Luca Leonardini

Delivering "Wow!" To Customers

Luca Leonardini — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:46:58 +0000

Delivering outstanding customer experience, "Wowing!" customers through service was initially a business objective at Zappos. Now, thanks to Zappos, it has become a worldwide movement with a dedicated web site.

Be Humble

Be Passionate And Determined

Do More With Less

Build A Positive Team And Family Spirit

Build Honest And Open Relationships With Communication

Pursue Growth And Learning

Be Adventurous Creative And Open Minded

Create Fun And A Little Wierdness

Embrace And Drive Change

Deliver Wow Through Service

3 Of The Top 50 Business Thinkers In My Bookshelf

Luca Leonardini — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:27:03 +0000

Top 50 Business Thinkers of 2011

The Top 50 Business Thinkers is the definitive global ranking of management thinkers published every two years: last edition was 2011 and next will be in 2013.

Why am I talking about this topic?

Because while reading the list, I was amazed to find out that 3 out of the 50 best thinkers are also among my favorite authors!

I believe these are invaluable readings for two main reasons: 1) their findings, the results of their studies and 2) the mind set of the authors who are shifting paradigmes in the business world and in our culture.

You can check these two links in my blog, to find these books and eventually about other very valuable readings: My Best Readings In English and My Best Readings In Italian.

Would you like to share your favorite business authors and titles?

How To Turn A Very Unsatisfied Customer Into A Very Happy Customer

Luca Leonardini — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:05:30 +0000

A true story with “double happy ending”

Here is how it went. To complete and to enrich my presentations I am used to work with JingPro a very easy to use screen capture software from TechSmith. It allows to capture videos in “.mp4” format up to 5 minutes which perfectly fulfil my presentation needs. I love working with Jing and I had already my JingPro licence (€14.50), but for some reason the software wasn’t able to switch my account from Jing “base” that saves only “.swf” files, to JingPro. That was a big problem because embedding “.mp4” files into my Keynote presentations is so essential for me.

I was in a hurry and didn’t have the time to go through the articles of the endless knowledge base to search the answer to the one problem: I want to switch to JingPro, to use my licence to capture my screen casts. Period.
After a couple of days trying to get in contact with someone in the company I eventually find out a feedback page: I immediately left a comment to share my concerns for not being able to complete my job and my frustration for feeling unheard.

In less than one hour the PR Global Head answered my (negative) comment clearly showing empathy and genuine care about the issue. In less than 24 hours (included the day/night change between US where TechSmith is based and Europe where I live) the problem was fixed. I could finally complete my presentation!

This could have been well enough for me to feel happy and satisfied, to go again to the feedback page and sincerely thank the PR Head and her team. But for them it was not enough and they decided to acknowledge the frustrations and the waste of time I went through by giving me a free licence of Snagit, their screen capture software that does unlimited screencast recording, provides “.mp4” files, allows video editing and costs €47,95.

Wow! That’s been my reaction. They really wowed me! In three steps they converted me from a very unsatisfied customer to a very happy customer. This is how they did it.

They acknowledged the problem with empathy.
They reacted immediately and fix the problem.
They exeeded my expectations.

I think this is an excellent example of how taking genuine care for the customer experience is a crucial and strategic issue for the business.

Have you got a recent customer experience you would like to share? With or without "happy ending".

Connected Content Is Emperor

Luca Leonardini — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:38:09 +0000

In my previous article (Innovation Doesn’t Just Happen), I cited the content stored in a Digital Asset Management system as the lifeblood of any organization. Now, caring for the quality of this precious lifeblood consists of giving digital content the most meaningful and efficient structure within a DAM system. Living with unstructured content can be harmful to the organization - like having the blood infected by some kind of dangerous toxin.

What is “content”?

“Content” usually refers to texts, images, and audio or video files created by users for business or personal purposes, shared across the web in a wide variety of formats and across many different platforms or devices. Because texts and images have always been elements of the layout of a printed page, it’s possible to store and access these types of content and their containers (frames, picture boxes, text boxes, groups of items, etc.) in a DAM system. Today, with the Web 2.0 revolution and the new generation of mobile devices, the whole concept of “page” has evolved to become a more flexible logical entity. Of course, content can be assembled on a page to be printed (good old PDF!), assembled to create output like a web page, enriched (through the use of videos, pictures, links, etc.) the user experience on one of the many social media platforms, and enjoyed in a variety of new formats for e-readers, tablets and smartphones. Just think about that as an example: until a couple of years ago, it would have been unthinkable to embed video files, audio files, and presentations in the same layout - today it’s a must-have. The ability to store and manage all digital content in a DAM system is a must for a profitable company.

Why is structured content so important?

Structuring content within a DAM system allows the company to build effective and flexible communication processes. Structured content can be easily shared, distributed, translated, and published across the many existing Web 2.0 channels and devices. It could become a disastrous nightmare for a company to translate content for different markets without a content creation and distribution policy which relies on flexible and effective business processes. The explosion of mobile devices has made this crucial and strategic stage much more complex than in the past, and has highlighted the business advantages of adopting a structured approach to content management. Today the same content must be produced in a variety of different new formats, and on top of all that (just to make things even more complex and fun!), layout pages created for tablets must be doubled to fit both wide and vertical orientation modes. This means that for any given multilanguage publication, the number of pages simply doubles - not so easy to manage. This is exactly where a content management strategy brings effective and concrete results to the business. Structured content is a big plus in today’s market, where companies must be able to play locally and globally at the same time: the right DAM strategy helps the company become a “Glocal” player.

What about connected content?

Without well-structured content, there can’t be any connected content - it’s a prerequisite. Digital content must be structured to be profitably managed within internal and external communication processes, and it must be capable of exchanging information with a variety of third-party systems and external systems or services. The production of content for a multilanguage publication involves the creation and management of many different types of assets, each with many different types of metadata, all stored within the DAM system. When content reaches the market in the form of an online or digital publication, it enters a completely new dimension. In this context, content is tracked on the web through the geolocalization systems that know exactly where it was read, downloaded, shared, embedded, and repurposed. Different types of systems record any transaction that the content undergoes, anywhere, at any time. Other systems collect and analyze the data of each single “reader-customer-consumer”. Others compare the behaviors of all the “readers-customers-consumers” together.

The new dimension of content is about being connected with the outside world, able to communicate with external systems or services, to generate and aggregate as many connections (see business information) as possible. It’s a true snowball effect, where, at the end of the run, a simple piece of content (say, a product description with image and rating) becomes an extremely valuable source of deeply entwined and connected business information. From user ratings to comments on social media; number of downloads to quantity of transactions and engagement generated - its value increases with the number of connections generated across the web.

The DAM system plays a strategic role in this process – it is indispensable. If structured content is undoubtedly king, connected content is emperor: the business information collected around structured digital content through these tightly-woven connections is becoming increasingly important for companies who want to win the new big battle - “to collect and analyze information better and to act on that information faster”. (@ACroll Alistair Croll)

Do You Know What The Job Definition Format Is? [POLL]

Luca Leonardini — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:52:47 +0000

Why a poll on the Job Definition Format (JDF)?

Because the JDF it’s a process automation enabler for the printing industry and for the graphic arts which helps companies in this market to work smartly, to reduce wastes, costs, to develop a culture of continuous improvement.

What does it mean JDF in business terms?

It means that the average ROI of a JDF enabled process automation project is 277% and that 4 months after the implementation is completed, the company reaches the breakeven.

What is the link between the JDF and the current market situation?

The printing and publishing business have been so hardly hit by the explosion of new technologies (tablets, smartphones, HTML5, CSS3, JS, XML, social media platforms, ...) in the last couple of years: I do believe the reduction of wastes and costs, the increase of efficiency should be a must to adopt in order to remain in business today.
In the last 10 years (think for a minute what has been the last decade for the world!) the JDF has been successfully adopted by a large number of printing industries around the world. Truth to be told, the general feeling about the JDF is that its market spread could be much larger and that its huge business potential hasn’t been fully discovered (maybe understood!) yet.

So these are my questions.

Trying to understand “why” such a smart technology hasn’t been adopted by the vast majority of the market. Trying to understand “what” can still be done to help entrepreneurs and managing directors approaching the JDF primarily as a business strategy, not as “just a technical issue”. There are many other questions of course: the purpose of the poll is to provide the community with a useful opportunity to think about the many possible questions and answers.

The discussion will be extremely valuable for the community of customers, of technology suppliers and for the CIP4 Institute (the creator and the developer): it can help to better focus on mutual expectations in the future of the business.

I invite you to use DISQUS (below the post) to add any comment or to suggest new options you would add to the menu list. As soon as there will be enough data for the statistics, I will publish a new post with the results.

Thank you for taking your time and for participating!

To Invest And To Innovate Today: Open Question

Luca Leonardini — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:10:30 +0000

I was thinking about two key words: "to invest” and “to innovate” so I decided to check in the dictionary.

I took the Oxford Advanced Dictionary (7th Edition) and found the meaning of “to invest”:

To buy properties, shares in a company in the hope of making a profit. To spend time, energy, effort on something that you think is good or useful.

I verified the same word (verb) on Thesaurus and this is what I found:

Expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.

This is what Thesaurus says about “Investment”:

Act of devoting time, effort, or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result.

I finally checked the meaning of “To innovate" in the Oxford Advanced Dictionary (7th Edition) to find this:

To introduce new things, ideas or ways of doing something.

This is what Thesaurus says about “To innovate":

Make changes in something established, esp. by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.

It seems that “investing” and “investment” are both activities that generate an expected worthwhile result, that create something useful, that develop something possibly good. While “innovation” is the ability of the investor to profitably use elements that are available in his/her daily life to redesign, to reimagine and to improve the reality.

My final thought is that the true essense of “innovation” is made primarily by the act of reimagining, rethinking our simple daily reality in a much more meaningful way. The use and the deployment of technology (software, connections, hardware, ...) should remain be the secondary element which serves and supports the act of thinking and reimagining a new meaningful way of life.

If this is so, I wonder why so many companies are buying technology just to continue to do business, to produce things, to provide services in the same old way?

What would be your answer?

Happy Secular Paradigm Shift In 2012

Luca Leonardini — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:08:56 +0000

My heartily wishes to see the end in 2012 of this kind of fake prosperity sustained by the “business as usual” paradigm.

This year I wish a new awareness will spread and grow in every country: the mere pursuit of profits has created only devastating effects for individuals, societies, businesses, global and local environments.

In 2012 I wish more and more businesses around the world will embrace this secular cultural change, this phenomenal paradigm shift and will start to build a complete different kind of prosperity. I mean a prosperity where individual fulfillment, trust, empathy, human relations are the priorities over economic returns, incomes, shareholders value, stock exchange rules.

In 2012 I wish more and more people around the world will be starting to ask the question: if this model of prosperity as we know it can’t provide food to 20% of the world's population (1.5 billion), if 5 million children are dying each year from malnutrition, if 11 million of children are dying every year from preventable diseases, if over a billion people have no safe water to drink, what kind of good can we possibly expect for the future?

How to change and how to start writing a new page in our history?
My humble suggestion is that our heart is the perfect starting place.
We have to help each other to become more aware of the immense power each one of us has in rethinking the world starting from the smallest things and decisions in our daily life.

When this will begin to happen, it will really be a good year to remember. This is my best wish in 2012.

My Three Words In 2012

Luca Leonardini — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:07:32 +0000

I have got the inspiration for this post reading the newsletter I received from Chris Brogan: his idea of writing "Your Three Words" for the new year is great and it arrived at the same time I was trying to figure out a kind of short guideline for my activity in 2012.

So very briefly these are my three words in 2012: Consistent - Aggregate - Inspire

Consistent and focused on the message: empowering cultural and business innovation begins with the awareness of the immense power that each one of us has individually to change our history.

My goal is to aggregate as many people as possible around the subject of meaningful innovation in our society and in our daily business.

I guess that if I'll do right the first two steps, I should expect the whole activity in 2012 will eventually become a source of creative inspiration for those that will read me or follow me.

The Future of Printed Paper: has just begun

Luca Leonardini — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:07:00 +0000

I was thinking about the printing industry and the huge market which has developed and grown around it during the last century. I mean the printing production companies (packaging, sheet and web fed), the publishers (of any kind), the paper suppliers, the suppliers of chemical products (inks and all the rest), of consumables, of heavy machineries, the technology providers, the software providers, the providers of the many many existing services, the creative agencies and so on. It’s a whole world.

The new way of publishing, experiencing and consuming valuable content distributed online - not on paper - has open the debate whether the printing industry and the printed paper will survive this secular shift within the business. It’s not hard to guess that the forecasts aren’t optimistic.

However I’d like to add my two cents to the debate. I do believe that we will still continue to print on paper (digitally, sheet or web fed) variable data, commercial and advertising content, packaging, labels, flyers, calendars, etc. I have no doubt about that. Is it going to be the paper as we know it since centuries or is it going to be a different kind of paper ...? I don’t know. Just have a look to the embedded video to better understand my point.

Who will survive this massive cultural shift? I think those companies that will transform the market and those that will transform themselves to adapt to the new market. To me the real value of the debate isn’t whether the printed paper will survive, but rather the fact that many existing companies will close down their business well before the pulpwood paper will eventually disappear.

To avoid the (personal and social) disaster of shutting a business down because it wasn’t spent any effort trying to identify a good strategy, I’d suggest to think about that: “the freedom we enjoy and we live implies that in each and every decision we make (in our professional and personal life) there is always a new begin”. Within this spirit, innovation becomes a natural outcome of the new begin that exists in every decision we take.

I believe those entrepreneurs that have chosen “not to decide to be safe” should rediscover their courage because after all, what we’ll find tomorrow after this big secular shift will be exactly what we have built today. This crisis it’s a blessing if we manage to rethink, to reimagine and to reinvent our world. The beauty is that each one of us has really the power to make that change: people just need to be aware of this incredible power.

Betterness: Economics for Humans

Luca Leonardini — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:27:59 +0000

BETTERNESS: Economics for Humans

The latest book by Umair Haque AVAILABLE HERE for download on PDF - Kindle - iBooks

"Betterness: Economics for Humans" is the latest book of my favorite author Umair Haque. Business as we know it has reached a state of diminishing returns: though we work harder and harder, we never seem to get anywhere.
I'd like to share a quick overview of the content which you find on the link above:
1. Introduction: The Not-So-Dismal Science?
2. The Capitalist’s Paradox
3. Eudaimonia: A Better Path to Prosperity
4. Poiesis: A Better Source of Advantage
5. Arête: A Better Organization
6. Kairos: Toward a Better Paradigm

Lets enjoy the reading and ACT together starting to change our own life to make the world a better place.