Before you read this article, you may have thought your dog had the grossest eating habits ever. But Fido's penchant for poo is nothing compared to some of these sickos highlighted in Cracked. For example, Victorian scientist William Buckland: He didn't just stop at the meat of animals, either. While on a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, a strange mark was found on the floor. A debate broke out as to what the stain could possibly be, at which point Buckland got on his hands and knees, licked the stain and confidently announced it to be bat piss. But the craziest thing Buckland ever did, at…
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Most Topular Stories
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8 historical figures who ate disgusting things
Holy Kaw!8 Feb 2012 | 11:26 pm -
Voice of Customer for All Employees
Customer Experience Optimization29 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amPresent voice of the customer to all employees, and you will be more likely to reap financial benefits and manage customer experience holistically, according to the 2011 Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study. Although only a third of companies are presenting customer feedback to all employees, those who do reported at least 20 percentage points advantage in the performance of holistic customer experience management, as shown by the gaps in blue and red bar graphs below. Examples of business results attributed to customer experience management efforts include:… -
Does America run on “Dunkin’ Donuts”?
Service Untitled8 Feb 2012 | 12:29 pmBrands Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index sets Dunkin’ Donuts as number one in customer loyalty for the coffee category. Second only to oil production, coffee is the largest commodity sold. The coffee category included ratings on consumer preferences, the consistency of meeting customer expectations for taste, quality, service, and brand value. This is the sixth year in a row the quick food coffee shop has been recognized with the award. Dunkin’ Donuts has more than 7,000 restaurants in the United States and District of Columbia and another 10,000 restaurants in 33 countries. -
The Home Depot’s case study: How to bring your culture to life through an online community
Andy Sernovitz | Damn, I Wish I\'d Thought of That!8 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pmCome to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear brands like Farmers Insurance, Rogers Communications, Target, Yahoo!, NVIDIA, Hitachi Data Systems, Verizon, and Autodesk share 8 great case studies on corporate social media. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell Atlanta: One of Tia Robinson’s big ideas: Don’t be afraid to let your… -
Why Your Business Should be on Pinterest
Think customers: The 1to1 Blog7 Feb 2012 | 9:07 pmNow that your company is just getting the hang of navigating the social world of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, along comes another site that you should start leveraging...Pinterest. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog
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Holy Kaw!
-
8 historical figures who ate disgusting things
8 Feb 2012 | 11:26 pmBefore you read this article, you may have thought your dog had the grossest eating habits ever. But Fido's penchant for poo is nothing compared to some of these sickos highlighted in Cracked. For example, Victorian scientist William Buckland: He didn't just stop at the meat of animals, either. While on a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, a strange mark was found on the floor. A debate broke out as to what the stain could possibly be, at which point Buckland got on his hands and knees, licked the stain and confidently announced it to be bat piss. But the craziest thing Buckland ever did, at… -
5 explanations of why teenagers act the way the do
8 Feb 2012 | 11:22 pmUnderstanding the teenage mind could be a life's work. For those of you who don't have that kind of time, however, Mental Floss gives five things that could explain the mind of the teenager. For example, parents, have you ever wondered if your teenager is somehow getting dumber? Parents of teens often wonder what happened to the bright child they used to have. How can someone go from getting A’s to getting C’s when they seem to be doing the same amount of work? Once again, changes in the brain are to blame. While the merits of IQ tests are debatable, scientists used to think IQ… -
Surviving the loss of a star employee
8 Feb 2012 | 11:16 pmSome groups have stellar members who carry the team. That's all well and good until that member leaves. Then what? This Smartblog video will help you answer that question: Full story at Smartblog on Leadership. Top news for leaders. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Disneyland circa 1957 [video]
8 Feb 2012 | 11:14 pmThis video was shot in 1957, less than two years after Disneyland had opened. The footage is newly restored and ready to take you to the happiest place on earth as it was in its early days. Full story at Mental Floss. All the top Internet videos in one place. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
People unplugging their TVs during the Super Bowl
8 Feb 2012 | 11:08 pmThere's no faster way to ruin an American's day than to unplug his or her TV during the Super Bowl. Think we're exaggerating? Take a look at these folks go form 0 to 60 in less than a second, all thanks to Jimmy Kimmel's latest Challenge. Full story at Jimmy Kimmel Live. Top sports news. Permalink | Leave a comment »
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Customer Experience Optimization
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Voice of Customer for All Employees
29 Jan 2012 | 8:00 amPresent voice of the customer to all employees, and you will be more likely to reap financial benefits and manage customer experience holistically, according to the 2011 Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study. Although only a third of companies are presenting customer feedback to all employees, those who do reported at least 20 percentage points advantage in the performance of holistic customer experience management, as shown by the gaps in blue and red bar graphs below. Examples of business results attributed to customer experience management efforts include:… -
Payoff for Coordinating Customer Experience Management Enterprise-wide
24 Jan 2012 | 8:52 amConnect your customer experience management efforts across the company, and enjoy exponential benefits, according to the 2011 Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study. Companies with managers (of their top five methods to achieve CEM goals) who meet together quarterly or more often for coordination purposes, or have dotted-line reporting to a single executive or committee tend to enjoy advantages* in the following areas: Role of CEM: Top management’s day-to-day activities indicating that customer experience is a competitive differentiator, CEM is a formal… -
6 Success Factors for Customer Experience Excellence
19 Dec 2011 | 3:15 pmThe 2nd Annual ClearAction Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management (CEM) Benchmarking Study has identified six best practices for strong market performance and customer experience excellence: Coordination among managers of CEM methods. CEM as a determinant of corporate strategy. Presentation of survey results to all employees. Calculation of customer lifetime value (CLV). Action on survey results by owners of customer experience key drivers. Funding of cross-organizational collaboration. These findings may be instrumental to the future of customer experience as the majority of… -
Valuing Customer Value Management
25 Aug 2011 | 4:59 amCustomer Value Management (CVM) is widely undervalued in the way we practice customer experience management (CEM). Excellent resources on the CVM topic abound, yet few executives — and even few CEM professionals — are aware of them. Sometimes CVM seems too quantitative or difficult to grasp or implement, but the companies that have distilled customer value management principles are certainly reaping higher value for their stakeholders, especially customers! In addition to step-by-step calculations for customer lifetime value, return on customer, customer equity, customer… -
Customer Value Creation Essentials
6 Aug 2011 | 1:57 pmValue creation is perhaps the single most important aspect of any executive’s job. As such, crystal clarity on what it is and how it’s done should certainly be top of mind. Shareholder value is fueled by customer value; shareholders leave when customers leave, not the other way around. Customer value is an ambiguous term, as it can be used either from the company’s or the customer’s perspective. Few companies know the lifetime value of their customers, or collective customer equity, and more importantly, fewer still know how much customers value their brand, and why.
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Service Untitled
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Does America run on “Dunkin’ Donuts”?
8 Feb 2012 | 12:29 pmBrands Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index sets Dunkin’ Donuts as number one in customer loyalty for the coffee category. Second only to oil production, coffee is the largest commodity sold. The coffee category included ratings on consumer preferences, the consistency of meeting customer expectations for taste, quality, service, and brand value. This is the sixth year in a row the quick food coffee shop has been recognized with the award. Dunkin’ Donuts has more than 7,000 restaurants in the United States and District of Columbia and another 10,000 restaurants in 33 countries. -
Interview with Rob Siefker of Zappos – Part 3 of 4
7 Feb 2012 | 6:31 amThis is the third of a four part interview with Rob Siefker, the Director of the Customer Loyatly Team at Zappos. In this part of the interview, Rob talks more about the service metrics that Zappos tracks, how the company empowers its Customer Loyalty Team Members (and has avoided bureaucracy), how escalations to managers work at the company, how the Zappos compensates its employees, and the extensive continuing education programs employees have access to at Zappos and how they work. You can read part one of the interview here and part two here. To read this part, click “read… -
Are mobile devices serving customers properly?
31 Jan 2012 | 10:04 amBefore I leave my house in the morning, I grab my car keys, purse and of course, my smartphone. AT&T sold 9.4 million of these in the fourth quarter of 2011. Is it any wonder that the 2X4 inch tidy packages of computer chips have revolutionized everyday behaviors including the way we shop? We read on them, play Words With Friends, make dinner reservations, buy concert tickets, and frequently text. Now smartphone application users have even surpassed the amount of people texting and talking. Online sales from mobile devices continue to increase as applications scan, share favorites, share… -
Interview with Rob Siefker of Zappos – Part 2 of 4
27 Jan 2012 | 6:08 amThis is the second of a four part interview with Rob Siefker, the Director of the Customer Loyatly Team at Zappos. In this part of the interview, Rob discusses how Zappos motivates members of their customer loyalty team, what programs they have in place to recognize good service, and what service metrics the company tracks and how. You can read part one of the interview here. To read this part, click “read more.” Service Untitled: So how do you motivate Customer Loyalty team members? And then how do you keep that motivation up over time? A lot of companies institute programs and… -
The silent exit of poor customer service
25 Jan 2012 | 10:07 amMost customers who feel they have been the recipients of poor customer service will never vocalize their feelings to a particular organization. According to First Financial Training Services and the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, only four percent of dissatisfied customers ever complain making the other 96 percent essentially ripe for the picking when another company offering similar services or products appear in the horizon. Typically an unhappy customer who perceives that attitude of indifference will tell eight to ten of their friends, coworkers or family members about their bad…
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Andy Sernovitz | Damn, I Wish I\'d Thought of That!
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The Home Depot’s case study: How to bring your culture to life through an online community
8 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pmCome to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear brands like Farmers Insurance, Rogers Communications, Target, Yahoo!, NVIDIA, Hitachi Data Systems, Verizon, and Autodesk share 8 great case studies on corporate social media. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell Atlanta: One of Tia Robinson’s big ideas: Don’t be afraid to let your… -
Why would a music industry visionary be writing passionately about a turtleneck?
8 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amBob Lefsetz is a well-know music industry guru who covers critical issues for industry insiders. So why did he write 625 words about a turtleneck from Uniqlo? And then email it to his thousands of email subscribers? And why did my friend Josh Dorf email it to me? Not because he was paid. Not because he was part of some cheesy word of mouth advocacy program. Not because the company asked him to. He did it because true word of mouth, driven by authentic enthusiasm for amazing products, is an unstoppable force. Read this classic example of word of mouth in action: Uniqlo Andy couldn’t stop… -
Save the Date: Word of Mouth Crash Course, May 10, Austin
7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pmBig news: We’re bringing back the world’s greatest word of mouth marketing conference: The Word of Mouth Crash Course in Austin on May 10. It’s the original “How to be great at word of mouth marketing” conference: 12 Real-world case studies 12 How-to classes 6 Amazing authors 1 Fast day (Yes, this is the event formerly called Word of Mouth Supergenius. We changed the name to better reflect that you’re going to learn a ton, really fast, while having fantastic fun.) Learn more here: http://wordofmouth.org/crashcourse Important: The first 100 registrants will get 50 copies of new… -
It’s not over when you turn in your homework
7 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amSome advice for recent college graduates entering the corporate world: In college, you finish a paper, you take the test, you get to the end of the semester — and you’re done. You can walk away and move on to the next project. No looking back. At work, it’s the opposite. You win when you take and keep responsibility. You own a project, you see it through, you take responsibility, and you make sure it works great for the long term. When it’s time for you to move on, you are responsible for handing off your knowledge and work to the next owner, and you’re not done… -
Pull up a chair around the fire
3 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amThe purpose of a trade show booth or tabletop is to get prospective customers to come in an talk to you. You want to have a conversation. But most exhibits do a lot to block that conversation: big TV screens, laptops between the exhibitor and the prospects, or having conversations standing in front of the table so your back is to people walking past. That’s why I like this simple tabletop by Sprinklr. The fireplace catches your attention. The furniture encourages you sit down and have a deep conversation, and the whole arrangement visually draws people in.
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Think customers: The 1to1 Blog
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Why Your Business Should be on Pinterest
7 Feb 2012 | 9:07 pmNow that your company is just getting the hang of navigating the social world of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, along comes another site that you should start leveraging...Pinterest. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog -
The Rise of the Data-Driven CMO
7 Feb 2012 | 6:08 amThe dawn of a new year often marks a spate of leadership changes within many companies and 2012 is no exception. This includes new marketing leaders that have popped up at Facebook (former Levi's CMO Rebecca Van Dyck), Kenneth Cole (former Anthropologie marketing chief Amy Choyne), Macy's (Martine Reardon has been promoted), and Gilt Groupe (Elizabeth Francis jumps from Intelligent Beauty). And while there are multiple factors that can drive changes in leadership changes (e.g. newly-appointed CEO brings in their own team; CXOs in search of new opportunities), it's safe to say that today's CMO… -
Improve, Transform, or Sustain: What's Your Path to a Better Customer Experience?
6 Feb 2012 | 11:00 amIf you're reading this post, there's probably at least one person in your company (you) who's already working to improve your customer experience in some way. That means your company's CX efforts fall somewhere on the curve below. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog -
NPS Is a Journey in Customer Experience
3 Feb 2012 | 10:03 amSatmetrix's Net Promoter Score has always brought about some interesting debates: Should organizations tie compensation to their? What is the ideal score to strive for? And should it be the single predictor of a company's growth? At the company's Net Promoter 2.0 conference held today and tomorrow in San Francisco, it seems like pundits may have a new discussion in which to participate. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog -
"Expectation Matching" Builds Long-Term Customer Loyalty
3 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amI had the privilege to attend the recent 2012 NRF convention and was impressed with the buzz around loyalty marketing and customer centricity. In one session Macy's CMO Peter Sachse stated, "We don't need new customers. We need to keep the ones we have and get more out of them." Simple yet powerful; all marketers should take this approach--and will create more valuable brands as a result. Yet, why do so many companies continue to miss the mark here? There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog
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Leadership Consultant - Bill Hogg » Blog
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What Values Are You Communicating?
30 Jan 2012 | 6:20 amRecently I executed an employee engagement survey across a client organization. When I compared the senior executive team with the blended front-line results I discovered a very troubling outcome. The senior executives were almost unanimous in the belief that they had done an excellent job of communicating the core values of the organization — yet results from the front-line indicated exactly the opposite. Even worse, some of the comments indicated that the values the front-line were observing were inconsistent with the “advertised” values. Too many organizations believe… -
Is Your Leadership Limiting Your Organizations Ability to Grow?
12 Jan 2012 | 8:43 amThis is the first in our series of articles that looks at leadership capacity and its impact on organizational growth and transformation. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed. Leadership capacity is more than simply skill development; it’s about performance, growth, transformation and change. For the purpose of our discussion in this series of articles, let’s define it as; “Leadership Capacity is the skilful use of leadership attributes for the growth and development of ourselves, our colleagues and our organization”. -
Are You Really Incubating Fresh Ideas and Thinking?
3 Jan 2012 | 11:46 amAre you finding that you are not hearing the fresh ideas and new thinking in your organization that you would like. Are you often faced with sitting through presentations that sound like the same ideas rehashed again and again. Well maybe you are burying good ideas under a bad process. Before you hear their ideas — are your teams spending time getting them “right”? Are they vetted, reviewed, revised and debated around in circles until all the edginess and excitement has been “fine-tuned” right out of existence. Imagine if ideas for the iPhone had been fine-tuned… -
Start, Stop, Do Different
1 Dec 2011 | 6:41 amMany people are familiar with the expression, Start, Stop, Do Different from personal evaluation processes — those regularly scheduled reviews by our supervisor. They will often use this outline to give us feedback of our performance. But I also think it should be used more regularly, both personally and with colleagues. No leader improves without feedback and personal introspection. So rather than waiting for a formal review by a supervisors, consider asking your colleagues these questions. What should I start doing? What activities or behaviours should I add into my daily activities… -
Best Practices Are Not Always Best Practice
17 Nov 2011 | 9:31 amBest Practices. Another great business term we all know and love. We love to throw out in meetings because it sounds good and rarely will anyone disagree. It’s safe. But is it wise. Who said that adopting best practices is right for your business? Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do in your case. Sacrilege? Maybe, but here are few thoughts to consider before deciding whether to adopt best practices or develop your own best practices. Are They Transferable? If the best practices are to work effectively in your business, then the businesses have to have similarities. Do you share…
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Andy Sernovitz | Damn, I Wish I\'d Thought of That!
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The Home Depot’s case study: How to bring your culture to life through an online community
8 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pmCome to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear brands like Farmers Insurance, Rogers Communications, Target, Yahoo!, NVIDIA, Hitachi Data Systems, Verizon, and Autodesk share 8 great case studies on corporate social media. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell Atlanta: One of Tia Robinson’s big ideas: Don’t be afraid to let your… -
Why would a music industry visionary be writing passionately about a turtleneck?
8 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amBob Lefsetz is a well-know music industry guru who covers critical issues for industry insiders. So why did he write 625 words about a turtleneck from Uniqlo? And then email it to his thousands of email subscribers? And why did my friend Josh Dorf email it to me? Not because he was paid. Not because he was part of some cheesy word of mouth advocacy program. Not because the company asked him to. He did it because true word of mouth, driven by authentic enthusiasm for amazing products, is an unstoppable force. Read this classic example of word of mouth in action: Uniqlo Andy couldn’t stop… -
Save the Date: Word of Mouth Crash Course, May 10, Austin
7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pmBig news: We’re bringing back the world’s greatest word of mouth marketing conference: The Word of Mouth Crash Course in Austin on May 10. It’s the original “How to be great at word of mouth marketing” conference: 12 Real-world case studies 12 How-to classes 6 Amazing authors 1 Fast day (Yes, this is the event formerly called Word of Mouth Supergenius. We changed the name to better reflect that you’re going to learn a ton, really fast, while having fantastic fun.) Learn more here: http://wordofmouth.org/crashcourse Important: The first 100 registrants will get 50 copies of new… -
It’s not over when you turn in your homework
7 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amSome advice for recent college graduates entering the corporate world: In college, you finish a paper, you take the test, you get to the end of the semester — and you’re done. You can walk away and move on to the next project. No looking back. At work, it’s the opposite. You win when you take and keep responsibility. You own a project, you see it through, you take responsibility, and you make sure it works great for the long term. When it’s time for you to move on, you are responsible for handing off your knowledge and work to the next owner, and you’re not done… -
Pull up a chair around the fire
3 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amThe purpose of a trade show booth or tabletop is to get prospective customers to come in an talk to you. You want to have a conversation. But most exhibits do a lot to block that conversation: big TV screens, laptops between the exhibitor and the prospects, or having conversations standing in front of the table so your back is to people walking past. That’s why I like this simple tabletop by Sprinklr. The fireplace catches your attention. The furniture encourages you sit down and have a deep conversation, and the whole arrangement visually draws people in.
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Improve My Business
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Eliminating road traffic - a guest post
17 Jan 2012 | 1:45 pmMcDonald Consulting Group recently hosted students from Texas State University’s Job Shadowing program. Here is a guest post from one of our interns, Osvaldo Hernandez - and the reason he was late this morning! ———————– Unfortunately this morning, I and surely countless other first timers traveling through Austin, have now experienced the dreadful amount of traffic that [...] -
5 reasons delegation fails
10 Jan 2012 | 4:57 amFrom Ron Edmonson, here are 5 reasons that delegation fails - enjoy! 5 reasons delegation often fails: There was no accountability provided in the delegation process. When someone receives a project, they need to be given a timeline for completion. They need a system of follow up, measures of accomplishment or benchmarks towards completion. A predetermined win [...] -
Welcome to the 21st century, you Neanderthal
2 Jan 2012 | 5:32 ambackground: It’s 1979. I’m sharing an office, and a phone, with a co-worker. A vendor calls up for my office mate, Gary, who’s not in. I say that he’s not there, and ask if I can take a message. The caller asks where he is, and when he’ll be back. I say I don’t know [...] -
How to escape from e-mail hell
27 Dec 2011 | 12:26 pmMany folks complain about how e-mail takes up all of their time - it interrupts them, prevents them from getting concentrated work complete, and sucks up all their time. I used to be no different - until I got fed up with being in e-mail hell, and figured out a way to get out of it. [...] -
Shorter Days = Less Energy?
12 Dec 2011 | 2:18 pmas we approach the shortest day of the year (Dec 21), we notice that it’s dark so much longer - maybe going to work, or coming home, or both - and therefore it may be hard to be active. Here are some quick tips to get you over the hump: - Get enough sunlight. Try and [...]
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ICC/Decision Services
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JC Penney roots
6 Feb 2012 | 5:13 amOn Feb 1st, JC Penney unveiled its new pricing strategy and service policies called Fair and Square. JC Penney describes it as three kinds of pricing, one happy return policy. It got our attention for a couple reasons. Simplicity of message: The three kinds of pricing are everyday low pricing, month-long values and best prices. The “best prices” will happen on the 1st and 3rd fridays of every month. Leadership change: Ron Johnson used to be the Senior VP of Retail for Apple and is now the CEO of JC Penney. He helped shape the Apple Store concept and Genius Bar. At first blush, we… -
Expanding your footprint without adding footage
26 Jan 2012 | 6:11 pmSpeed Theory is not your ordinary bike shop. Besides selling some sweet Cervelo, Felts and Argon bicycles for your next Ironman, it is also a place where anyone can get a great bike to compete in the local mini triathlon or just to cruise on some backroads. Speed Theory makes great use of its real estate, even when the shop is closed. When I arrived at 5:30 am, the temperature was –22° F and I watched people trickle in — carrying their bicycles and trainer apparatus — until there were about twenty of us in all. They were all coming for spin class, but this was not like the… -
Kelly Swallow knows who she is
6 Jan 2012 | 8:29 amWatch this video. It is very short (7 seconds.) And that’s kinda the point I’m about to make. Kelly Swallow makes chairs that make people smile. To do Service with Boundaries well, you need to start off with a solid foundation. You have to know who you are. Who is Swallow? She’s the designer who makes chairs that make people smile. It is short, simple and direct. In setting and sticking to her core DNA, Swallow’s entire business has a natural flow to the other two formula components: Listen to your customer… most of the time and You can’t improve what you… -
No reservations
27 Dec 2011 | 9:22 amI’m vacationing with my family in Europe over the next week, visiting Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. One of my favorite places to visit when I am in Paris is Le Relais de l’Entrecôte. I like it mostly because they have defined the boundaries of dining experience They serve only one entrée; steak frites cooked rare, medium rare or medium. You order your steak the way you like it and the server writes it on your tablecloth, then brings out your salad — lettuce topped with walnuts and a mustard vinaigrette. After your salad starter, your steak is brought to you in two stages,… -
No rain, no rainbows
21 Dec 2011 | 6:27 amWhat do you do with almost $10,000 worth of merchandise that you can’t return to online retailers because their return procedures are so dysfunctional? If you are STELLAService, you break out the wrapping paper and bows, have a wrapping party and donate the items to various charities throughout New York City. And we decided to help them. STELLAService tests online retailers by purchasing and returning real products as a normal customer would. Usually they return the items, but due to poor customer service they were stuck with this stuff. Turning rain into rainbows. In this case,…
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Tom Asacker
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We need more dots.
6 Feb 2012 | 10:39 amWe donʼt need to “be creative” and “think outside the box.” We need to get outside the box. One spring morning in the early 90s, my business partner found me laid out on a hospital bed with a respiratory ventilator... -
Perception is not reality. Or is it?
5 Feb 2012 | 2:39 amThis Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, a de facto national holiday in the United States. It's a day for friends and family, spicy chili and bottomless bowls of chips and dip. And . . . a little bit of football.... -
What's the purpose of advertising?
30 Jan 2012 | 2:36 amWhat a silly headline. I mean everyone knows that the purpose of advertising is to sell stuff, right? Well, not always. Sometimes it's to get people to stop doing things (e.g. littering), start doing things (e.g. voting), and keep doing... -
Who controls your brand?
26 Jan 2012 | 4:36 amThe same people who control your destiny. Late last year the boxing world lost a legend when Joe Frazier, the first man to defeat Muhammad Ali, died of liver cancer at age 67. Frazier, an Olympic and undisputed world heavyweight... -
How to become a social business
25 Jan 2012 | 3:04 amThere's a huge dynamic underway, a cultural shift in the world of business accelerated by the rapid adoption of social technologies. This new worldview is about being human, as much as about being in business. It's about tuning in to...
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The Chief Happiness Officer
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When your boss saves your job
9 Feb 2012 | 1:33 amBob Sutton, author of the excellent book Good Boss Bad Boss tells this story from the very early days at Pixar: The company was under financial pressure and much of this pressure came down on the heads of the Division’s leaders, Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith. The new president, Doug Norby, wanted to bring some discipline to Lucasfilm, and was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it. But Norby was unmoved. He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing… -
Kom til Arbejdsglæde Live! konference 24. maj (in Danish)
1 Feb 2012 | 6:31 amWe just announced our annual conference about happiness at work in Copenhagen. Here’s the announcement – in Danish. Vi er super glade for igen at kunne invitere til Arbejdsglæde Live! konference, hvor du og 300 andre deltagere blandt andet kan høre: Will McInnes – Måske Englands gladeste direktør. Hans Erik Brønserud – Direktør for en af Danmarks absolut gladeste arbejdspladser. Wikke & Rasmussen – Fra Voldsom Volvo til Flyvende Farmor. Med glæde. Lise Egholm – Årets leder i Danmark 2011 fortæller hvordan hun skaber arbejdsglæde. Rowan Manahan – En ekspert… -
#h5yr and #h5is – find out how these two cryptic twitter tags promote happiness at work.
23 Jan 2012 | 4:31 amTake a moment to check out these two websites with some slightly cryptic links: h5yr.com h5is.com They were created by Douglas Robar, a member of the Umbraco Community, that develops and uses the open source Umbraco CMS. They wanted a good way to share both success and mistakes and since there are hundreds of people working with Umbraco spread out all over the world they do this through twitter. If you want to praise a fellow member of the community for doing good work you can mention them on twitter and add the twitter tag #h5yr for High Five, You Rock (based on one of the exercises from our… -
Friday Spoing
20 Jan 2012 | 5:46 amThis is the very definition of Spoing: Have a very happy weekend :o) -
Happiness at work in Bangkok
17 Jan 2012 | 12:09 amI always say that happiness at work can be found anywhere, in almost any job. Here’s more evidence to support that hypothesis from a man who makes ice tea on the streets of Bangkok: Do you enjoy your job this much – or do it with half as much flair? If not… why not?
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ManagingCommunities.com
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What Can You Do When Information Leaks from a Private Forum?
6 Feb 2012 | 6:58 pmphoto credit: Vivian Chen [陳培雯] Private forums are meant to be private – the information contained within is supposed to only be for the people who have access to that forum. But, people don’t always respect this fact and eventually, you may have someone leaking private information to people who shouldn’t have it. The question [...] -
Social Media and Online Community Platform Usage by Inc. 500 Companies Detailed in Study
2 Feb 2012 | 7:10 pmDr. Nora Ganim Barnes, a Chancellor Professor of Marketing and the Director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, has released the results of the center’s fifth annual study into the usage of social media by Inc. 500 companies. The survey asked participants about thirteen particular types of social media: [...] -
Good Online Community Management is Censorship
30 Jan 2012 | 3:00 amOne of the reasons that words matter so much is that different words prompt different emotional reactions from people. If you call someone a spammer, they are more likely to react defensively than if you said that they were advertising. Even though, when it comes to the action, these are the same thing. Let’s take [...] -
ManagingCommunities.com is 4 Years Old!
26 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amphoto credit: barbourians Friday will mark 4 years since the launch of ManagingCommunities.com. In honor of this occasion, I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has been supportive of this site and me. Thank you to those that read this blog, subscribe to it and spread the word by passing along my [...] -
When Your Members Criticize a Company or Person, Invite Them to Your Community
23 Jan 2012 | 4:10 pmphoto credit: SmithGreg I recently had a member on one of my communities start a thread to review a book, which he criticized. Most of his review was fair, but there were some parts that I felt were a little harsh. Still, it was appropriate for our community. As an author, I do sympathize with [...]
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Online Market Research
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Revisited: The 6 Steps of the Market Research Process
2 Feb 2012 | 12:22 pmA few years ago, I wrote a post titled, Market Research Process: 6 Steps to Project Success. It's one of those posts that is constantly one of the most viewed posts on the blog. Because it's one of the most popular posts of all time, I think it's time to give it a refresh. So for our first Throwback Thursday, let's look at the six steps again. Market Research Process: 6 Steps to Project Success Identify and define the problem ...or set your goals and objectives Before you start any web survey project, you should identify the key issues you hope to be able to solve. This step should… -
Analytics and BI are top priorities for CIOs in 2012
27 Jan 2012 | 10:06 amAccording to recent research by Gartner, the top priorities for CIOs in 2012 include analytics and business intelligence. This makes perfect sense as companies realize they need to leverage their internal and external data sources to better compete in rapidly changing markets. Analytics, including the analysis of web data, have become a mainstay in both the consumer and B2B marketing environments. Most analytics operations include a forward looking component, whereas business intelligence (BI) tends to focus on a backward view be reviewing historical trends. Where does marketing research fit… -
Data Types: Interval and Ratio Data
25 Jan 2012 | 7:58 amIn marketing research, as well as other forms of social, economic and business research, interval and ratio data are king. Yet as we have seen in other posts there is much that can be done with nominal and ordinal data. What makes interval and ratio data exciting is that they support a full-range of statistical tests and transformations. The difference between interval and ratio data is simple. Ratio data has a defined zero point. Income, height, weight, annual sales, market share, product defect rates, time to repurchase, unemployment rate, and crime rate are examples of ratio data. As an… -
Why Measuring Employee Sentiment is Important
24 Jan 2012 | 11:14 amJanuary is an excellent time to step back and review your talent pool for the coming year. Each year employees leave their current position for a new one. There are many reasons for this, with salary being amongst them. A recent projection by Phil Reeves, who conducts salary studies on behalf of the marketing research industry, reported that job changers can expect to see bumps of 15–20% compared to 0–3% for those who stay put.My current salary study for the IT industry shows similar findings. There is an increasing trend in the percentage of respondents who believe themselves to… -
The Power of Place
20 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pmWhen I began thinking about a post on geo-demographics, it felt somewhat off topic for a survey-related blog. Then my senses cleared. In the research business, this goes for both consumer and B2B marketing research, the elements of demographics and geography are powerful predictors of behavior. If this weren’t true then we would see far fewer fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. The demographic data collected by the Census is overwhelming when viewed in tabular format, but when viewed on a map can be incredibly insightful. Combine this with location data for your company and…
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The Experience is the Product
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Announcing Change without Inducing Panic
2 Feb 2012 | 12:04 pmYour product will change. You’re going to have to communicate those changes to your customers. How you do this can make the difference between “a few angry Tweets” and “death threats from your community” That last point may bear repeating — 9 times out of 10, it’s not what you changed that makes customers angry. It’s how you communicated it. You need to communicate these 5 things within 10 seconds / 1 screen of text: When the change is coming How this affects you (or “This does not affect you unless X”) What action you need to take… -
You Shouldn’t Use a Survey If…
26 Jan 2012 | 12:44 pmSurveys are an incredibly useful market and customer research tool. But you use them too often. (Not, you know, you personally. But ‘you’ in a global companies and organizations kind of sense.) You shouldn’t use a survey if: You aren’t sure which type of people you should ask to take your survey. There are almost zero contexts where you’ll get useful data out of having “anyone” take your survey. (And thinking, “I’ll just get thousands of responses, and then filter by some criteria later” is both a copout and unlikely.) … -
All Customers Are Not Created Equal (part 2)
19 Jan 2012 | 11:37 amYou can read part 1 here. So how can you apply customer development techniques to large enterprise customers and existing customers? They’re still people, so fundamentally they also have problems and pain points and constraints. But there are some things to keep in mind if you want to maximize how productive your conversations are. Large enterprise customers Expect anything they see to look ‘good’. This doesn’t mean that you need to show a working app — trust me, big company folks are plenty accustomed to being sold products by PowerPoint deck — but… -
All Customers Are Not Created Equal (part 1)
12 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pmCustomer development and lean startup techniques have been so loudly touted by, well, startups, that many people in non-startup or non-technology companies think these tools don’t apply to them. “The rules are different when you’re talking to large enterprise customers,” they say. ”This doesn’t work when you’re dealing with customers who are already using your products and have certain expectations,” they say. Yes and no. YES, the techniques I write about on this blog WILL work on your customers. NO, you can’t blindly apply them… -
The Biggest Risk in Hiring Product People
2 Dec 2011 | 10:27 amThe biggest risk in hiring product people is… THE UNKNOWN. What if we hire this person and they aren’t able to execute? What if they can’t negotiate with our engineers? What if they can’t operate under conditions of uncertainty? What if they worry over every little detail until they’ve totally missed the big picture? What if they just say “yes” to everything so we lose our focus? What if they blithely accept our broken processes and bad habits so that we keep making the same mistakes? In the past month, I’ve spent quite a bit of time being the…
