operating costs now only takes sixth place on the priority list (63%).

It is evident from these data that effectively managing customer relationships has become the top priority for business success.

Better customer experiences drive improvement for three types of loyalty: willingness to consider another purchase, likelihood to switch business to a competitor, and likelihood to recommend to a friend or colleague. Forrester's models estimate that the revenue impact from a 10-percentage-point improvement in a company’s performance, as measured by Forrester's Customer Experience Index (CXi) score, could exceed $1 billion.

More here: Carpe Diem With The CRM Playbook: Growing Customers And Revenues Are Top Priorities For 2013 | Forrester Blogs.

Your desk job makes you fat, sick and dead ...

Podio co-founder Jon Froda along with panelists Cali Williams Yost, CEO and Founder of Work+Life Fit Inc, Kate Lister from Telework Research & Richard Leyland, Founder of Worksnug explored the potential of ‘workshifting‘ and how working from anywhere has immense possibilities when it comes to productivity & work-life balance.

[slideshare id=17140312&style=border:1px solid #CCC;border-width:1px 1px 0;margin-bottom:5px&sc=no]

Are there risks to mobile CRM?

There's no stopping the mobile CRM revolution, but those who rush into it headlong with an eye only to the many benefits may be in for an unpleasant shock. As if we didn't have enough to worry about, mobile CRM is laden with risks, too -- from getting on the wrong side of the customer to getting on the wrong side of the federal government. Then there are the myriad security concerns that go along with making sensitive company data accessible on a device that may be woefully insecure.

More here: The Hidden Risks of Mobile CRM, Part 1 | Mobile CRM | CRM Buyer.

Will you shape the vision?

IT is like business engine, CIOs are accountable for critical part of business that is constantly changing and evolving. Contemporary CIOs should be capable of evolving leadership skills to not only match pace with the changes in technology and the pace at which organization can effectively manage these changes, but also proactively drive changes in business transformation.

Shape the Vision: CIO and his/her team can play a large role in shaping a vision of the firm as a place where passionate individuals want to connect with and learn from one another. CIO offices also have a significant responsibility to choose and deploy the IT that will help their firms realize the vision. Simply put, IT can no longer just be about numbers and algorithms; it has an opportunity to be a significant catalyst for passion and a tool for encouraging questing and connecting the innovation dots.

Ignite Passion: The range of technologies have emerged that can help foster a deeper sense of connection and purpose in employees, ignite latent worker passion and bring together disparate parts of the organization. But these new tools also necessitate a new way of thinking, a creative way to do things and a flexible way to work smartly.

Set Evolution: The emergence of the CIO coincided with the birth of the PC and end user computing. That role certainly matured as the Internet age unfolded. Now, it’s social, mobile, consumerization of IT, Big Data and a major shift in how IT services are delivered (cloud). These changes are inspiring spiritual conversations around the role of the CIO, these are all evolutionary and in some ways even predictable.

Hirable like me?

Most managers would like to think they base their hiring decisions on candidates’ skill. But new research suggests that once a candidate passes through an initial HR screening, a bigger factor comes into play: how similar the interviewee is to the person doing the hiring. Kellogg School of Business assistant professor Lauren Rivera spent nine months embedded in a professional service organization and noted three key reasons why this takes place: the "Will this person fit in?" question; the fact that people define merit on the basis of their own experiences; and that managers get excited by candidates who have similar passions and interests. Hiring managers forget that "there are other ways people can a) be likeable and b) be socially skilled other than being a mirror image," Rivera says.

More here: Hirable Like Me (Kellogg Insight)

What is the difference between responsive vs. adaptive web design?

Users who access your websites through their mobile devices or other display screens really do not care what method you use, just as long as that they can effectively navigate your website on whatever device they happen to be using.

For that reason, the two methods described in this article have been devised for web developers to meet the challenge, and while responsive (RWD) and adaptive (AWD) design methods are both addressing the issue for rendering websites on mobile devices, there are subtle differences between them that it helps to be aware of.

More here: What is the difference between responsive vs. adaptive web design? | TechRepublic.

What is your new ecosystem?

The need for change is obvious. The CIO as change agent not only touches his/her own function, but also need make influence on entire organization and business ecosystem as well, it takes strategic planning, methodology and practice in orchestrating such transformation. This is a big deal. If the business isn't strategic it will be impossible for technology to be strategic as well.

Define Roadmap: In fact, the required changes, at the most fundamental level, need be well documented. A clearly defined roadmap is available, and industry best practices are in place to serve as a framework upon which the solution can be implemented over time. The transformation to a more proactive service/solution delivery organization with repeatable management processes in place of the 'crisis of the day' leadership model, can be a reality, but only if the CIO is the proactive, visible and charismatic sponsor.

Optimize Process: Meanwhile, to compete, business unit leaders need IT to ensure the availability and reliability of their business process automation tools/technology, so their staff can function as efficiently as promised, back when they justified the tool purchase. In fact, many organizations have little insight into their cost structures and who is consuming the assets. They have no idea where they are spending their money on and often assume it is mainly being spent on items which are actually much lower on the list. Every IT finance group can capture costs but the challenge is to have visibility and traceability between costs and the assets consuming those costs. The leadership team needs IT to be the business process optimization expert for the company, to find creative sources for competitive advantages, to better compete.

Ask for Help: One of the first things a CIO must do in a transformation initiative of this magnitude is to ask the business for help. The effort will fail if the business units are unwilling to invest resources and accept a "period of pain" where service levels may be adversely impacted. CIO can envision themselves talking with business unit leaders, selling them on the challenges and the vision for the future. Will CIO be open to new perspective, willing to adapt the new skill set to the demands of evolving technology or adapt their role to the evolving business requirements for technology? Will CIO be learning agile to understand business ecosystem and connect innovation dot cross-functional, cross-industrial and cross-cultural border? It takes both attitude and aptitude.

The only thing worse for a marketer than giving fundraisers no leads, is giving them bad ones

According to 1to1 Media, the only thing worse for a marketer than giving sales people no leads, is giving them bad ones. Lack of information on prospects such as their organization size, industry sector, job title, or just simple contact information can stop a record dead in its tracks, even though it may be a quality lead. Marketing processes like lead scoring, which prioritize the most important leads, are dependent upon correct information at the contact, demographic, and company level.

As a result, data quality is especially critical when every aspect of demand generation is under a microscope to prove its contribution to revenue. In the process-oriented world of marketing automation, every percentage point counts, and every factor that contributes to conversion must be scrutinized. Successful lead generation within both CRM systems and marketing automation relies on an abundance of good, clean data.

via Why the Data will Dictate CRM and Automation Success in 2013.

Will you transform the culture?

Many IT departments are still reeling from the "slam it in and fix it on the fly" approach that was required by the rush to automate all core business processes (late 1990s & early 2000s). A reactive, crisis-driven and internally focused 'systems management' culture evolved as a result, such culture becomes barrier for IT to reach higher level maturity.

From “Heroic effort” to “Collaboration Effect”: IT department-wide culture is maintained by a 'Heroic effort' reward system, a value system that is proving to be nearly intractable. Along with the Hero mentality, expertise silo evolved a non-collaborative, finger-pointing culture that renders truly effective SLAs impossible to measure & enforce. A fundamental change in the heroic effort rewards culture is required to put an end to the reactive, crisis-driven and technology systems focused role for the IT department, and shift to business-driven, collaborative IT mentality because the business requirements for technology management have changed. The rapid push for offering ‘cloud-based’ services and the need to retool IT to centrally manage these, is certainly a perfect opportunity to rethink the role of IT and make a cogent case for a service-level driven rewards and recognition culture

The transformation journey must start with the CIO. However, very few CIOs are willing to step away from the existing IT management paradigm and hero-based rewards culture to adopt a new role as a culture change transformation sponsor. This has not been a required leadership skill-set for the CIO role to date. It is a dramatic change in skills, priorities and rewards tactics. Can veteran CIOs who came up the ranks accept this need for a dramatic change in IT culture? Will they have the required skill set to sponsor such a change? Do they have the charisma to achieve buy-in from the current IT staff. Or will it take a crisis? CIOs must drive the elimination of the heroic effort reward culture. This is the principal challenge for current “up through the ranks” CIOs. Recognizing the need for this fundamental change has not been easy for most veteran CIOs.

Be Change Agent to retool Organizational Culture: Culture is perhaps the most invisible, but powerful fabric surrounding organization, the toxic culture like water, which can sink the enterprise ship, IT is also at unique position to well align people, process and the latest technology to empower talent, enforce communication, enhance governance, and enable cross-functional collaboration, to retool organizational culture for achieving high business performance potential.

 

Will you be the Change Agent?

Change is the second most popular word in 21st century. Why change is so tough and what really keeps (C-suite) executives from embracing organizational transformation is FEAR: fear of letting go of heroic leadership, fear of losing control, fear of navigating through uncharted territory, fear of chaos.

But change is inevitable, due to the CHANGE nature of technology, CIOs shouldn’t get pushed for change, they are actually at better position to play such a role as change agent in leading organizations’ transformation.

Will you be the change agent?

What is the real cost of email?

Tom Cochran  believes that email is the most abused method of communication in every office environment. And the widespread perception that it has no incremental cost is chronically damaging workplace efficiency. According to Tom, the challenge we are facing isn't an aversion to technology, but change. I think that sums it up very well.

Tom suggests there is an entrenched level of comfort with email, making it habitual and a communications crutch. We have to take a holistic view and see email as one of many channels for collaboration. Adopt a breadth of tools to connect people, teach them the appropriate use of each and encourage smarter use of the right technology.

I also find that an open office environment creates less of a dependency on email as "literally" walls come down and teams naturally collaborate.

More here: Email Is Not Free - Tom Cochran - Harvard Business Review.

Who is responsible for your nonprofit Digital Community Building?

When it comes to building community and increasing brand awareness, some organizations hire communications, marketing, and engagement staff to handle these activities. And that makes sense -- someone needs to be charged with keeping a close eye on the organization’s community growth.

Jamie Millard and Lori L. Jacobwith also suggest that building awareness for your important work in an increasingly cluttered space can’t be the responsibility of just one person or even a department. When an organization embraces the culture of creating and empowering all staff to become “brand ambassadors,” authentic and exponential growth starts to happen.

More here: Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Rebooting Your Digital Community Building | NTEN.

Are you leveraging the power of your influential nonprofit followers on social media?

So, you have a Facebook and Twitter for your nonprofit. Great, so does everyone else.You also post content and updates several times a day. Wonderful, so does everyone else.

The point Artie Patel, VP of Business Development for Attentive.ly is making in this article is that having a social media presence and creating posts for existing followers is today’s baseline. Merely having a presence is not enough if you seriously want to further online advocacy campaigns and raise money for your nonprofit. It takes work and effort to do this, but it pays significant dividends for those organizations that are committed to actually devoting resources and time towards social media.

More here: Are you leveraging the power of your influential followers on social media? | GuideStar Blog.

Why are the most successful leaders also givers?

Inc. editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan talks to organizational psychologist Adam Grant about his new book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. Expect to sit through heated conversations in the next few months about who in your circle is generous to a fault, who expects a quo for every quid, and who is out for what he can get.

That's how Adam Grant categorizes the ways people use interactions to succeed--or not--in their careers and lives. Grant's book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, is already garnering plaudits for the rigor of its science, the freshness of its arguments, and the pleasure of its prose. Inc. editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan spoke to Grant, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, about how giving can help you lead.

More here: Why the Most Successful Leaders Are Givers | Inc.com.

Usage Of RSS Feeds

Google has announced that it will shut down Google Reader on July 1, 2013. In its announcement, Google states that it’s doing this because the usage of Google Reader has declined and it wants to concentrate on fewer products. There was a lot of buzz online about this decision, and some fanatical Google Reader fans put together a petition to keep the RSS reader alive. They garnered more than 50,000 signatures in just a few hours.



Forrester’s Technographics® data gives an understanding of the usage of RSS feeds over time. Google is right about the decline. The data shows that it was always only a dedicated group who used RSS feeds at least weekly — about 7% of US online adults in 2008; this had declined to just over 4% last year, with about one in 10 US online adults using RSS feeds about monthly.

RIP Google Reader. I will miss you.

Related articles

• How do I create a very specific RSS feed from a webpage? (ask.metafilter.com)


• FeedRoller - One Of The Most Interesting Ways To Read Your RSS Feeds [Windows] (makeuseof.com)


• New RSS Feed (unretrofied.com)


• Google Reader shut down, try these RSS feed alternatives (cbsnews.com)

CRM Roundup for April 6

Evolving Social CRM to Become CRM—Again By: Esteban Kolsky (@ekolsky)

With the constant conversations about Social CRM, Esteban points out a key understanding that’s finally sinking in – Social CRM is just regular CRM now. In adapting to the new abilities the “social” aspect of CRM provides, Esteban recommends four critical steps for effective CRM implementation. These include using each channel for its respective purpose, rethinking your strategy within the new capabilities of CRM, focusing on bottom-line metrics over “fluff” metrics like followers, and embracing the change.

Scribe Online Platform Updated with New Visual Interface By: Jason Gumpert

MSDynamicsWorld’s Jason Gumpert covers the newest version of our Scribe Online Platform, with a focus on the easy-to-use visual UI of Integration Services (IS). With IS, as Scribe’s VP of Product Management Betsy Bilhorn explains, "The concepts (of the customer data integration) are natural language based and easy to pick up if you have any level of technical background – for each record, if this, do that.” This opens up data integration to more users to enable better decision making, lower TCO, and faster realization of benefits.

CRM Winners and Losers By: Chuck Schaeffer (@cschaeffer)

For those in the market for a CRM system, this post analyzes the relative Buyer Consideration (aka popularity) of the top 15 CRM systems in Q1 of 2013. Not surprisingly, Salesforce.com and MS Dynamics CRM hold top spots by a wide margin (72% and 51% of Buyer Consideration). For those interested in branching out from the two CRM titans, both Infusionsoft and Oracle RighNow are on the rise, but have a ways to go (19% and 5% of Buyer Consideration respectively).

Businesses Can Turn to Scribe for Integration in the Cloud Anytime By: Mark Smith (@marksmithvr)

In a week full of data integration news (see Mulesoft’s funding), Mark covered another important data integration update – Integration Services (IS) for our Scribe Online Platform. Ventana found that 44% of organizations spend the most analytics time on data-based tasks, meaning that increases in data efficiency and integration can hugely benefit these organizations. Like Jason Gumpert and others have noted, the visual UI of IS greatly simplifies the process of data integration, leading to better, cheaper access to customer data. As Mark puts it, “Scribe Online is a great step forward. Having software that can align business and IT is essential, as less than a fifth (19%) work together well for the information needs of an organization, according to our information management research.”

MuleSoft Rakes in More Moolah to Connect Your Applications to the World By: Barb Darrow (@gigabarb)

Barb covered this week’s announcement of Mulesoft’s $37 million funding round. The influx of cash into the data integration space is indicative of the massive wave of change coming and the importance of integrating CRM and other customer data systems – Mulesoft CEO Greg Schott estimates the value of connecting all enterprise applications at $500 billion. What’s interesting about these new funds is the fact that Mulesoft raised money from two competitors – Salesforce and SAP – underscoring the recognized need for CRM and cloud providers to connect their services using integration solutions like Mulesoft and Scribe.

 

Top Salespeople Use LinkedIn to Sell More

Steve W. Martin (Harvard Business Review) recently interviewed 54 top salespeople about how they use LinkedIn to research accounts, prospect for leads, and generate sales. All of the study participants sell technology-based products to the IT departments of mid to large size companies.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150"] Image via CrunchBase[/caption]

The study included three types of salespeople: 33% were inside salespeople who sell exclusively over the phone, 41% were outside field reps responsible for acquiring new accounts, and 26% were outside field reps who managed existing client account.

More: Top Salespeople Use LinkedIn to Sell More - Steve W. Martin - Harvard Business Review.

As a leader, do you have more than two modes of operating?

Any great leader faces a multitude of challenges every day. Whether it's communicating strategy, helping people through change, holding on to excellence in the face of compromise, or just navigating the leadership environment, there is no shortage of development opportunities lurking in each day's schedule.

Les McKeown has worked over the years with leaders on all of the challenges above--and many, many more. But surprisingly, the skill that he sees more leaders struggle with more than any other is relatively mundane (but very important): the ability to work with their team as an equal. To be "merely" a resource, rather than the team leader.

As we've seen, many leaders can only operate in one of two modes--in charge, or not there. In other words, once they join their team (virtually or otherwise), the team instantly defers to them, and they take the lead.

Truly great leaders have a third mode: The ability to sit with their team without needing to be in charge, using their subject matter knowledge just the same way as anyone else around the table would. More here.

Why are we going online?

Americans are going online to pass the time more than they were just a few years ago, according to a new study.

A report from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that about 53% of young adults ages 18 to 29 go online on any given day for no particular reason except for a diversion or just for fun. About 81% of people in this demographic said they have done so at least occasionally.

Is Twitter just for people who like to say what they ate for lunch?

Is Twitter just for people who like to say what they ate for lunch? Is it a useless tool for self gratification?

I don't think so. Here is a great resource on who to follow for leadership ideas. Tom Peters is one of my favorites.

http://blog.kevineikenberry.com/leadership/top-leadership-tweeters/

About Business Technology Partner

Michael Wilson is Managing Consulting Partner at Fusion Labs. Dedicated to understanding and applying all things digital.

Experience includes:

• 5 years as nonprofit Metro executive in Houston, Texas


• 20 years as nonprofit regional executive covering the Northeast


• 10 years as corporate CIO and Chief Customer Officer

Services include:

• Advisor Services


• Speaking engagements


• Conferences and seminars


• Consulting Services


• Professional Services

You can reach him by email at michael.w.wilson@outlook.com

Social Media: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Blog

Is it productive to work at home or anywhere other than the office?

Certain subjects just naturally incite opinion wars. The big ones, like political preferences, or whether you’re Team A or Team B, are better left out of polite conversation. But when it comes to doing your job effectively, where do we draw the line? Should the nature of a person’s autonomy — or lack thereof — be at the whim of the boss, or the discernment of the employee?

The four corners of the Internet nearly came to blows recently when tech-world darling and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer boldly put a stop to employees working remotely. Needless to say, people are a little upset.

I'm definitely in the let them work at home camp. Here is a pretty good infographic on the state of things.

Why was Readers Digest bound to fail?

This blog by Seth Godin is worth reading in it's entirety. What is your Readers digest idea?

Heartfelt criticism of your idea or your art is usually right (except when it isn't...)

Check out this letter from the publisher of a magazine you've never heard of to the founder of a little magazine called Readers Digest:

But, personally, I don't see how you will be able to get enough subscribers to support it. It is expensive for its size. It isn't illustrated... I have my doubts about the undertaking as a publishing venture.

Of course, he was right--given his assumptions. And that's the except part.

Criticism of your idea is usually based on assumptions about the world as it is. Jackson Pollock could never have made it as an painter in the world as it was. And Harry Potter was rejected by just about everyone because for it to succeed the way kids read would have to change.

The useful element of this sort of criticism isn't that the fact that people in the status quo don't like your idea. Of course they don't. The interesting question is: what about the world as it is would have to change for your idea to be important?

In the case of Readers Digest, the key thing that changed was the makeup of who was reading magazines. Most of the people (and it was a lot of people) who subscribed to the Digest didn't read other magazines. And so comparing to other magazines made no sense, except to say, "this is so different from other magazines, the only way you're going to succeed is by selling it to millions of people who don't read those magazines." And Starbucks had no chance if they were going to focus on the sort of person who bought coffee at Dunkin Donuts or a diner, and the iPad couldn't possibly succeed if people were content to use computers the way they were already using them.

Keep that in mind the next time a gatekeeper or successful tastemaker explains why you're going to fail.

Seth's Blog: Interpreting criticism

Twitter is set to grow it's income

Twitter is making some good progress. Much of this is coming from the mobile ad world.

Connected devices in 2014

Interesting take on where the mobile world is heading. Seems pretty clear.

Can you eliminate the need for email?

With some careful application of social media tools, could you actually eliminate the need for email?

Luis Suarez, who works for IBM, ditched email. He still has an email account, but since 2008 he’s tried to wean himself off email.

Suarez documents the decreasing amounts of email he receives with blog posts tagged “A World Without Email“. When he started, Suarez received more than 30 emails per day; by 2011 he received 16 emails per week. (I always imagine the phrase being read with the deep voice of movie trailer narrators, “In a world without email, one man stands alone…”)

Headlines highlight Suarez’s lack of email as an oddity. In 2012, Wired ran a story titled “IBM Gives Birth to Amazing E-mail-less Man“. The idea that a tech professional could do actual work without email boggles! Bah. Nearly impossible!

Headlines about Suarez should read “Man Chooses to Work in Public”. Suarez replaced email with a mix of internal and external social networking tools. He posts to his Wordpress-powered blog at elsua.net several times a month. He uses Twitter and Tumblr to share what he’s doing. He even uses Google+ now and then.

Suarez’s choice to share his work came as a result of thinking and practice. He worked for years in the field of Knowledge Management. And he’s highly proficient at learning new tools and ways of working: he started blogging back in 2005.

So, can you eliminate email? Yes, with the careful use of social media and the willingness to "work in public", it can be done. What is the value? Knowledge is shared. Work is collaborative.

Is your contact center loyalty focused?

Is your contact center loyalty focused? One of the trends I am seeing is that as companies more fully understand the link between customer experience and loyalty, especially with customer service, they are increasingly viewing contact centers as value-creators and not just cost centers.

Some of the effects we are seeing is less focus on average-handle-time and other productivity metrics, more focus on customer feedback and quality metrics, more on-shoring of previously off-shored interactions, and more investment in agent training and coaching.

Tidbit: Consumers that are satisfied with customer service interactions are more than 4 times as likely to repurchase than those who are dissatisfied.

Are you shaping the digital world with agility?

Digital leaders shape digital enterprise with agility. They are all about doing things better and faster; with elasticity: scale up and down seamlessly and resilience.

A digital organization is empowered by digital tools and relying on a winning combination of face-to-face and virtual initiatives. It involves the creation of an interactive multi-channel communication and sharing process to generate awareness about new digital tools and processes to help accelerate and secure workforce buy-in.

Are you leading in this area regardless of your role?

How to get ahead.I disagree.

This is a very disturbing article from Harvard Business Review. Here is one tidbit.

First, remember "A-B-D" — always be disagreeable:

People who are disagreeable earn more than people who are agreeable, and the gap is biggest among men, according to an analysis of four surveys spanning almost 20 years. Men who are significantly less agreeable than average earn 18.31% more than men who are significantly more agreeable than average, while the comparable figure for women is 5.47%, says the study, led by Beth A. Livingston of Cornell. Men's disagreeable behavior "conforms to expectations of 'masculine' behavior," the authors say.

via Ouch: A Year's Worth of Occasionally Disturbing Research on How to Get Ahead - Andrew O’Connell - Harvard Business Review.

From there, a long list of pretty disagreeable items continue. I kept looking for something redeeming. Nothing. Hmmm. If this is the list of what to do, I object.

Advisor Services

Advisor services are either short term or  longer term engagements to focus on a specific area of specialty. They are provided one on one to executives. They can be by phone, video or on site.

Areas to consider:

• Career planning


• Navigating the Social Media world


• Business Technology


• Strategic planning


• Talent development


• Succession planning

All advisor engagements are custom designed to meet your challenges and create the action you want to take. Services can also include follow up and change management components to ensure success.

If you are not 100% satisfied with the advisory services, you pay nothing.

Other services include:

• Speaking engagements


• Conferences and seminars


• Consulting Services


• Professional Services

What is architecture and governance?

I love simplicity. Sometimes we just make things too difficult to understand.

This quote simply explains architecture (and why it is important) and governance.

Architecture is a belief system. And then governance is having the discipline to put that belief system into action.

— Ralph Loura, CIO, Clorox

Speaking Engagements

Speaking engagements are usually short conversations with small to large groups. With over 35 years of speaking experience, Michael Wilson will, simply and with impact, engage your audience to take action. Some recent topics have been:

• Constituent engagement metrics and how to move the needle


• Social media and how to catapult engagement to reach your mission


• What is an effective mobile strategy and why does it make a difference?


• What does Consumerization of IT mean to the nonprofit C-Suite?


• Organization wide alignment around the constituent experience


• Why more nonprofits are getting bigger, faster and what you need to know about ROI


• Are you ready to be a digital nonprofit?


• Do you need a Chief Constituent Officer? Will it make a difference in our new digital world?


• And many more ….

All speaking engagements are custom designed to meet your challenges and create the action you want the audience to take.

If you are not 100% satisfied with the conversation, you pay nothing.

Other services include:

• Advisor Services


• Speaking engagements


• Conferences and seminars


• Consulting Services


• Professional Services

Interested in a Voice of the Customer Program? First build executive support

Interested in a Voice of the Customer Program? First build executive support. Those who have gone through the process all say it is critical.  It is also consistent with research showing that executive support builds a foundation for VoC success.

Executive support helps Customer Experience pros put key building blocks in place, such as adequate tools to collect and analyze data and processes to systematically act on it.

How do you build support? Prove the value of the program by demonstrating tangible business value. Track the results of service recovery efforts to save unhappy customers and aggregate the results of improvement projects initiated by VoC-collected data.

So, get started fast but make sure the C-suite is on board.

Remember the Kodak moment? It is now the Instagram moment.

Remember the Kodak moment? It is now the Instagram moment. Great short video from Brian Solis promoting his new book, "The Future of Business".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwtQpNCqWrQ

Am I experimenting enough?

End of the day question: Am I experimenting enough?

Answer? Probably not.

Challenge? How do I do it more? How do I do it faster?

Should you add things to your to-do list you've already done, just to cross them off?

I am a fan, to some extent, of to-do lists. I know of people who add things they've already done, so they can cross them off. Somehow I just can't wrap my arms around it though.

Do you do this? Does it really help?

At the end of the day, add items to your list that weren't there but which you accomplished, just so you can cross them off. "This gives you a sense of productivity," Williams says.

via How to Conquer Your To-Do List CIO.com.

Customers hold more power than ever before

If we don’t think customers are more powerful than ever before, just ask Bank of America or Netflix. Both are great examples of fast consumers empowered with social tools can flat out reverse corporate decisions that seem irrational to consumers.

And why shouldn't they. That it has taken this long to have the ability to get the attention of corporate decision makers is stunning. It is a new day. Swift economic impact to corporate decisions is good for the economy in the long run.

“Today's consumers are empowered and are not afraid to use their social muscles.” ~~Mila D'Antonio, Peppers and Rogers

Customers Hold More Power Than Ever Before - Think customers: The 1to1 Blog

How am I doing compared to a magical unicorn?

 

How am I doing compared to a magical unicorn?

We love to compare ourselves to those we know we are better than. It really makes us feel good. Seth Godin suggests there is a better standard. One the will make us feel uncomfortable.



Will we take up the challenge?

The easiest way to sell yourself short is to compare your work to the competition. To say that you are 5% cheaper or have one or two features that stand out--this is a formula for slightly better mediocrity.

The goal ought to be to compare yourself not to the best your peers or the competition has managed to get through a committee or down on paper, but to an unattainable, magical unicorn.

Compared to that, how are you doing?

via Seth's Blog: Compared to magical.

Related articles

• Seth's Blog: Learning how to see (sethgodin.typepad.com)


• Seth's Blog: A diet for your mind (sethgodin.typepad.com)

Are you leading a digital transformation?

Breakthroughs often begin by thinking differently about the company's mission. Pages Jaune, the French Yellow Pages, was losing business as paper books became less and less relevant. The CEO led the effort to re-conceptualize the business as one that connects small businesses with local customers, which led to new products and services, such as mobile apps and Web pages for its member companies.

We have all used the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies as a metaphor for this form of breakthrough thinking. Are you focused on speeding up the caterpillar's process? Or are you envisioning that totally new butterfly?

Best of Tom Peters Cool Friends -- Sally Helgesen

Tom Peters has some very cool friends. He is also very kind to introduce us to them. I haven't read much from Sally Helgesen yet but she is going on my list. I am particularly intrigued by "The Web of Inclusion".

With three interviews to her credit, Sally Helgesen is not only one of our favorite Cool Friends, she's tied for first place in frequency of Cool Friends solo interviews (with the prolific Seth Godin!). She also has a section of Tom's Mother of All Presentations devoted to her work. Best known for her 1990 classic, The Female Advantage, Sally has a focus on women's work issues, but her insights are universal—perhaps essential for all who would succeed at work in the 21st Century.

Interview No.1, posted 2000. Book under discussion: The Web of Inclusion: A New Architecture for Building Great Organizations.

Interview No.2, posted 2002, and the book: Thriving in 24/7: Six Strategies for Taming the New World of Work.

Interview No.3, posted 2010, and the book featured (coauthored with Julie Johnson): The Female Vision: Women's Real Power at Work.

We'd suggest you read all three interviews and maybe pick up a couple of Sally's books, too!

via Best of the Cool FriendsSally Helgesen | tompeters!.

Computers are magnificent tools but ....

“Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.” – Louis Gerstner

Am I making it safe for my employees to try things?

Am I making it safe for my employees to try things? We hear a lot about risk taking. That sounds very "risky". Probably sounds that way to my staff as well.

What if I talked about safety? Good question I think.

What do you think?

5 questions to ask about your customer focus

Whether you are a business leader of a department or the CEO, these questions make sense to ask and get answers about.

Asking the right questions is most of the job some days. Thanks to Peppers and Rogers for their insight into these questions. They have been at the customer focus for a long time now.

1. How many new customers are you attracting and what is their value?

2. How many customers are you losing; why and what is their value?

3. Why are your continuing customers loyal to you?

4. What is the profitability of each customer group?

5. Are your customers vouching for you?

Read more: Customer Strategy | Making Customers an Asset of Your Business

Where does trust come from?

Here is a great question. Where does trust come from? We all want it. It isn't always easy to get or build.

Hint: it never comes from the good times and from the easy projects.

We trust people because they showed up when it wasn't convenient, because they told the truth when it was easier to lie and because they kept a promise when they could have gotten away with breaking it.

Every tough time and every pressured project is another opportunity to earn the trust of someone you care about.

via Seth's Blog: Where does trust come from?.

Are the number-cruncher days numbered?

OK, full disclosure. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree. Yes, I went the Liberal Arts route in college. This can be an asset when puzzling through complex or ambiguous situations; innovating; communicating; and understanding the customer through the power of “observation and psychology—the stuff of poets and novelists.” Yes, I also write poetry. :)

Do you have a Liberal Arts degree? Has it helped you in the business world?

Nobody is saying that numbers-crunchers’ days are numbered. But the idea that having people with a strong background in the humanities—what Peter Drucker termed “Management as a Liberal Art”—can provide companies with a great advantage is gaining some real momentum.

via Drucker’s Lost Art of Management | The Drucker Exchange.

"Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy." ~~Wayne Gretzky

You Call That Innovation? Maybe it is just change management

Everybody is on the innovation bandwagon. It is the "buzzword" of the year. Unless what we are talking about is disruptive, we are probably talking about monumental change and change management. This may be the "elephant in the C-Suite" but it is an elephant none the less.

Got innovation? Just about every company says it does.

Companies throw the term "innovation" around but that doesn't mean they are actually changing anything monumental. Leslie Kwoh reports on digits. 

Businesses throw around the term to show they're on the cutting edge of everything from technology and medicine to snacks and cosmetics. Companies are touting chief innovation officers, innovation teams, innovation strategies and even innovation days.

But that doesn't mean the companies are actually doing any innovating. Instead they are using the word to convey monumental change when the progress they're describing is quite ordinary.

via You Call That Innovation? - WSJ.com.

Why wait? Speed makes a difference

This is such a great question. Why wait? Seriously. Why wait? Seth Godin says it well. Speed can make a difference.

If you're on the critical path, if someone is waiting for your contribution, ship now.

We have deadlines for a reason, but the key word is 'dead'. In fact, you don't have to wait for the deadline or get anywhere near it, especially if you want to speed things up.

Seth's Blog: Why wait?

Related articles

• Meeting Seth Godin today, and lessons learned (janefinette.com)

Leadership lessons from "Men in Black 3"

Here is a pretty good list. I enjoyed the movie "Men in Black 3" a lot. Who knew I would also get leadership lessons. But I did.

1. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.” Agent K. || Think about this quote, lots to ponder here.



2. “Do you know what the most destructive force in the Universe is? Regret!” ~Agent K. || Sentences beginning with “If I had only” “What if I” “I should have…” Regret eats people alive, it forces people to live in past.

3. “A miracle is what appears impossible, but happens anyway.” ~Griffin || Miracles do happen, nothing is impossible, believe, believe, believe.

4. “The bitterest truth is better than the sweetest lie.” ~Griffin || This is something that we learn as a very young child… Always tell the truth.

5. “We’re running out of time, we’re running out of clues, and there’s an invasion coming, so really we need to go right now!” ~Agent J. || I’ll allow you to get creative with this one. Think, Think, Think.

6. “Where there is death, there will always be death.” || There is lots of metaphoric truth here… where there is darkness, there will always be darkness.

7. “There are things out there you don’t need to know about.” Agent K. || Truth for all ages.

via 7 Life and Leadership Lessons From Men In Black 3 | Big Is The New Small.

Conferences and Seminars

Conferences and Seminars are usually longer conversations with small to large groups. Conferences include 4 hour, full day and multi-day versions. With over 35 years of speaking experience, Michael Wilson will, simply and with impact, engage your audience to take action. Some recent topics have been:

• Constituent Experience Competencies for Nonprofits
  
  
  
  • Competency #1 – Define the Stages of Experience to Gain Alignment around Constituent experience
  
  
  • Competency #2 – Develop Experience Based Constituent Listening and Feedback
  
  
  • Competency #3 – United (Cross-Silo) Experience Reliability and Accountability
  
  
  • Competency #4 – Manage Constituents as Assets – Prove the ROI between Experience and Growth
  
  
  • Competency #5– Create a “One Organization” Constituent Experience Culture
  
  
  
  


• Board, Committee and Staff Retreat Facilitation


• Why more nonprofits are getting bigger, faster and what you need to know about ROI


• Constituent engagement metrics and how to move the needle


• Social media and how to catapult engagement to reach your mission


• What is an effective mobile strategy and why does it make a difference?


• What does Consumerization of IT mean to the nonprofit C-Suite?


• Are you ready to be a digital nonprofit?


• And many more ….

All conference engagements are custom designed to meet your challenges and create the action you want the audience to take. Services also include follow up and change management components to ensure success.

If you are not 100% satisfied with the conference, you pay nothing.

Other services include:

• Advisor Services


• Speaking engagements


• Conferences and seminars


• Consulting Services


• Professional Services

Samsung outsells Apple in 2012

Samsung capped an impressive year 2012 with record smartphone sales in the fourth quarter. The Korean company shipped 63.7 million smartphones during the holiday quarter, outselling its biggest rival Apple by more than 15 million units.

Samsung’s strong line-up of high-end and low-cost smartphones has helped the company to increase shipments by 76 percent over last year’s fourth quarter.

 

Apple sold 47.8 million smartphones, cementing its status as the second largest vendor. With an increase of 29 percent, the Cupertino-based company saw the lowest relative growth among the top 5 vendors though, a testament to the stronger competition from company’s such as Sony, Huawei and ZTE. The latter two, both Chinese manufacturers, entered the top 5 as the Chinese smartphone market continued to grow rapidly.

 

Overall, smartphone demand remains strong as overall shipments in the fourth quarter rose 36 percent to a total of 219 million units.

 

http://www.statista.com/topics/840/smartphones/chart/852/global-smartphone-shipments-in-q4-2012/

Is your job to generate stunning results that drive the top line?

Is your job to generate stunning results that drive the top line? Is your job to keep the trains running on time?

The focus makes a difference. I want to do the former not the later.

CIOs have a tendency to believe that they are an overhead function. When you believe you’re overhead you operate differently than when you perceive yourself as leading a P&L.

— Ray Barnard, CIO, Fluor

What are 3 words that can kill a business?

What are 3 words that can kill a business?

Not my job!!

Customer Experience Trend: Software as an Experience

One of the big trends we are seeing in the world of customer experience is a focus on the experience of the software. The whole rise of Smart Phones is geared around this premise.

The initial rise of cloud-based software (a.k.a. SaaS, or software-as-a-service) focused on renting access to software instead of the historical approach of selling licenses. As cloud-based software expands, we’ll see these offerings cater more explicitly to the needs of customers.

How? More simple, highly-focused, specialized applications (like smartphone apps), more focus on quick initial usability, more sharing of best practices (usage, not technical), and customization based on behavioral analysis of users.

Tidbit: Net Promoter Scores for tech vendors are more correlated to customer experience than product performance.

Powerful stories have impact. What are we telling our self?

Seth Godin has some great thoughts on the stories we tell. The ones we tell ourselves are so very important. What is our story? How frequently do we tell it to our self?

I know that marketers tell stories. We tell them to clients, prospects, bosses, suppliers, partners and voters. If the stories resonate and spread and seduce, then we succeed.

But what about the story you tell yourself?

Do you have an elevator pitch that reminds you that you're a struggling fraud, certain to be caught and destined to fail? Are you marketing a perspective and an attitude of generosity? When you talk to yourself, what do you say? Is anyone listening?

You've learned through experience that frequency works. That minds can be changed. That powerful stories have impact.

I guess, then, the challenge is to use those very same tools on yourself.

When it comes to the cloud, there is a huge gap between the business and the CIO

A recent survey on cloud adoption presents an interesting view of the perception gap between IT and business executives. Although the survey focuses on issues such as on-premise upgrades and availability of technical resources, the best stuff is buried in a single graphic.

Enterprise performance management vendor Host Analytics sponsored a survey (PDF download), by Dimensional Research, that describes certain drivers of cloud adoption.

According to the survey, the cloud alternative delivered better value--business: 80 percent; CIOs: 53 percent. Although the phrase "better value" is vague, most likely business people interpret this to mean "less expensive". This makes sense because many business folks see cloud as a means to bypass IT and purchase computing at lower cost. On the other hand, the data indicates that CIOs recognize that software alone is only part of the overall cost equation for enterprise technology

The survey highlights several important points for CIOs to consider, including:

Business buyers don't care about your IT agenda: As CIO, your technology focus includes a broad range of considerations that are of little direct interest to business executives. Most business folks don't care about your infrastructure, staffing, and efficiency concerns. They want feature rich applications that meet their specific needs. And, they want those apps cheap.

Business buyers have a tactical view of technology procurement: Their concerns focus narrowly on solving specific problems, perhaps without a long-term or strategic view of technology. The clear implication: address their specific needs without adding your back office constraints heavily to the mix. Find a way to handle your own constraints without binding users into solutions that do not accomplish their goals.

Users need education on strategic cloud benefits: Based on the survey, we can conclude that users do not understand that cloud benefits go far beyond lower cost. Both IT departments and software vendors must do a better job educating users on the innovation and business process benefits of the cloud. And, dear CIO, I must delicately note that your staff may also need additional education in this area.

What is the danger of starting at the top?

It is so easy to fall into this trap. As a buyer of technology, I can't tell you how many times people thought if they just got to me they would get the sale. Even worse was when they actually thought they were going to talk to the CEO. Seth has nailed this one.

When making a b2b sale, the instinct is always to get into the CEO's office. If you can just get her to hear your pitch, to understand the value, to see why she should buy from or lease from or partner with or even buy you... that's the holy grail.

What do you think happens after that mythical meeting?

She asks her team.

And when the team is in the dark, you've not only blown your best shot, but you never get another chance at it.

The alternative is to start in the middle. It takes longer, it comes with less high-stakes tension and doesn't promise instant relief. But it is better than any alternative.

Starting in the middle doesn't mean you're rushing around trying to close any sale with any bureaucrat stupid enough to take a meeting with you (or that you're stupid enough to go to, thinking that a sale is going to happen.)

No, starting in the middle is more marketing than sales. It's about storytelling and connection and substance. It's about imagery and totems and credentials and the ability to understand and then solve the real problems your prospects and customers have every day. It's this soft tissue that explains why big companies have so many more enterprise sales than you do.

You don't get this reputation as an incidental byproduct of showing up. It is created with intention and it's earned.

via Seth's Blog: The danger of starting at the top.

The power of mobile

It is hard to imagine a world without mobile computing. It’s funny to think back to when getting excited about technology was considered nerdy. These days, almost everyone is keen on the latest in devices particularly those of the mobile variety. Problem is, now that we’ve got the digital world in our pockets, we’d like to keep it there. This makes things a little sticky for reluctant business leaders, as the consumerization of the enterprise continues to hit them on all sides.