DigitalNow Blog

Lead with the brain in mind

2009-11-11T08:29:00.006-05:00

According to recent research at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the social pain that people experience when they feel rejected causes a response in the brain similar to that of a physical blow. So when people say that it hurts to be left out or devalued, that's because the brain doesn't differentiate between physical and social suffering.

Researchers Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman hypothesized that "human beings evolved this link between social connection and physical discomfort within the brain because, to a mammal, being socially connected to caregivers is necessary for survival."

Any number of situations may cause social pain - from being excluded from a discussion to getting reprimanded, to taking a pay cut. In some organizations, employees are expected to rationalize the way these events make them feel, but in the long run, it creates resentment and makes people reluctant to become engaged and committed in the workplace.

Leaders who want to create a collaborative environment that brings out the best in everyone and optimizes creativity and collaboration will do well to recognize this dynamic and take conscious steps to lead with the brain in mind.

Read more at Strategy+Business.

Registration now open for DigitalNow 2010 - April 7-10 at Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2009 at http://www.digitalnowlive.com

Follow DigitalNow on Twitter.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

FEI Financial Reporting Blog: FEI Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR), SEC Chairman, Others Write Congress On Standard-Setting

2009-11-10T21:49:00.000-05:00

FEI Financial Reporting Blog: FEI Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR), SEC Chairman, Others Write Congress On Standard-Setting

Registration now open for DigitalNow 2010 - April 7-10 at Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2009 at http://www.digitalnowlive.com/

Follow DigitalNow on Twitter.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Four Styles of Leadership

2009-11-04T09:22:00.009-05:00

Rich Karlgaard, Publisher at Forbes.com, recently wrote about his experience of watching a panel at the recent Forbes Global CEO Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Karlgaard said that the panel discussion revealed four leadership styles:

Visionary: This includes leaders such as Steve Jobs of Apple and Whole Foods' John Mackey.

Empathetic: Leaders who fall under this style include Bill Hewlett, cofounder of Hewlett-Packard and Admiral Bill Owens.

The Humble Servitude leadership style is demonstrated by people like Wal-Mart Chairman S. Robson Walton.

Moral/Ethical leaders like Francis Yeoh, head of Malaysia's YTL Corp. are engaged in a powerful style, but one that is subject to human frailty.

Ultimately, states Karlgaard, the leadership style must fit both the leader and the organization. Read the entire article at Karlgaard's blog, DigitalRules.

Age of Social Entrepreneurship

2009-11-03T08:37:00.007-05:00

Social entrepreneurs are obsessed with solutions as much as they are with execution. They have the ideas and they are dedicated to implementing them. These are the people who change the world. The platform for social entrepreneurship is the not-for-profit corporation.

Renowned management expert Peter Drucker estimates that more than 800,000 not-for-profit organizations have been established over the past 30 years.

Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public says, "We're in this wonderfully creative period where it is the time to build the intelligent institutions that will support a competitive social half of society. To my mind, the single major evolutionary task that our generation faces is developing the democratic revolution's institutions beyond business in the social arena. And people are getting the idea that they can have a career doing this."

Ashoka was founded in 1980 by Bill Drayton in Washington, DC. The organization started with an annual budget of $50,000, and by 2006, had grown to nearly $30 million. Ashoka has established programs in over 60 countries, employs 160 staff in 25 regional offices throughout Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Read about the journey of Bill Drayton and Ashoka at TheAtlantic.com

Millenial social media refusniks

2009-10-29T08:14:00.004-04:00

Contrary to what you may have heard, not all members of the "new school" generation have been eager to adopt social media. In fact, there are enough of them holding out to earn them their own name: refusniks.

Refusniks are the 18 - 29-year-olds who eschew the practice of connecting and communicating on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Their reasons vary - some are fiercely protective of their privacy and others just simply hate typing.

Since Facebook just announced that it has 300 million members, it stands to reason that refusniks are coming under increasing pressure - and that they are bound to miss out on some important information along the way.

Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com

Fish out of water

2009-10-27T10:30:00.000-04:00

If you're considering new revenue models, or new models of engagement, yet are concerned about being "a fish out of water," blogger Kaihan Krippendorff says you should remember that, "the fish out of water has no other fish to contend with."

In essence, if you discover a unique model that works, you won't have any competition - at least not until your competitors catch on and catch up.

Read this article to learn about how Rosetta Stone adopted an unorthodox approach to marketing their products, and what the results were.

Not sure how to uncover "fish out of water" opportunities? Krippendorff says to ask yourself the questions below:

What path are others fixated on because they assume it is the right one?

What ideas do I have to change that approach?

How can I make things better, faster and more efficient?

How can I research my ideas without spending a lot of money upfront?

Taking opportunity inventory

2009-10-22T09:01:00.005-04:00

While we're not out of the economic woods yet, the faint chatter of recovery can be heard in the distance. For most of us, day-to-day business is still about saving money, cutting costs, and increasing efficiencies.

The one thing we're all counting on, though, is that the economy will rebound and we will be able to switch our focus from a "do more with less" mentality to one of growth.

So how can we keep our eyes fixed firmly on the issues of the day and also look into the future? According to Rita McGrath, one way might be to create a special "growth group" within your organization. Growth groups take inventory of the opportunities for your organization, creating and managing a pipeline in support of the range of your functional or business lines.

In a recent article at Harvard Business Review, McGrath - author of, Discovery Driven Growth - discusses the purpose and characteristics of a growth group. Read the article here.

Content is still king

2009-10-20T22:30:00.002-04:00

Internet users are spending more time online with content than they are with communities or communications, according to the Online Publishers Association's (OPA)Internet Activity Index (IAI).

The IAI states that users spend the majority of their increasing time on content sites - up from 34% of total time spent in 2003 to 42% in 2009. According to the index, user time spent on content sites increased by 24% while the time they spent on communications and commerce decreased. The only area studied that enjoyed a greater increase was search, which accounted for 3% of users' time online in 2003, and 67% in 2009.

For a more through discussion, read this article at MarketingCharts.com

Can you trust the wisdom of the crowds?

2009-10-19T12:51:00.003-04:00

When you visit Amazon.com or IMDb.com and see a book or movie with a high customer review rating, it could mean that many people tried the product and voted on it, and that most of them gave their approval. Or, it could mean that a few zealous reviewers voted over and over again.

Niki Kittur is an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies user collaboration on Wikipedia. he says, "There are both intentional and unintentional sources of bias. In the end, what we really need [are] tools and transparency."

Read this article at TechnologyReview.com to learn more.

How much weight do you give to customer reviews? Have you found them to be trustworthy?

How small businesses outperform the economy

2009-10-19T10:30:00.001-04:00

Being small sometimes has its advantages - especially when it comes to surviving this tough economy.

Jeffrey M. Stibel is an entrepreneur and brain scientist, and he says that small businesses are engaging in the following approaches as a means to outperform the economy:

Action

Planning is important

Innovative financing

Give the people what they want

Read Jeff's article at HarvardBusiness.org

Personal data as online currency

2009-10-16T11:17:00.003-04:00

Chances are that if you want to read a really great article from a reliable source, you'll be asked to provide some personal data in order to gain access. Perhaps a form will pop up, asking for your name and email address. Maybe you'll also be asked to select your gender, profession, or even income level from a series of drop-down boxes.

From the user side, how far people are willing to go depends on how much they value the information you're providing. From a marketer's perspective, then, it is important to map what you're asking people to provide to a benefit they'll receive.

Jim Sterne, founder and director of Target Marketing (and former DigitalNow speaker) offers five levels of "one-to-one mapping between the data we gather and the benefit we provide, which may ultimately be the key to increasing consumer trust:

Level One: No visitor data is gathered.

Benefit provided: The visitor is granted access to marketing materials and can wander throughout your public website .

Level Two: The visitor allows cookies and JavaScript tags.

Benefit provided: The visitor has access to whitepapers, blogs, use of shopping carts, etc.

Level Three: The visitor's email address is entered.

Benefit provided: The visitor receives your newsletter, special deals, webinar invitations, RSS feeds, and anything else that can be communicated via email.

Level Four: The visitor's postal address and preferences are collected.

Benefit provided: If you go so far as to ask a visitor for a postal address, you must reciprocate with a higher level of value, such as sales notifications to the visitor's friends and family, special event invitations, members-only webinars, shipping products, etc.

Level Five: The visitor supplies valuable information beyond a sign-up sheet, through participation in a survey or an advisory council.

Read Jim's entire article here. (Please note that you will be asked to provide your name and email address - but we think it's worth it.)

Are you drawing conclusions?

2009-10-14T14:02:00.011-04:00

The next time you need to collaborate on a problem, sell an idea, or understand a complicated issue, consider skipping the fancy tools and reach instead for a pen and a cocktail napkin.

According to Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin, about 75% of the neurons in the brain are devoted to visual processing, "... so why not communicate in a way that uses all of it?"

Read this article to learn more about Roam's ideas on visual thinking and how you can incorporate this practice into your work and life.

To demonstrate the method and to show you that you don't have to be an artist to relay an idea through sketches, we had one of our "artistically challenged" team members give it try (below):

Classic CEO quotes

2009-10-02T10:30:00.000-04:00

As you head into the weekend, we'd like to offer you these classic CEO quotes - from executives who have faced some of the same issues members of the DigitalNow community are facing today.

"You have to pretend you’re 100 percent sure. You have to take action; you can’t hesitate or hedge your bets. Anything less will condemn your efforts to failure."

Andrew Grove, former CEO, Intel

"When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts."

Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle

"A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."

Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

See Steve Tobak's list of 10 classic CEO quotes, along with his takeaway for applying them to today's economy.

2009-10-01T10:30:00.001-04:00

We all know that problem-solving is a key skill for effective leadership. But all too often, leaders aren't aware that something is a problem until after it causes damage to an organization, putting leaders and everyone else in reaction mode.

The best way to solve problems is to anticipate them, and diffuse them before they cause a crisis. Yet even though you may hold town meetings, listen to your staff, and reinforce an "open door" policy, chances are that you're still not close enough to the sources of potential problems to catch them in time.

Michael A. Roberto, Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island has written the book, Know What you Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen. Roberto says that the key is to hone your powers of observation. By engaging with people "on the front lines," observing customers directly, and getting their hands dirty, Roberto says that leaders will notice things that they simply could never see from the comfort of their offices.

To read a complete interview with Roberto, and to see his list of effective observations "dos and don'ts," visit Ivey Business Journal

Five strategies for building a successful app

2009-09-30T10:30:00.001-04:00

Seems like everyone is making an app - and it can be a powerful marketing and branding tool - but only if you do it right.

At DigitalNow, we've always stressed the value of taking the time to think about strategy before executing. Once you understand who you're reaching out to, what they need, and what you are offering, here are five directions to consider, according to Paul Sloan of http://www.bnet.com:

Make it super useful.

Make it interactive.

Make it entertaining.

Make it a mixture.

Make it free.

10 Successful Facebook business pages

2009-09-29T10:45:00.001-04:00

Earlier this year, Facebook launched its newly redesigned business pages. Businesses flocked to get in on the action - mostly with disastrous results. However, there were a handful that enjoyed great success on Facebook. They are:

Ben & Jerry's ice cream

Pizza Hut

Victoria's Secret

iTunes

Stabucks

Pringles

Red Bull

Coca-Cola

Facebook

For a summary of what makes each of these business sites successful, see this article at Penn-Olson.com

Reinventing print media

2009-09-28T10:12:00.009-04:00

Print media such as newspapers, consumer magazines, and business-to-business trade publications saw a dramatic decrease in print advertising - and in 2009, that trend is continuing.

Two major forces are contributing:

There is an ongoing shift in where marketers are spending. More is going into their own web sites, word-of-mouth campaigns, and other "below the line" marketing programs.

The rise of digital media has hit print profitability hardest, since print ad pages are more expensive than other types of advertising, and they don't offer the sound and movement that other forms do.

Print media companies have tried a couple approaches to expand their share of marketing budgets, including:

Charging for online content

Moving content entirely online and counting on online advertising to make up for the loss in print publication revenue

Neither of these approaches has proven successful, but there is hope.

According to an article at www.strategy-business.com, "A growing body of research — tracking media companies that are succeeding in the new marketing environment and leading marketers who have successfully pursued innovative new digital strategies — suggests that at least four strategies are available for the media company of the future."

They are:

Build Deeper Relationships

Tap New Revenue Streams

Reinvent the Content Model

Innovate with New Products and Pricing

"The goal in all four success strategies is to build stronger relationships with audiences around their most passionate interest areas. Through bolder innovation, media companies can build communities around these interests, serving up the right combination of content and applications to provide real utility to consumers."

Read the article here.

Registration now open for DigitalNow 2010 - April 7-10 at Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2009 at http://www.digitalnowlive.com

Follow DigitalNow on Twitter.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Revisiting sticky messages

2009-09-24T10:00:00.003-04:00

At DigitalNow 2008, Dan Heath, author of "Made to Stick", presented on the value of creating "sticky" messages - messages that people remember and act upon. Sticky messages meet these criteria:

Simple

Unexpected

Concrete

Credible

Stories

"Lines That Divide Us" teaches teens the destructive power of prejudice in a way that a classroom lecture never could. It is a shining example of a message that sticks.

DigitalNow 2009:
Another great success! Watch videos and download session content at http://www.digitalnowlive.com

Save the Date! DigitalNow 2010: April 7 - 10, 2010.

Follow DigitalNow on Twitter.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

The Rise of Sentiment Analysis

2009-09-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

If you could translate human emotion into hard data, what could that data tell you?

In the emerging field known as "sentiment analysis," many businesses are learning how to take online opinion and turn into virtual currency that can make or break a product in the marketplace.

By tapping into what's being said online - through monitoring social media sites - companies are able to identify trends in opinions on products, services, or topics in the news. One company - Jodange - is even working on "a new algorithm that could use opinion data to predict future developments, like forecasting the impact of newspaper editorials on a company’s stock price."

Read more about sentiment analysis at The New York Times.

Facebook enters Top 5 web properties for the first time

2009-09-22T10:00:00.003-04:00

The new Media Metrics rankings are in, and it's official: Facebook has bumped MySpace out of the Top 5 U.S. web sites. and effectively bumped CBS out of the top ten. The top five include:

Google sites

Yahoo sites

AOL LLC

Facebook

The ROI of Managing Change

2009-09-21T08:56:00.002-04:00

An estimated 70% of organizational change initiatives fail and 75% of those considered successful fail to achieve their intended outcome (Beer & Nohria, 2000). If your organization isn't effectively managing change, you could be losing .65 for every change dollar you spend.

If you don't like those numbers, you may want to consider how you're navigating what author Dawn Marie Turner, PhD calls the "White Space" of change. Read her article here.

Social media for marketing

2009-09-21T08:38:00.005-04:00

We know that social networking sites offer huge potential for marketing. But what is the best way to tap into that potential? In a recent interview, Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta discusses the purchasing behavior of people on social networking sites and shares his findings about who is most influenced how viable social media marketing really is.

Read the interview here.

DigtialNow 2010: Registration now open!

2009-09-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

DigitalNow 2010: Celebrating 10 Years

Registration Now Open
Early Bird discount in effect!

"In these challenging days of leading with less, there is no question that unique leadership forums such as DigitalNow are worth their weight in gold. Innovation, learning, expanding knowledge as well as making life-long professional and personal connections that advance your career are just a small portion of what will be gained by attending. DigitalNow is must-do for me and provides maximum exposure for the answer to the question, 'What's next?'"

-Velma Hart, CFO
American Veterans

Join your peers at this acclaimed summit designed exclusively for association CEOs and senior leaders.

Hear directly from other association leaders about how they have applied tools and strategies that are already producing results

Learn about the latest in tools, methods, and practices from industry leaders

Discover how the current economic crisis is your perfect opportunity to create a vision for the future

Develop a strategy map to define concrete steps that can be implemented now to position your association for the future

"Since its inception, DigitalNow has been one of my must attend professional events every year. This is where I first hear from the recently published and recognized experts in fields of business and technology, learn from my peers, and focus on future strategy for the organizations I serve."

-Pamela Hemann, CAE, President
Association Management Services, Inc.

Don't miss what we've got planned for DigitalNow 2010!

DigitalNow 2010
April 7 - 10
Disney's Contemporary Resort

Did you miss DigitalNow 2009? Take a look at what we offered here.

Don't miss DigitalNow 2010: April 7 - 10, 2010.

Follow DigitalNow on Twitter.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

An Interview with author Jim Collins

2009-08-27T09:00:00.001-04:00

If you attended DigitalNow from 2005 - 2006, then you have first-hand experience with Jim Collins. His powerful books, Built to Last, Good to Great, and now How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In, Collins has "established himself as the leading management thinker of our time."

If you haven't read Collins' books, now is the perfect time to get caught up. Read the transcript from an interview that Collins recently gave to Stephen Burnhut of the Ivey Business Journal.

DigitalNow 2009: Another great success! Watch videos and download session content at http://www.digitalnowlive.com

Save the Date! DigitalNow 2010: April 7 - 10, 2010.

Follow DigitalNow on Twitter.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Usability: You know it when you see it

2009-08-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

What makes a web site a good web site?

Usability, of course. People have to like what they see and be able to get what they want in a relatively short period of time. You may know a good web site when you see it, but what are the actual individual components that go into the design of a site that everyone likes to visit and use?

According to Cliff Kuang, usability begins with a set of crucial questions, and a tendency toward conservative design.

Read Cliff's article at FastCompany.com.