Omni-Channel From Brand and Agency Viewpoints: DAA Chicago Symposium

Omni Channel From Brand and Agency Viewpoints: DAA Chicago SymposiumOmni Channel From Brand and Agency Viewpoints takes you behind the curtain of the digital provider world. The audience of the Digital Analytics Association’s Chicago Symposium was focused on omni-channel from the point of view of how its moving parts functioned because members buy and sell media and marketing content. Brand and agency digital professionals are caught in the tidal wave of data, which is straining legacy processes and relationships to the limit.

However, “Attribution” stole the show from omni-channel—and, for a fascinating reason. The same capabilities that enable big data give ecommerce vendors the ability field solutions that “attribute” the value of each media asset to the customer purchase. Hence, attribution is a massive accounting exercise, but it is disruptive to the digital media ecosystem because it enables, in theory, far more inclusive and granular counting of digital content’s impact on ecommerce or mcommerce or even in-store purchase. This is bringing accountability to digital and advertising firms. Just think of all the media that customers see before they purchase something. Agencies and vendors […]

Chicago-Style Innovation 2013 [Lightbank Innovation Day]

Lightbank logoChicago-Style Innovation is my notes from Lightbank Innovation Day, which took place on 9 May 2013 at the City Winery (presentations) and Lightbank’s offices (networking). Throughout the day, it was obvious that the Knowledge Economy’s Social Channel was unfolding; entrepreneurs’ startups are stripping off an increasing breadth of enterprise processes and using digital social software to improve them. For example, Needle’s platform creates experts in user (customer) use cases and outcomes that outperform anyone at retail; Fieldglass, HighGround, Fooda, oDesk and TalentBin take aim at various parts of human capital while Aon Hewitt showed how to practice enterprise innovation on the inside; DoubleDutch aims to [at long last] digitize trade shows and conferences through its platform’s geosocial functions. Sprout Social and Contently offered social tools.

Presenters Gian Fulgoni, J Schwan and Ramon De Leon shared valuable advice for entrepreneurs, investors and enterprise executives. Fulgoni provided statistics that showed how mobile was eclipsing ecommerce and analog commerce; Schwan opened the audience’s eyes to Ubiquitous Computing and the Internet of Things, and De Leon showed the power of (pervasively ;^) being yourself.

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Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Economic Forecast

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Economic ForecastI covered the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Economic Forecast last week, where all speakers issued this refrain: “More of the same.” Key economic indicators have been stuck in neutral—the proverbial “sideways” movement—so the consensus in the room was one of faint frustration tempered by gratitude. Everyone had lived through worse.

The current “recovery” is underperforming any other in recent memory according to many measures, especially employment.

The conference was very well organized and featured expert presenters. Reading between the lines, I perceive significant opportunity that will surprise most people. After my notes of speakers’ remarks, I’ll share my thoughts on 2013’s opportunity that is evident when one regards “the economy” from a different point of view.

Everyone wonders what kind of presents we will open in 2013 (right).

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Google+ Disruptive Potential Reflected by Conference Audiences

Google Plus Disruptive Potential Reflected by Conference AudiencesGoogle Plus Disruptive Potential Reflected by Conference Audiences summarizes insights from audience reactions to Google+ presentations. CSRA launched the Executive’s Guide to Google+ because we thought it had significant disruptive potential for many of our clients, and our recent conference appearances (link to presentation below) have only underlined two of Google+’s unique attractions: your competitors don’t understand it and Google is managing it as a completely different animal, not a social network. Here I’ll share audience reactions to my recent Google+ presentations at public social business conferences and private corporate meetings.

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Understanding Web 3.0 as Data: Reid Hoffman, Founder LinkedIn

Understanding Web 3.0 as Data: Reid Hoffman, Founder LinkedIn summarizes business opportunities and privacy threats of the emerging sea of social data as well as outlining Web 3.0 key concepts and importance.

hoffman_reidIn addition to being the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman is a Valley insider with rich insight into technology trends, markets and building companies. His main message in this talk at South by Southwest 2011 was that the future was bearing down on us, and he prophesied that it would “arrive sooner and be stranger than we think.”

He painted the context for his theme, “Web 3.0 as data,” with a simple timeline: […]

Giving as Cultural Glue and Smart Business: Blake Mycoskie, Founder TOMS Shoes

Giving as Smart Business: Blake Mycoskie, Founder TOMS ShoesGiving as Smart Business: Blake Mycoskie, Founder TOMS Shoes is a fantastic story and a smart business idea. Blake Mycoskie is a gifted storyteller in his own right, and, in this South by Southwest 2011 keynote, he entertained the audience with the story of TOMS Shoes while imparting a simple but profound principle of 21st century business: discovering the meaning and potential of giving. Here are the highlights of TOMS story, which will help you appreciate the context of the blockbuster business idea.

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The Future of Location: Josh Williams, CEO Gowalla

The Future of Location: Josh Williams, CEO GowallaThe Future of Location: Josh Williams, CEO Gowalla is a glimpse into his crystal ball, given at SxSW 2011. Josh Williams shared his insights about geosocial at this South by Southwest 2011 session as well as his thoughts about how to approach it to serve customers better. Williams was passionate about orienting geosocial functions around storytelling and travel, which he illustrated by describing Gowalla’s approach to adding value.

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Review: South by Southwest Interactive 2011

Review: South by Southwest Interactive 2011 takes you behind the curtain of the famous confab and suggests why you might want to attend

Review: South by Southwest Interactive 2011I had never attended SXSW before because I always had other things happening, and the value proposition was never obvious to me. In general, I attend very few “social media” conferences as the hype usually exceeds the delivery in an “industry” that’s particularly prone to self-congratulation. This year, a client launched a new venture at SXSW, so I decided to stay a couple of days afterward to see what the noise was about. Here are my informal impressions that I hope will be useful to you in deciding whether it might be worthwhile for you to attend. I invite your comments and impressions, too.

[Update: links to additional coverage below: Gowalla, TOMS, LinkedIn execs]

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New Age of Socialized Engagement: Monte Lutz, Edelman

New Age of Socialized Engagement: Monte Lutz, EdelmanNew Age of Socialized Engagement: Monte Lutz, Edelman continues the Alterian 2010 series. In this presentation, Monte gave his impression of the profound changes in marketing Edelman sees.

Social media is about story—and trust. Citing the Trust Barometer, he asserted that trust was at an all-time low among consumers. The 18-29 age group has more trust, but they don’t consume traditional media [maybe that’s why they trust more?] Trust in experts is up and “people like me” down. Billiam the snowman had the highest trust according to one survey [don’t know what to make of that, is he an expert? ,^) ]. When people are facing uncertainty, they will accept a new idea as truth when they hear it from 3-5 sources on average. This gives people peripheral vision. […]

Enterprise Social Business Engagement Software Preview: Mike Talbot, Alterian

enterprise social business engagement software previewAt the enterprise social business engagement Engaging Times Summit, Mike gave an overview of the Alterian software stack and a preview of their new platform. The key takeaway is that Alterian is not a social media company, its core competency is deep marketing data analysis. That said, their SM2 platform is one of the social media monitoring leaders [disclosure, I’m an SM2 client].

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