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well I think for me it always starts with actually utilization of new devices new technologies new applications myself
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so I'm I've always been somewhat of a hands on learner it's ok to start
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reading about the space and following what people are saying and listen to different points of view but for me it's
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always been something it's complemented with going hands-on myself so becoming a
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bit of an early adopter not because I'm an innovator in technology necessarily
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but more because I find that if I'm using snapchat if I'm using you know
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whatever the latest social platform and technology might be of the moment it allows me to start to develop a stronger
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point of view of how does out start to equate to usage and application within my own business contexts in space and
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then what has to start shifting in terms of the way we think about things and the
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way we understand behavior how is my own behavior shifting because of what I'm
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doing so it could even be little things like as e-commerce became more more prevalent what were my interesting
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ecommerce sites that I tend to like more than others you know why am I gravitating to those sites what's
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interesting about them how are they up in their game how are they shifting how I my set of expectations for physical
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shopping and for any kind of commerce experience that I might have so then I start to take that that set of knowledge
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and out learning and sort of deconstructed and and analyze it myself to say okay what about all that that
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just took place can I now use as my sort of tool box or the my approach to how I
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start thinking about how this is going to have to happen in the organization and take sort of the same kind of
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technology problem and challenge of introducing new technologies and new platforms and then I think to myself
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okay what is it that each individual is going to have to start doing in order to
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get more and more comfortable and more effective in this space and so it's got
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to move beyond conceptual into the hands-on arena of playing with things and understanding things and
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personalizing them and putting yourself in kind of the user experience to start to adjust so in their early days of new
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sites that were coming out their pure place they were retailers that had never come you never met them before in the
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physical world but you were meeting them for the first time in the online world it was interesting to
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see how they were behaving differently than any commerce that you'd experienced
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before so for example net-a-porter is one of my favorite and weaknesses and so one of the things I was discovering
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there was the way that they could surprise and delight and serve as a consumer was completely different than
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what you would expect in the in a more physical retail environment the way that they could always dish up for you every
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morning in your stream what was new what was based on past purchase behavior what
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would be most interesting to you what might look great on you constantly tempting you and playing with the
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consumer in a just very intimate very arranged environment and then on top of that the actual physical experience of
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that brand once you actually have the arrival of the product at your home the unboxing experience with the black box
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that they chose to make one of their signature pieces that just made the whole experience feel very elevated and
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very exclusive and special at the same time it also gave you this great box that looks so good that you can start
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boxing up your old clothes in your closet and you had the ability to figure out how to start replacing them with
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your new net-a-porter addiction but it was a brilliant way of basically recognizing that their consumer most
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likely lived in pretty small spaces and one barrier to actually purchasing more would be the fact that you have a pretty
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full closet as it is and they gave it you a way of really learning how to you know trade out the new foot for the
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older stuff so you know just just elements like that that then could could be adapted into the way we thought of
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any business challenge that we were facing with a client and how the insights into how your behavior was
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shifting how they create designed for this user experience that was so unique and so adaptive to the environment could
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be applied to other businesses that we were serving the most fundamental thing that I have
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learned through trial and error has been that the alignment of agreement and definition at the top is so very
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important and what I mean by that is I think it's really easy to speak in terms
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of digital transformation even just the term of digital and the term of transformation by themselves can take on
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lots of different meaning depending upon the orientation and past experience so the other leaders around the table and
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so I think it's really fundamentally important to push for strong definition
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and unified shared meaning in those expressions amongst the leaders that are there because for example you know we
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talked earlier today about field of dreams the field of dreams at westville corp is based on if we build it they
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will literally come it's about brick and mortar it's about architectures about
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design it's not necessarily about experience digital experience that's not
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necessarily where the default thinking goes first so huge transformation in the minds of many leaders there could mean
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huge billion dollar dollar investments in the actual brick and mortar architecture so I think that's where to
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it you could think that people are being progressive in are in a shared mindset when in actuality it still means
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different things to different people and so I think for it to trickle down and cascade into an organization in a way
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that is really going to create a groundswell and galvanize people and be institutionalized it has to be shared
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and understood at the very top and then the elements of it like how does the process play out is really important in
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terms of pace you know we might all agree that digital transformation has to take place but we might have different
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timetables what we think is the right way for that to take place in the company so some people might come from a
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background like I did where it's really about you have to push and make put people in their own comfort zone pretty
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quickly and there's going to be that kind of you have to go through the pain
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for a while before you get to the period of time where there's sort of assimilation others might feel like
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based on heritage and legacy in history it needs to be much more sort of modulated and moderated so those are the
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kinds of things I think are really important to establish I think it's one of the harder roles in
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the c-suite although obviously they're all very challenged today I think when
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we used to think of a CMO roll it probably had a little bit more of a balance focus on comes as well as
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marketing so it was sort of like a communications role that also dealt with marketing in the company now I think
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it's much more about martek Denmark calm and so this blending and sort of bleeding if you will into the cio
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digital arena really understanding user experience design is fundamental to the CMO role today and I think that the more
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that the balance of communications and marketing takes place in the digital space and leverages technology as its
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its kind of core of its architecture from adtech two platforms and partnerships and so forth I think more
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and more that marketing person needs to be absolutely fluent at digital and technology and it's not about just pure
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partnership with this chief digital officer that in the CIO which obviously have to be your best friends in the
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organization now but it definitely is much more of a fluent language for the marketing person as well
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one of my favorite expressions professionally is a BL always be learning and so I think if you come into
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the workforce at any generation now and you're and you really subscribe to the
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notion of it's about always be learning their it fundamentals are really important it is it's really critical
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that there's that sense of fundamentals are are still present and is about the
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connection to those in new innovative more entrepreneurial ways of thinking that I think is sort of the sweet spot
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and so I think that constantly curious mind the desire to be on the edge and like I said to be playing yourself to be
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downloading new apps to be when you see something save it for another time and go back and really actually play with it
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yourself use it yourself I think are kind of key to really going beyond just sort of knowledge learning of something
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to actually doing and activating around it and having a more interpretive mind that allows you to truly create the
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right application for something because not everything is actually going to be relevant you know there are many things
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that are going to be out there that were going to constantly be hearing about that may not actually be the things that
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are going to move in and evolve your business and I think at this the sea level is really important especially as
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a CMO to sort of know the difference and to make in place those bets because you're bringing your entire team along
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on that journey and to its that's one of the reasons why it's always great to
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have those people to that are really on the edges of constantly also getting a sense of what is coming down the pike
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and sort of really out ahead to start to get a little bit ahead of the learning curve
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we're talking customer and I think that some of it is the point of also putting
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yourself into the kind of use or position is to get closer to the customer self and to realize as as
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professional that you are also oftentimes a customer of either your products or services or your company and
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I think the more you are being able to personalize that the easier starts to be to understand the customer but it is
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very interesting to take companies on that kind of customer centric view especially companies who have had a
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legacy of being much more business to business oriented and so really helping them understand the set of questions
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this the point of view shifts the mindset shifts that have to take place to start to get so empathetic and so
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maniacally focused on our customer behavior and what they're doing and making a true day-to-day study of
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understanding that that also is a point in time like that customer now is like Moore's law in technology is also
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changing at this pace in this rate that is we've never really seen before because it's now customer driving the
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the shifts that we're seeing because of the technology in their hands and that's
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why I think the mobile piece that we hear mobile centricity is so also fundamental and core to this because
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it's been the mobile device that I think is really created that rapid pace of
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change and has been the adoption has been the biggest tool that has shifted how we orient ourselves in our lives and
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it I like to think of it as that remote control of our life it is a true extension of our being and I think every
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company every position in the company has to make it sort of both art and science and really starting to respect
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and understand what that means on a frequent regular basis the last thing I'll say on that front is many companies
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I've worked with in my time have always said well we're customer centric but
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then they say and get our customer to love and appreciate us more and I always that is such a great telling statement
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because in the nature of the way that is phrase there's nothing customer centric
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about it being customer centric is about making somebody feel like you care about
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them that you are doing what you're doing because of them and the relationship they have to you so I think
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that's the other thing that is just like you know even in language you can hear
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the fundamental shift is still has to take place with many companies that it's
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not about you anymore it is about the person on that other seat and then personally other side of the equation
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you