Whether this is a project at work, an initiative for a team, or a crusade in our personal lives….sometimes we nail it and sometimes we don’t. So what makes the difference between these outcomes?

Every initiative has a start and an end point. Between these two points are lots of smaller steps. We call these milestones, deliverables or tasks. They  are waypoints along our journey.

Sometimes these waypoints are needed. They take us closer to our destination. Other times they are miscalculations which lead us in the wrong direction, and we’re forced to go back to get on track again.

For many people, the way to get work done is a process of trial and error. We wait until we hit a waypoint, see what we can learn from it, and then either continue or trace-back to find our correct path. In doing so, we may learn along the way, but we lose time and expend effort. In the end this costs us.

Poorly executed pathways look like this.

Well executed pathways look like this.

The key question, is what makes the difference between these pathways?

3 Principles That Will Improve Any Initiative

Recently I met with a number of colleagues and asked them to describe what makes their work most effective.

One of these people manages very substantial, complex projects in a multinational company. Another is involved in a successful technology venture. The third leads an incredibly balanced personal life and has contributed greatly in their community.

From the conversation, we defined three overarching principles that make a world of difference.

These principles are:

1. Take advantage of knowledge of the past,
2. Use best practice in the present, and
3. Learn from the future before it happens.

The more we spoke about the various activities we do to support great work, the more we realised each activity fell under one of these principles.

Apply These Principles To Activities

For example, one of the members of the group had just completed advanced agile training. We defined training as a way to build knowledge from the past, because most training is based on some discipline that has gone before it. The training would help him to run his projects more effectively.

The friend who works in the scaling technology venture said she spends time focusing on what’s essential. This involves thinking about what’s a priority and what can wait until later. This is an example of sharpening practice in the present.

The third colleague asks a simple question of any initiative; ‘what will this work mean and for who?’. This is a way of learning from the future, because it forces them to cast their mind forward and define how the work will result in good in the community when the work is complete.

The conversation was so meaningful I summarized it in this drawing (which you can download here as a high resolution PDF. Feel free to use it in your work and with teams).

So, For Your Next Initiative, Ask These Questions

You can use these principles also. For your next endeavour, ask:

• How can I…..

a) use knowledge from the past…or

b) refine my practice in the present…or

c) learn from the future, before it happens…

• …to make the pathway for this work more successful, more efficient and more meaningful for myself, the people I’m working with, and those who finally benefit from the initiative.

You might also plan how much time you will spend considering these principles before, during and after the work.

These principles are dynamic. They can be accessed at any stage of an initiative, based upon your need at the time.

The goal is to do the work in an optimal way, avoiding headaches and misspent time.

I hope this article is useful. If so, please let me know your feedback directly or share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

—

Note: I also had many comments on this framework from a post on Linked In. Thanks to all those who gave their view.

The post The 2 Minute Cheat Sheet To Make Any Initiative More Effective appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

Before looking at habits, goals, or how you motivate yourself to get the most out of every day, there is one simple question to ask yourself. This question (and your response) is a precursor to high productivity.

What Neuroscience Tells Us

Matthew Walker is a neuroscientist who wrote the international best-seller, “Why We Sleep”.

According to Walker, “morning types” make up about 40% of the population. Morning people like to wake up at dawn, enjoy doing so, and are productive in the early hours.  On the other hand, “evening types” account for 30% of people. They revel in going to bed late, burning the midnight oil and rising late in the morning (maybe even afternoon).

The balance of people lie somewhere in between and often can switch between the two. All of these patterns come under the category of chronotypes.

These types matter because, based on Walker’s research, insufficient sleep (which is less than  six or seven hours) can result in a whole lot of bad outcomes, including a diminished immune system, reduced blood sugar levels, and even anxiety.

Adequate sleep is influenced by whether you’re a morning or evening person, because your chronotype type affects when waking and sleeping time is most effective for you.

What If You’re Not A Morning Person?

Many of society’s routines and rhythms (getting up earlier, working breakfasts, being at work by 9am) are geared toward morning types.

In the last few years many articles have lauded the superhuman routines of business leaders who favour rising early in the morning. In many of these articles, there is a hidden assumption – to work hard equals getting up early. It’s simply not the case.

It would be easy for “evening types” to feel like they’re doing something wrong. Evening types may even try to follow the same routines,  even if it defies what comes naturally. If they do this, they run the risk of feeling average, fatigued during the day, and ultimately unsettling their productivity.

So, if you are an evening person, don’t fret just yet… a good portion of the world is saying:

“Hey, it’s okay to take your time. Do what works best for you. When morning people are winding up for the day, you’ll be hitting your stride!”

Take comfort in the stories that run counter to the morning trends.

Jeff Bezos, for example, takes his time in the morning. He prefers to get a good sleep rather than wake when the rooster crows. And he often wakes naturally, without an alarm clock. His mornings are spent getting ready for the day. In his words, he likes to ‘putter’ about.¹⁾

But there are limits for everyone. For example, if evening people stay up too late, they’ll still risk fatigue during their work day.

The key is not to overlook what our body tells us (regardless of whether you are a morning, evening or in-between type), so we start the day on the right foot.  No habit exists that will change our outcomes if we start the day in the wrong state of mind and body.

I’m an in-between type, with a gentle bias toward evenings. When a friend of mine had a goal to hit the gym at 5:30am, I wanted to support them enough to change my routine for a while.  I did this with extra planning, so I could prepare myself for the change and respecting the fact I’d likely find it difficult.

I went to bed earlier. I drank two glasses of water when I woke up. I was patient with my body whilst it woke (whereas my friend went hard in the gym straight away, and I allowed myself time to slowly get into the workout).

When I was trialling this new routine, someone recommended I go for a walk or do some light reading in the afternoons to re-energise. I was amazed what a difference this subtle technique made. Doing it this way, I worked within my “type” for 2 months so I could support my friend, without becoming fatigued at all.

So which type feels most natural to you? Morning, evening or in-between?

Much Is Still To Be Learnt In This Area

We are really just starting to understand the impact of morning and evening cycles on productivity.

In 2016, researcher Nolan Pope from MIT conducted a curious study. Pope reviewed a data set of 2 million students from seventh through to eleventh grade.²⁾

Matching school start times with student GPA and state test scores, Pope found having a morning class of either math or English increased students GPA by a significant amount. The results suggest that moving certain activities to the morning, from the afternoon, is enough to deliver big gains in productivity and performance over the longer term.

If we extended this to company settings, we might choose to do important planning exercises or our own individual thinking in the morning.  Again, Jeff Bezos is an example.  He plans his  most intellectually demanding meetings at 10am.³⁾

Pope’s research gives insights into whether mornings or afternoons may be best suited to complex cognitive tasks. It would be tempting to generalize these learnings to say we are all more productive in the morning. But taking into account the distinction of morning and evening types, there may be such a thing as too early in the morning.

How Leaders & Companies Can Put These Lessons Into Practice

These lessons have important implications for companies, teams and individuals. Recently I’ve met with a dozen different companies to understand how they structure their work days.  All of them had embraced flexible working hours for their people. But only a handful had also equipped their people with the tools to make flexible hours even more effective.

The most progressive companies established a culture of no meetings before 9:30am and no meetings after 4:30pm, to better cater for both morning and evening types.  Some early or late meetings are unavoidable, but the best companies treated these as the exception, instead of the norm.

What are your experiences? I’d be keen to hear. Please consider sharing your thoughts by adding a comment below.

The post Why Your Sleep Cycle Can Be The Key To Productivity appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

Here are 21 of my favorites for morning, afternoon and anytime.

Morning Habits

1. Drink Two Glasses Of Water Upon Waking
When we wake, our body has not had water for 6 to 8 hours and is already in a state of dehydration. Drinking two glasses of water restores your hydration and gives you energy for the day.

2. Make Your Bed Every Day
When you make your bed in the morning, you start the day with a task completed. And if you have a rubbish day, you’ll return to a bed that is made. Take it from a SEAL commander.

3. Stretch To Keep Your Back Healthy
We spend so much time hunched over laptops and craning our neck to view our mobile phones. The long term consequences of this can affect our overall spine health. Daily stretches increase blood circulation, increase fine motor skills and increase mobility. And a simple morning stretch routine boosts energy for the rest of the day.

4. Either: i) Avoid Social Media Until A Certain Time; or ii) Limit It To Several Times 
A founder of one of the dominant social media platforms said:

“[Social media] literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

Numerous studies have looked at the negative effects of overusing social media.

I love social media but lately I’ve been more focused on using it in moderation and putting other activities first.

5. Avoid Processed Or Packaged Foods
The vast majority of nicely packaged snacks contain lots of processed food or are high in sugar. They give our brains an injection of glucose which, once burned, dumps us into fatigue. Eat whole foods for sustained energy and mental clarity.

6. Sugary Drinks In Moderation
It takes a fraction of a second to decide on a non-sugary drink instead of a sugary one. With anywhere from 30 to 50 grams of sugar for some sugary drinks, too many can be tough on our brains.

7. Strengthen Your Core
Strengthening your abdominal area builds core strength, which keeps your body agile and dynamic. In as little as two minutes a day, there are a range of exercises to build core strength, that don’t have to be sit-ups (eg. a plank exercise). What’s more you can do these in the house  without needing to go to a gym. Beyond this, every day activities like walking, gardening, and carrying moderate loads all help to build core strength.

8. Say ‘Yes’ Spontaneously
Saying ‘yes’ to something you might not normally do, takes you out of your comfort zone. And this is important for ongoing growth and expansion. I’m not suggesting you ‘yes’ to something dangerous, but a little ‘crazy’ is good for all of us now and then.

Afternoon Habits

9. Avoid Coffee After 4pm
According to ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker, caffeine has a half-life of five to seven hours in the body. That means it takes this amount of time for your body to remove at least half the effects of caffeine. So if you drink coffee at 4pm, by 11pm there’s a good chance 50% of the caffeine will still be in your system, which could disturb sleep. Limiting coffee to the mornings or early afternoon means less chance of it causing trouble with our night-time recovery.

10. Write A Short Journal Entry
In as little as two minutes you can write what you’ve done in the day. This makes us more reflective and gives us a thread to track our memories through life. Lately I’ve been using the Day One app to track my entries.

11. Read Three Pages Of A Book
Struggle to read a book? Many people can read more by changing their benchmark. Instead of focusing on getting through the book, change the goal to reading three pages every day. In those three pages, we often get absorbed in the book and read more, without it seeming like a chore.  Success stories of today – Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and many more – attribute a large part of their success to reading.¹⁾

12. Reflect On Your Goals Or Resolutions
Many people write resolutions every year and don’t look at them until the following year. Set yourself the practice of re-visiting your goals every day and you’ll be amazed how this keeps them in focus.

13. Write Or Say One Goal x10 
I guarantee you if you take one goal and either write it or say it out loud x10, your conscious mind will focus attention on how to make it happen. Connecting a physical action (writing or saying something), helps your brain with these processes of external storage and encoding.

External storage provides a cue that brings your goal into focus. Encoding helps your brain determine what is retained and what is discarded in memory.

By focusing on a goal on a regular basis, you are literally teaching your brain to maintain your goal in conscious attention, so that you filter the external environment for signals that are relevant to that goal.

The research supports this. People who write, say or describe goals vividly are up to 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to realise their goals. ²⁾

14. Focus On One Thing You’ve Done Or Are Grateful For 
You’ve done great things today. Within each and every day, think of one thing where you surprised yourself. This gives us joy. It makes us feel fulfilled. It costs nothing and is quick to do.

15. Do One Thing You’ve Been Avoiding
If you’re like me, you might have a list of things you know you need to do, but have been avoiding. Sometimes I feel like this list owns me, not me owning it. So I started doing one thing on this list every day. Very quickly this list became smaller and I feel all the better for it.

16. Book A Catch Up With Someone You Enjoy Spending Time With
Some of the most meaningful insights you’ll have in life, come from talking with people you enjoy spending time with. Take two minutes to book a coffee with one of these people. You’ll never regret it.

Anytime Habits

17. Tell Your Partner/Family You Appreciate Them
A few years ago The New York Times said married couples only talk to each other, on average, less than 4 minutes a day. In another psychology study, researchers found that unless husbands and wives told each other five positive things for every one negative thing, the marriage would likely fail. If you’re in a relationship, tell the person you appreciate or love them every day. And if not in a relationship, tell someone in your family or a close friend how much they mean to you.

18. Acknowledge One Person Each Day Who Made A Difference To You
Just recently a person in my professional network had lunch with me and shared some incredible stories. I told them how much of a difference it had made to me; that they had taken time and shared their wealth of experience. When you acknowledge the kindness that someone else has done for you, you strengthen your relationship with them. This is important because a 75 year study by Harvard researchers found that the ongoing strength of relationships is vital to ongoing happiness.

19. Stop & Focus On Your Breathing 
Once a day…stop. Spend two minutes focusing on your breathing. Even in the midst of chaos, it will give you calm. It will clear your mind. And it will put your body and thoughts back in sync for what you need to do next.

20. Belief & Discipline
Belief and discipline are incredibly underrated. Above talent and IQ, if you believe in yourself and pursue your priorities with continued practice, you’ll achieve remarkable results.

In 2005 Martin Seligman and Angela Ducksworth from the University of Pennsylvania conducted two seperate studies on eighth grade students. They wanted to put to the test whether those students with higher propensity to focus would outperform those students who had higher IQs.

The research found that “highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable, including report-card grades, standardized achievement-test scores, admission to a competitive high school.” ³⁾

You might say anyone can work hard to get slightly ahead. This may be true, but in this study those with discipline weren’t a bit ahead. For many of the indications, the correlation between self-discipline and achievement was often twice the size of the correlation when compared with the cohort of high IQ students.

So if you have two minutes, push one doubt that you have aside or do one action that helps with you one of your goals.

21. Update Your Habit List
I’ve spent months researching and understanding habits. The simple lesson I learned is to practice simple habits, connected to goals, and do them every day. To do this, a habit list can help you track whether what you wanted to do, is what you actually did. I update my habit list daily. Sometimes I miss things. But looking at this list and updating it is enough to keep me focused on what actions I want to create.

If you enjoyed this article, I’d love to hear which is your favorite among this list or any other micro-habits that are important to your success. Consider leaving a comment below.

The post 21 Micro Habits To Boost Your Day appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

Whether it’s mobile marketing, conversion rate optimization (CRO) or how to get the biggest bang for buck from paid search activities, a wealth of ideas exist if we know where to look.

These 9 digital marketing blogs continuously up-the-game by sharing proven techniques to jump-start website performance.

Content Marketing Institute

The Content Marketing Institute publishes new content daily. Its authors have a razor-sharp eye toward what works in content marketing. What I like most about the blog is that each post has plenty of examples (most with images from campaigns or sites that are actively marketing) and focused suggestions for what can make a website great.
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/blog/

Moz

Moz was founded back in 2004 by Rand Fishkin and Gillian Muessig and has become synonymous with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Though Fishkin left Moz in 2018, the Moz blog continues to be a valuable resource for marketers. Most recently I’ve been interested in the blog’s exploration of how SEO and CRO can play nice together.
https://moz.com/blog

Convince and Convert

The thing I love most about this blog, is that it explores digital marketing as related to building great narratives – word of mouth marketing, building social proof and, amongst other things, how to know if you’re chatting to a human or robot. The blog is not afraid of tending toward the explorative and is the better for it.
https://www.convinceandconvert.com/blog/

Occam’s Razor

Avinash Kaushik is the author of the blog, Occams Razor. Closely connected with digital analytics and marketing, this site has some deep dives into many of the subjects that marketers either care deeply about or are confused by. One of my personal favorites is Kaishnik’s article on digital marketing attribution models, which includes a detailed look at the benefits and downsides of each model.
https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

Sumo

Sumo, as a company, is all about eCommerce growth. So it’s little surprise that their blog contains highly specific articles about how to increase conversion of online shopping carts. I quite enjoyed their write up of where to use power words in creative assets to improve conversions.  This blog is great for marketers running online shopping assets.
https://sumo.com/stories

Copyblogger

Brian Clark started copyblogger in 2006 and it quickly become an essential resource for digital copywriters. The advice on Copyblogger helps marketers make their content more visible on search engines, create successful openings for blog posts, as well as overcome obstacles that stand in the way of their creativity.
https://www.copyblogger.com/

Contently

Contently’s blog is aptly called ‘The Content Strategist’. While the blog focuses on what it takes to build great content, it also explores strategy, transformation and ROI as highly related themes. It’s a great resource to tap into and I particularly enjoyed the insights shared by long-time Editor In Chief, Joe Lazauska, about how Contently grew its audience from 14,000 to 400,000 readers.
https://contently.com/strategist/

Econsultancy

Econsultancy has developed a strong reputation for creating and sharing well researched data about how digital marketing is changing the landscape. In one of my first internet marketing roles I remember discovering Econsultancy. Then, the data made my job as a digital marketer that little bit simpler. Today the blog still focuses on very relevant and current issues, though I do find some of the deeper analytical content sits behind the paywall for paying subscribers. Nevertheless it is still an excellent read.
https://econsultancy.com/blog/

Seth Godin

Godin’s blog is about online marketing, and then again it isn’t. He is a master of the thought-provoking, short post, on all subjects from using social media better, through to what makes us happy. I go to Seth’s blog for the random, the profound and the immensely useful and so far have not been disappointed. It is a great place to visit for fresh thinking.
https://seths.blog/

Your Go-To Digital Marketing Blogs?

Do you have other digital marketing blogs that you refer to as a digital marketer?  If so, I’d love to hear…please consider sharing a comment below.

The post 9 Digital Marketing Blogs For Every Marketer’s Toolkit appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

I’ve worked in teams of five- to launch new digital products; as well as teams of hundreds- to create user experiences with advanced software and platforms. Regardless of the scale of work, many of the concepts of digital strategy described in this article, still applied.

My advice in this article is based on three things: 1) what I learnt during a post-graduate degree in strategy and innovation, 2) what myself and teams applied- based on challenges and opportunities across industries, 3) what worked best from foundations 1 and 2.

Here is how I would distill these learnings:

1. Gather Inputs for your Digital Strategy

Information is everywhere, so gather it. No matter how big or small, however shallow or deep, find information and capture it somewhere. Ideally on a wall, so it can be quickly visualised, as you will then be able to see =just how much information is available. At this stage, don’t be concerned about what the information is telling you…. this stage is just about identifying the ‘data points’.

2. Understand The Current Company Context

When we’re creating a digital strategy, there’s little point developing it within a vacuum. Understanding the target company we’re creating it for is essential.

I’ve seen many excellent digital strategies stall because they were focused on the wrong stage for the company. For example, a company may need get the basics right before moving onto innovation. I’ve also seen strategies with very sound plans fail because they were not innovative enough to challenge and outpace the competition.

Thus it is important to understanding the company’s context. Just like a coach is able to boost performance by pitching their coaching at the level of shape their athlete is in.

3. Map Macro & Micro Trends

Micro trends are those that have a duration of 3 to 5 years, whereas macro trends are longer lasting.

These trends are like water currents flowing through industries. We all know when we’re swimming in currents, it’s far easier to go with them, than against them.

Google succeeded because it spotted issues with its advertising algorithm early on; it responded to a micro-trend in the form of better understanding of internet advertising, within a macro-trend of the rise of the internet and search engines.

Any digital strategy needs to be informed by both the micro and macro trends, that will pull and push an industry, creating prevailing conditions for years ahead.

Within the area of trends, when it comes to digital strategy in particular, I also recommend attention to these three forces:

1. Identify existing customer needs, shifting needs and emerging behaviours
2. Understand emerging and prevalent technologies that will shape the industry’s future over the next five years
3. Analyse the competition, not just for direct competitors but also new entrants that could foreseeably compete in your company’s market

Digital technology is moving so quickly with such disruptive power, such that the above three forces have special importance relative to other trends.

As examples, MySpace came unstuck because it missed the shifting customer behaviours toward private social networks. Facebook acted well to purchase Whats App when it realised instant messaging was emerging as a new technological trend. Uber and Lyft have been embattled as they seek to understand one another’s every move in a competition that is vying for the global marketplace.

4. Deeply Interpret & Analyse The Data

Having built up your data points and understood the prevailing trends, now is the time to interpret and analyse this data. This requires deep thought.

During this stage, ask questions like:

• Questions About the ‘Now’
  • What does this data tell us?
  • What are the opportunities and challenges that are present today?
  • What are the deeper truths of this information?
  • Where are our major revenue / profit centres for digital?  How are these revenue sources changing?
• Questions About What ‘Could Be’
  • Where will action create further growth / revenue / profit?
  • Is there anything we can do to magnify returns?
  • Are there any areas where we are particularly weak / compromised / threatened? Without action, do these areas pose further risk?
  • Most importantly, ask lots of ‘If This, Then That’ questions. For example:
    – If trend A, B and C happened at once, more quickly than we thought, what might we do?
    – If Competitor B entered this market faster than we anticipated, what would we do?
    – If we leveraged this major technology trend, seriously investing in it and it succeeded, what might that mean for our business?

What we’re really doing at this step is building out our assumption base about the future. What we don’t often realise is that we can develop this assumption base through either real experiences or hypothesized scenarios.

This is why surgeons do mock surgeries to advance their skills and why pilots spend many hours in simulators in addition to actual flying time. Study after study tells us, that the process of scenario-based thinking and imagining alternate circumstances, can actually improve the way we’ll respond in real-life situations.

You’ll be surprised how useful this becomes, not just for the act of writing the strategy, but building out what pilots call ‘situational awareness’ for all future possibilities.

5. Clarify Your Major Themes For The Next 2 to 3 Years

With all this information, now is the time to clarify your major strategic themes for the next 18 months to 3 years. Anything longer is too far out. While longer timeframes will be useful for context, most digital plans have a shelf-life of 6 to 18 months in terms of practical planning.

Ideally, you would have five major themes for your strategic priorities, and at most seven.

When Steve Jobs was re-appointed interim CEO of Apple in 1997, one of the first things he did was simplify its strategy. Over the course of the next period, he would reduce the company’s products from 350 to ten core products, announce a direct-to-consumer sales model and also invest in Apple’s re-invigorated computing offering, the iMac. These clear priorities allowed Apple to do something few other Silicon Valley companies have been able to do – disrupt itself – and set the pathway for iPod, iPhone and iPad. An incredible amount of focus, through well articulated priorities, spearheaded this strategy.

Simple examples of digital strategies and priorities might be:

• Double online conversion within 12 months
• Increase self-service by 3x
• Grow registrations by 20%
• Create a pipeline of work based on 100% customer-validated ideas
• Consolidate all digital assets into one major platform
• Create a tiered pricing model for our subscription service

Whatever your priorities, take time to consider which are the most important and articulate them clearly.

6. Define Your Objectives, Priorities and Actions

From your strategies, you can now plan your actions and tactics. These will be the ideas that will bring your major themes and priorities to fruition.

When defining actions it’s important to know:

• what the action will provide to the company and its customers
• how the action will fulfil the strategy
• what uplift (conversion, signups, revenue, etc) the action will realise
• what the action will cost (a rough cost at this stage is okay)
• when (ideally) the tactic will be released to market
• In what sequence will the tactics best be fulfilled (some tactics may be better placed than others, to set the foundation for future tactics)

Once you have this, you can sequence these priorities into a roadmap.

‘Levelling’ of tactics will be important. The digital strategy would ideally clarify major themes and potential priorities, but also needs to leave space for teams to autonomously decide how they will fulfil these tactics.  If the level of the tactic is too low, it may encroach on the planning domains of small teams.  So the priority needs to be high enough to inform the work of teams, and not so low that it duplicates it.

If there’s one thing that frustrates digital people, it’s being told the solution, rather than the objective or problem to be solved. Digital teams are so often incredibly creative, hardworking and highly specialised; by sharing the digital strategy with these teams and asking for their help to bring it to a reality, it’s incredible what can be accomplished.

7. Review The Strategy Regularly

Remember, the strategy is a living and breathing tool. It requires attention if it is to grow.

While many companies return to their strategy every year, I’ve found the best success is to make it part of regular meetings, so teams are reflecting on it at least every month (but ideally even more often than that). The digital strategy can also complement any planning methods already part of your organisation, such as Objectives & Key Results, which may be part of a quarterly planning framework.

By applying these steps you will think like a strategist. I hope these seven activities are of help- and I wish you the very best with your digital strategy.

The post 7 Steps To Build A Digital Strategy appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

But we don’t have to be frustrated by this question. I’m just happy when people ask.

That’s because there’s a bigger risk when we think that CX and UX are the same thing.

They are related, but they’re also very different.  And both are highly relevant to helping companies compete in the experience economy.

Unfortunately ‘digital’ as a specialisation has not been kind when it comes to buzz words. When we talk about things that sound the same – like User Interface and User Interaction and User Experience – it’s easy to see why our specialisation is confusing to many people. Likewise, it’s no wonder customer experience and user experience are often intertwined.

In this post I share my perspective on how CX and UX fit together. These principles are not set in stone….rather they’re intended as a guide to help clarify these concepts and avoid confusion.

How to Define Customer Experience and User Experience

Customer Experience is an umbrella concept encompassing all channels and all products and how people feel and place value on experiences (broad or narrow) with a brand.  It involves a broad concept of experience, where CX “encompasses the sum of all interactions between an organisation and a customer over the entire relationship”.¹

User Experience refers to a “person’s emotions and attitudes about using a particular product, system or service”.² The term became more widely used in the 90s but has origins that stem from the machine-age.

While User Experience can relate to physical products, it is most commonly aligned with computers and, even more recently, the development of interfaces that have emerged via websites, smartphones and mobile apps. As a result, User Experience is (in the majority) focused on digital experiences and is concerned with the question ‘how can the end user achieve their goals’.  It’s worth taking a look at Peter Morville’s seven perspectives of user experience that can help explore and validate product design.

The practice of User Experience supports a brand to design digital journeys that solve the “right problem for the end consumer in an efficient and enjoyable manner.”³

Okay, But What Are The Practical Distinctions?

If we stick with the definitions only, we risk missing the distinctions between CX and UX. So here I’ve considered CX and UX across a variety of dimensions.

Now these are generalisations, so please don’t be upset with me if these are not 100% accurate. Generalisations are useful, but they do not always capture the full reality. I recommend a soft focus when we consider these to help us spot the larger differences between CX and UX:

A Working Example….

While CX and UX can be pursued as seperate activities, better value is achieved when they’re used together.

Let’s consider an example.

Several years ago I worked with a team to design a new mobile app. We used CX to conduct high level data gathering about what might be important to people when using this future service, which interactions these customers performed frequently, how a new service could help them with these behaviours, whether they would use the new service when at home, the office or on the go. (For interest, Designing CX has some excellent resources for CX journey mapping.)

We also explored with customers whether they would place value in a mobile app and what features they would expect to see within an app. We used this information to develop some broad concepts of what the mobile app might do, and then explored through focus groups how these concepts could fit into peoples’ lives. I would consider all of this work to be Customer Experience.

When we shortlisted features for the app, we developed paper wireframes for the app’s main screens as well as some typical tasks we might expect users to do (like ‘register for an account’). We used these paper wireframes to run one-on-one user research sessions with customers, the input from which we used to refine our designs. From paper wireframes, we created an interactive prototype. Again we tested this with users, using the prototype to ask users to try a series of tasks.  We asked users to score how ‘usable’ they found the prototype. We also used these results and insights to refine the prototype further. Eventually we did a final round of testing before launch of the app. I would consider all of these activities User Experience.

Both CX and UX worked together in this project. Without CX we would not have known whether a mobile app would be useful to customers and how it would naturally fit into and complement their lives. Without User Experience, we may have built an app that was not fit-for-purpose and didn’t help customers to perform tasks as simply as possible.

This example shows how both CX and UX are discreet activities but add value to one another when used in combination.

I found Digitalgov‘s article on the differences between CX and UX particularly useful. However, I would adapt their model to show CX and UX overlapping (as is shown under the ‘Bingo!’ heading).  While both can operate together, both also have their own specific disciplines and practices, and thus can operate separately.  I suggest showing UX as a smaller discipline, to reflect it’s narrower focus when compared to CX.

Exceptions That Challenge CX and UX Conventions

These guidelines are not fixed in stone. While the insights above are useful, it’s important to point out some exceptions and emerging issues.

Recently I’ve been thinking about three examples that provoke new thinking.

#1 ChatBots:
According to Business Insider, the global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.23 billion by 2025.⁴ ChatBot’s go well beyond simple screen design, relying on content and conversation to respond to customers. While ChatBots occur within a digital experience, the ways in which ChatBots engage with users departs from many of the conventions of user experience.

#2 Voice (eg. Google Home)
The emergence of voice-enabled computing and artificial intelligence, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, also challenge the concept of user experience. Customers understand these services because they are an extension of services we have come to know that are primarily digital. For example, ordering an Amazon product on Alexa is an extension of ordering an Amazon product on their eCommerce website. However, over time these services will create completely new interactions and services. These products blend digital and physical interactions and require a larger concept of experience. While the specific task we seek these products to perform on our behalf might be considered User Experience, the study of how we use voice-enabled devices in the home and how these change our perception of convenience, are really questions for Customer Experience.

#3 Digital, Data and Push services
Services that blend digital experiences, with rich data and proactive notifications, will also stretch our perceptions of UX and CX. User experience is often concerned with solving a customer pain point or increasing customer delight. Yet, many of these new services focus on small increases of convenience. For example, when Google Now prompts you to try a different restaurant from the one you’ve eaten at last week, this may uncover a problem the user didn’t know they had (eg. the need for more variety / something novel). Whereas people used to either ask friends for recommendations of restaurants or turn toward review aggregation sites to discover new restaurants, this interaction pattern blends these two worlds with Google’s understanding of the user’s previous behaviour (eg. in this interaction, Google is the trusted friend and review source). Though the interaction may be digital, the ways in which it challenges existing behaviour redefines the concept of ‘looking for a restaurant’ which challenges broader concepts of customer experience.

These three examples aren’t cause to throw out the models above, but they do point out some of the emerging trends to consider.

That’s a wrap! I would love to hear how you view CX and UX. You can share your thoughts using the comments area below :).

References:

1. Understanding Customer Experience, HBR.  https://hbr.org/2007/02/understanding-customer-experience
2. User Experience vs Customer Experience: What’s the Dif, Digital Gov. https://www.digitalgov.gov/2014/07/07/user-experience-ux-vs-customer-experience-cx-whats-the-dif/
3. User Experience, Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience
4. The latest market research, trends & landscape in the growing AI chatbot industry, Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/chatbot-market-stats-trends-size-ecosystem-research-2017-10/

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I gave a response at the time and then thought about this question for days after the meeting.

The first things that came to mind were technical skills and expertise… but the more I thought it, the more I realised that doing well is about having the right attitude.

Unfortunately, intangible attributes like ‘attitude’ are often overlooked in favour of more tangible skills, despite its importance to leadership.

The following are 5 attributes I feel are important in any career, and on reflection have certainly been important in my own.

#1. Do good work

These three words are deceivingly simple. When we’re doing ‘good work’, we get a sense of focus and pride. We show our best skills and leave each day creating something better than was there before. If you are constantly seeking to do ‘good work’, the work you do today will be better than the work you did yesterday. While at first you will be the best measure of the work you do, if you do good work- you will become known for it.  Aim to be known for delivering great things that help the business you’re in and its customers.

#2. Foster a positive outlook

There will be aspects of your job that frustrate you. There will be setbacks. Sometimes these setbacks will occupy your thoughts, and threaten to distract you from larger goals. As you progress the challenges will become bigger, but so will your goals, and your ability to deal with and navigate ‘prickly issues’ will also expand. My advice is to foster a positive outlook. Spend time each day thinking about the positive things you’ve done. Learn from what you could have done better, without dwelling on it. There’s a difference between taking a learning from something and judging yourself negatively for it. A positive outlook will make you more adaptable. It will also make you happier at the end of the day. And most of all, others will appreciate it.

#3. Collaborate with others

Very little work can get done without the input of others. This is even more so today, as organisations adopt ‘matrix structures’. It seems like a cliché, but being able to work with others (to affect change, have healthy debate, solve problems together) will get you far. What’s more, you’ll win the respect of people and maybe make a few friends in the process. When leaving companies, so many people I’ve worked with say “I’ll miss the people” before they say “I’ll miss the work”.

#4. Focus on the priorities

As we progress in our careers, our time becomes more and more scarce. There will be more people to see, you’ll have larger opportunities to tackle, and there will be unexpected issues that beg for your attention. You’ll quickly realise you can’t do everything. You’ll have people and teams to help you, and they’ll be a tremendous support, but even with them you simply will not be able to do everything. You’ll have to prioritise. Focusing on the 20% of activities that create 80% of the results is a great place to start. Ask ‘what’s essential’? Ask ‘what’s impactful’? Ask “what can we stop#8221; As Steven Covey says “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

#5. View happiness as a key measure of your performance

Treat happiness in your job as one of your key measures. Overall, on balance at the end of the day, we need to know we’re enjoying what we do. If you are not happy for a significant period, I recommend having a conversation with your boss.  If you run your business and are your own boss, you might have to have one of the toughest conversations of all… a conversation with yourself.  These things are simple to say…. but hard to do. I do hope though that in your current role you are more happy than not. Overall happiness and general job satisfaction is the secret to high performing individuals and teams.

If you are thinking about a change in career or role, you may find my article on factors to consider in your career decision useful.

The post 5 Tips For A Fulfilling Career appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

While the piece is 20 years old, it is still highly relevant in describing how companies are creating billion dollar valuations and start ups are securing new customers.

In the article HBR suggests “experiences have emerged as the next step in what we call the progression of economic value” and that “an experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event.”

Now it would be tempting to think that experiences only relate to activities like theme parks or concerts…but an experience can be wrapped around any product.

During a recent interview by Jim Courier of Roger Federer at this year’s Australia Open, Federer was asked what role he plays in designing his Nike outfits. The 6 time Australian Open winner went on to say how Nike fashion emulates the story of his successes, as marked by the use of a Flinders Street station symbol on his shoes. He said these are not just products, these are stories.  In that single comment he connected the product to a larger experience, as expressed by his personal story.

Consider Nike’s wider efforts to connect its products with Apple devices, such as with the Apple Watch® Nike+.  Here is a company that is deeply involved in experiences at every level, from Roger Federer’s sponsorship through to the Nike+ app.

Today everywhere we can see examples of the experience economy. Some companies concentrate purely on the experience, whereas others wrap an experience around a physical product.

Here are 5 other examples of how companies are integrating their offerings into experiences:

• Uber: It’s not just about finding a ride, it’s about having a pleasant journey, having simple payment and then ongoing confidence….now it’ also about knowing your ‘rider rating’.
• Netflix: It’s not about finding great content, it’s about knowing whether that content is suited to you, and what other shows you’ll like.  Digital experiences are at the heart of how Netflix delivers for its customers.
• Rent The Runway: it’s not about just getting that special something to wear out, it’s about having an incredible selection of choice, the convenience of that choice coming to you, and super easy returns.
• Dyson: it’s not just about a vacuum, it’s about having the transformer of vacuums (that can change to any nook and cranny), going cordless and having the assurance the product is good for thousands of hours before it breaks.
• Expedia: it’s not about finding a great hotel, it’s finding THE HOTEL that is perfect for you, which others have loved, getting it at a great rate and having trust that it will be an amazing experience.

Can you think of others?  If so, consider sharing your thoughts below.

The post Why the Experience Economy is Here To Stay appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

First, Netflix removed the five star rating that is displayed across its content. Like others, I assumed that this star rating system reflected the ratings for shows and movies by real users. But as described by Netflix, the star rating system was actually a rating of how various content would be a potential match to your personal preferences. So whilst you might see five stars for House of Cards, your neighbour might only see three stars. In place of this rating system, Netflix introduced a ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ way for users to cast their vote on content.[2]

The second change is to also replace the stars with ‘match’ (or match rate). Match displays a percentage figure next to each show or movie, almost like a ‘compatibility rating’ to suggest how well this content may be a fit for your preferences.

Now, we have known for many years that Netflix content has been somewhat personalised. Netflix has whole teams whose job is to tag and analyse content, to enable content to be aligned to the very specific niche preferences of its users. To a large degree, the ‘behind-the-scenes’ personalisation of Netflix content has been an ingredient of its success. However, while the recent changes are consistent with Netflix’s strategy toward greater personalisation, there is also a departure from what it has done before – which is to make this personalisation so visible to the viewer.  It is this important shift in viewers’ perception (which is created by the visibility of this measure) that could well be the success or failure of this feature.

‘Match’ is neither a friend nor a review crowd sourced from other people as with Rotten Tomatoes. And I assume it’s not meant to be. It does require a further action on the viewer, which is to imply a question that requires answering, ‘do you agree with this match rate for you’? Much like the ‘swipe left’ or ‘swipe right’ on Tinder and similar dating apps.

Netflix and many others have incredible sway in the way trends are adopted by millions and the way these trends affect mainstream behaviour. In just a few short years Netflix has completely changed the way content is not just consumed, but also made. To accept all this ‘goodness’ and digital disruption, as viewers we have to be prepared for some change we don’t like. Such is the bind of technological advancement that characterises society today.

It’s quite possible that in months ahead we’ll readily accept ‘match’ as though it has always been there.  As users we are becoming far more accustomed to accomodating new features put into the software we use every day.  The concept of ‘feature shock’ is far less of a factor than it was five years ago.

And yet I can’t help but think of the days growing up when I’d listen to Bill Collins’ midday movie prelude, before sitting down to enjoy an all-time classic like Roustabout. Those days are some time ago, but for now as a viewer if I had my choice, I would be switching off ‘match’….just for now. How about you?

Notes:

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/250934/quarterly-number-of-netflix-streaming-subscribers-worldwide/

2. Of interest, Netflix still makes previous user ratings available to individual’s through their Account page – http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/7/15212718/netflix-rating-system-disapproval

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Over the last year I’ve been reflecting and studying what makes a Digital organisation great. This has been a process of re-considering past experiences, interviewing current digital leaders in their fields, and reading books that exemplify digital practice.

Through this process there are 7 processes that stand out of the world’s best Digital companies.

Whether it be “pure-play” digital operators or established organisations that are doing more than ever with digital, these competencies separate some organisations from the pack.

These processes complement how to think like a strategist.

#1. Focus on The Customer

Building a capacity to focus on the customer is fundamental to doing digital well. This goes beyond talking about customers. It involves developing a deep understanding of customer wants and preferences by involving them in listening processes (whether this is using focus groups, interviews or observational research).

The best digital organisations connect the design and development of digital products directly with customer insights. How does this work on a day-to-day level? We would know we’ve reached this point when any developer building software can pick up the phone or write an email to a customer and seek immediate feedback on their work.

This connection is so important because it links the act of product development directly with the audience the product is intended for, and it does this in a meaningful way. This has become one of the principles for how Digital companies create extraordinary products.

#2. Service Design

Service Design has been around for some time. In the last few years we’ve seen this discipline develop new energy. I personally believe service design (including Human Centered Design) will be one of the largest growth trends for organisations in the next five years.

To do service design well involves developing specific competencies in this area. It involves taking an entire view of customer journeys throughout the cycle of product purchase and use (both online and offline), putting ourselves in the shoes of people we’re trying to reach, and developing deeper insights about the needs serviced by the products we create.

Service design also involves building multi-disciplined teams that have the remit to explore and innovate on what is present today.

#3. Digital is Everyone’s Role and a Specialisation

As more and more customer interactions migrate online, digital is becoming central to organisational strategy. Whilst previously digital used to be the role of a single team, now all areas of an organisation need to think about ideas. This is a much needed shift in organisational behaviour. In the past we have seen the same trends emerge in other areas – marketing, operations, fulfillment – all have surfaced as disciplines in their own right. Today Digital is also making this journey.

It’s important to distinguish between how ideas are conceived and how work gets done. While all areas of businesses can conceive and contribute ideas for digital, doing digital work does require an aspect of specialisation.

Mature digital organisations leverage many areas of expertise such as release planning, user experience, visual design, coding, development, and so on. While these specialisations can be established in pockets across an organisation, they can be accelerated by centralisation.

As a result, the hallmark of a mature (or maturing) digital practice is evidence of these competencies being centralised.

The concept of centralisation does not necessarily mean people sitting in the same place or reporting to the same person. Modern work-practices (eg. remote working, collaboration tools, etc) lend to far more fluid interpretations of centralisation. An example of this is a Guild within Agile frameworks. Guilds bring people together that share common interests so they may share knowledge, tools and practices. In so doing Guilds centralise knowledge across potentially geographically dispersed teams.

#4. “Agilification”

Agile has become a buzz word in many organisations. But beyond the hype there are several principles embodied in Agile that make a real difference to how teams work.

These principles are: i) breaking down work into discreet chunks of activity, ii) structuring work based on dedicated capacity, iii) making work (and progress) visual.

The characteristics of Agile are important because they respond to three very ‘human’ questions about how attention and feedback is structured:

– what do we need to work on?
– how can we ensure we are focused on the work at hand?
– how can we receive feedback on our progress (particularly with complex projects)?

When organisations help their people know how to respond to these questions, teams are generally more focused and fulfilled.

#5. Focus on “Ways of Working”

Every digital team adopts tools and frameworks to get their work done. This is one of the keys to building an effective team.

Sometimes these are new training programs to educate new staff about which methods they’ll need as part of their day-to-day activities.

There is an important difference though between learning a method from a text book and learning how that method is used within a specific company.

‘Ways of working’ go beyond the method, looking also at the cultural nuances of the tools and frameworks used in an organisation.

For example, ‘backlog’ is a tool. But whether backlog is captured in software or handwritten onto cards and stuck on the wall, has as much to do about an organisation’s way of working as the theory of managing a backlog.

In the best digital companies, theory and practices are enriched and kept alive through meaningful ways of working.

#6. Blend Process & Creativity

Getting digital done right involves left brain and right brain activities.

Structuring releases for new mobile apps can be relatively complex, requiring detailed process and planning skills. But developing new interface designs for a mobile app requires creativity.

Almost all aspects of digital work require a blend of ‘creativity’ and ‘process’. When organisations try to structure digital teams with too much process, design can become hamstrung and bland. But when there is no process, creativity can become whimsical and design lacks alignment and focus.

For this reason, the best digital organisations blend process and creativity; from the environments they create for their people, to the way work is approached.

#7. People as a Strategic Capability

In the last decade, digital has grown rapidly as more companies shift operations and selling processes online. This has been further accelerated by a groundswell of adjacent trends, including the shift toward mobile handsets (compared with desktop internet use), a surge in mobile apps and changes in human behaviour.

Fortunately, with all this demand for digital, we’ve seen new career types emerge. Social media managers, paid search specialists, digital product owners… many of these roles did not exist some time ago. Right now there are more opportunities than ever for people entering the workforce to consider a career in Digital.

The downside for organisations is that the growth in talent does not always outstrip demand. So in some industries and geographies, it’s increasingly difficult for organisations to attract and retain strong digital people.

The best digital organisations recognise that ‘people’ are a strategic capability. As such, in these organisations people strategies look beyond recruitment alone, to also consider how people are engaged and grown.

This involves activities at all levels of the organisation – from connecting teams to the company’s mission or vision statement, so they can understand how their work has meaning, through to giving them unique opportunities to grow their skills in the business.

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