August 24, 2021 Take a minute to imagine you’re a senior in high school, getting ready to go off to college. You have to say goodbye to old friends, but you’re excited to meet new ones. BlackBerry is like the best friend you lose touch with during the transition. Soon enough, you realize you didn’t know how good you had …
John Jantsch on How Sticky Marketing Drives Growth
August 17,2021 On most hot summer days, young entrepreneurs-in-the-making set up shop on front lawns and in driveways. Their mission? Rehydrate their local communities with cold cups filled with lemonade. Their marketing tactics include cardboard signs, word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers, and yelling to cars passing by at busy intersections. If competitors show up, savvy preteens promote their use of …
Tom Stein on How B2B Marketing Drives Growth
August 10, 2021 If there’s ever been a department that’s gotten a bad rap it’s the marketers in B2B companies. I’ve worked in this business my entire career, and I’ve watched as we’ve made progress at a snail’s pace compared with the shiny, sexy careers of consumer marketers. But that’s changing. Really fast. There’s been some interesting attention about what …
What is Brand Purpose?
August 3, 2021 I discovered the work of Roy Spence in 2009 when he was developing the brand purpose for one of my clients. Roy had been working in the purpose arena long before it was a real ‘thing’. Since 1971, his agency GSD&M had developed purpose statements and activated them in the early days of big brands such as …
Sue Dyer on How High-Trust Environments Positively Impact Innovation
July 27, 2021 Have you ever had a brilliant idea that you knew would push sales through the roof? Or one on how to fix a problem but didn’t feel comfortable raising your hand to share it? Instead of shining, you let others pop off idea after idea because you’re worried that yours will sound stupid. And with looking ridiculous …
How to Thrive in a Post-Pandemic World
July 20, 2021 I was talking to Kelly Hungerford, director digital transformation strategy and services at Sunstar last week. Kelly lives just outside of Geneva, Switzerland but was getting ready to fly back to the States and visit family. Her prep list was incredibly long with plenty of boxes to check. It’s not her first trip during the pandemic. But …
Tim Washer Runs EXACTLY 19.7 Miles on the Humor Cliff
July 6, 2021 Everyone has that voice in their head. “I’m not qualified enough.” “I don’t have the time.” “I’m not ready for something so big.” We are programmed to be creatures of comfort; staying in our safe zones brings us peace. But when does peace become complacency? And when does complacency become stagnation? Instead of saying, “I’m not fit …
Joseph Jaffe: Endurance, Hope & Optimism
June 22, 2021 What do Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell and John Oliver have to do with a global pandemic? Everything, it turns out. In March 2020, people worldwide left the office for the day. Some are trickling back in the doors now. Others are waiting to see what local circumstances allow. In the midst of all of this was the …
Finding Inspiration in Everyday Things
June 15, 2021 It was the end of teaching a summer course in Colorado Springs, and Katharine couldn’t wait for one last adventure before she returned to Massachusetts. The group headed out to Pike’s Peak, one of Colorado’s 58 fourteeners—a mountain that tops out at over 14,000 feet. After a ride to the summit, she took a long, deep breath …
José Pires: Innovation for Value Creation
June 8, 2021 One of the stereotypes of innovation is that of disruption. Massive disruption. Companies like Uber, Netflix and Tesla are all icons of how quickly an industry can be turned up-side-down by the new kid on the block. One that does everything contrary to conventional thinking, yet earns massive attention and incredible success. Unfortunately, ‘disruptive innovation’ is often …
Kate Strong: Redefining What’s Possible
June 1, 2021 Last October, I signed up for a 30 kilometer (18 mile) trail run that hugs the perimeter of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. I haven’t run a race of that distance in four years. During that time, I’d begun to travel quite a bit more for work. My family and I moved to Spain and back …
Dhiraj Mukherjee on How to Think Like a Kid
May 25, 2021 Do you remember waiting in line at the grocery store and hearing a catchy tune? You loved the tune but didn’t have any way to figure out the name or even the artist. You pull out your phone and open “Shazam”, a music identification app. Within seconds, the name of the song, the artist, and the link …
Case Study: How ParkMobile Built an Innovation Culture
May 6, 2021 It’s happened to all of us. We’ve missed the window to feed the meter and ended up with an annoying parking ticket. A sudden storm hit, and we got drenched in the rain between the garage and the concert venue. Or we’ve been late to an important interview because we couldn’t find a %$*&#! parking spot! When …
How to Build More Innovative Teams
April 22, 2021 In one of the episodes of the US version of the comedy series The Office, Michael Scott rushes into the scene, demanding everyone give him ideas. As the regional manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, he has a reputation for his narcissistic behavior as a supervisor. On his way into the building that …
The Difference Between a Customer Journey and a Buyer Journey
April 8, 2021 I hear B2b marketers use the terms customer journey and buyer journey interchangeably. While it’s not only incorrect, this misunderstanding creates lost opportunities to build early relationships with customers (or potential customers), create a more efficient buyer journey, and develop stronger conversations when it comes time to connect with a sales person. Let’s start with the basics… …
Storytelling Lessons from the Cheese Aisle
April 1, 2021 When I was growing up, the sophistication of my cheese palate was limited to bricks of Velveeta and jars of Cheese Wiz. Fast forward a few years and I’m working at my first marketing job at a small architecture firm in Lincoln, Nebraska. My boss, Dave, buys everyone breakfast, bagels with cream cheese. CREAM CHEESE! I felt …
The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team
March 25, 2021 There’s been a rash of research in the last year about the lost productivity of teams because of COVID and the need to work from home. While the new dynamics of how we all go to the office each day has certainly had effects we didn’t count on, some can’t be blamed on the pandemic. Instead, the …
Rethinking the CMO Role
March 11, 2021 Has any role in business morphed more than that of the CMO? It’s a position rife with constantly changing expectations yet most often lacks the necessary support to ensure its success. If you’ve worked in marketing long, this isn’t news. In 2013, the Business Marketing Association and Forrester did research about how CMOs stood at the crossroads …
2021 Edelman Trust Barometer: Trust Crisis Creates Leadership Opportunity
January 21, 2021 Global pandemic. Fake news. Social protests. Economic turmoil. Political instability. If 2020 were a movie plot, no one would believe it. Unfortunately, this is the world we’ve endured the last 12 months. The effects of this imperfect storm come out this month in Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer. This annual index measures the average percent of trust people …
How Many Ideas Are Enough Ideas?
January 7, 2020 TAKE THE 30-DAY CREATIVITY CHALLENGE One the first day of class, a pottery teacher split her class into two halves. To the first half she said, “You will spend the semester studying pottery, planning, designing, and creating your perfect pot. At the end of the semester, we’ll have a competition to see whose pot is the best.” …