Starbucks is a company that has amply demonstrated that it’s about far more than pouring a cup of coffee. Their famous CEO Howard Schultz has boldly led the company to take on social impact initiatives that give their customers the opportunity to participate in those initiatives. Not all of the initiatives
I learned the hard way years ago that writing succinctly is hard work – and worth all the effort. Thanks to a stringent marketing professor who insisted all case write-ups be submitted on a single sheet of paper, I developed a genuine appreciation for good, clean writing and a similar
As social media burst onto the scene as a game-changer for marketing several years ago, a lot of focus was placed on the need for brands to be transparent, authentic and accountable in their interactions. Those have always been hallmarks of good business practices, but what had changed was that social media made it
A great marketing strategy should always include research and reporting components to help sales find “gold” in potential and existing customer data to gain new revenue. Sales teams are always looking to their marketing counterparts to help get new leads to turn them into successful opportunities. It's simply not enough to just provide names
The CMO Council’s Liz Miller thinks mobile is such a huge issue that we absolutely need to talk about it – and I couldn’t agree more. One of the reasons is that there seems to be a slight disconnect between how quickly our customers are advancing in their mobile lifestyles
Kicking off the new year is a great time to assess what's worked and what hasn't, take inventory, check assumptions and do other things to prepare you for a fresh new year. It's also a perfect time to get a broader perspective on world events and what might happen in 2015 that
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” -Dr. Seuss About three months ago, I invited marketers to join me on a journey through the Big Data Archipelago, a collection of 10 islands, each focused on a key big data topic (see island names above). A visit to each
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive hurricanes to hit the eastern United States came ashore in October 2012. Airbnb, an online matchmaker for travel rentals, was one of several organizations that immediately put big data to
“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.” –Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web Last year, the International Institute for Analytics (IIA) and SAS published the research report, “Big Data in Big Companies,” written by Tom Davenport and Jill Dyché. For this report, they
“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” – Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO Have you read Tom Davenport’s “Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century” article in the Harvard Business Review or Jill Dyché’s fun take-off, “Why
