So, you’ve decided to begin a new market research project.  You’ve got your email database that you’ll send the questions to and you’ve opened up your market research provider’s survey builder to create the survey.  You may have done it dozens of times before; that is, begun a research project knowing that what you’ll get back is a group of conclusions about your group and segments of your group, which may be by any combination of demographic criteria.

When you’re done with the research and analysis, you’ll have a team meeting, report on the results and maybe test a few changes in your marketing or sales plan.  Sorry, that’s not good enough.

Here’s a test to see if you’re getting your money’s worth:

1. Does your research platform automatically append every response to the respondent’s email in your database?
2. Can you convert zips to cities, states, regions, or countries with one click?
3. Does it enable you to ask and analyze responses to open-ended questions, without limit?
4. Can you see all the language that was used by respondents to open-ended questions by simply clicking on a word?
5. Can you convert words into phrases and segment your database based on emotions, frustrations or perceptions?
6. Can you convert word clouds into bar charts with one click?
   
7. Can you create a lexicon of common words or phrases that your database uses?
8. Can you send your questions out to any number of people, 10,000, 100,000, 1 million without an upcharge?
9. Can you ask the same database some questions tomorrow and then ask a different set of questions next month without an additional charge?
10. Can you create and analyze segments based on any combination of closed- or open-ended responses?
11. Can you save segments and know that they’ll automatically build as you add new people to your database?
12. Can you create a segment to ask clarifying questions or send them an email tailored to their frustrations, needs or opinions, all within the same platform?

If your answer is “no” to any of the above, you’re not getting your money’s worth. Take a look at Oomiji because this platform was built to do all of the above.  Oomiji is an end-to-end solution that enables you to build your customer database, query them with research, which can be closed- or open-ended, segment them by any criteria and respond to them any way you want.  One Oomiji client made this observation, “If database acquisition, market research, CRM and email marketing had a baby, its name would be Oomiji.”

In its full application, Oomiji is a customer engagement tool because it enables you to learn what your customers are thinking, acknowledge their comments and then respond to them based on what they’ve told you.  If you think about it, that’s just how we build relationships when talking to each other 1:1.  It makes sense and while you’re at it, you get a pretty amazing research tool that gives you more than your money’s worth.

You can learn more about Oomiji at oomiji.com or watch an intro video here.

Tags: Analysis, Append Data, Corporate Myopia, CRM, Customer engagement, Customers, Database, Demographics, email marketing, end-to-end solution, lexicon, market research, Marketing, Oomiji, Open-ended questions, Outcomes, Respondents, segment, segmentation

It’s hard to estimate the damage done to United Airline’s brand from yesterday’s “incident” on one of its flights from Chicago.  (I’m tempted to describe it in more Draconian terms but there’s more than enough social media for that.)  First, there’s the proliferation of the multiple videos that have now been seen by tens of millions of Americans.  Second, that the man so violently ejected was Chinese has created a whirlwind of social media among many millions in China.  (Anyone for a flight from Beijing to LA?  I hear there are seats available.)  Finally, for today at least, is the tone-deaf response of United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz in which his use of the non-word, “re-accommodate” is getting its own share of Internet derisiveness.  Wow!  What a mess!

If you think this will all pass, consider this:  Today’s drop in United stock has already cost the airline about $600 million.  What a waste of brand equity!  So, let’s assume Mr. Munoz calls you up and asks, “What should we do?”  We can expect the usual mea culpas, compensations to people on that flight and perhaps some people will lose their jobs.  But that won’t stem the long-term damage so here’s a proactive plan to retrieve that lost brand equity.

1. Send an email to all your customers worldwide. Apologize, but do more than that.  Ask them to answer a few questions that will help you ensure not only that this never takes place again but show United how it can improve its service to all its customers.  As to what questions should be asked, here are a few:

•  How did hearing about or viewing the incident make you feel?

•  How do you think an overbooked situation should be handled?

•  What is the most frustrating thing about flying from purchasing tickets to arriving at your destination?

•  How has this incident effected your willingness to recommend United to others?

Just those four questions – that’s all you need to ask.  They’re all that anybody cares about so don’t muck it up with marketing speak or other meaningless questions.

They are open-ended questions and they should remain that way because people will see that you really are interested in their opinions.  Yes, responses to open-ended questions can be difficult to analyze but don’t worry we have a solution (albeit self-serving) for you there.

2. Send every person who answers those questions a thank-you email.

3. Analyze the responses and create needs-based segmentations from the feelings and frustrations that are expressed. While you’re at it, create a lexicon of words that respondents used.  (Here’s the self-serving part.)  Oomiji can do all that.

4. Create a separate response for each major segment. Compose an email of what you heard, what you learned and that you’ll respond to them again in a few weeks with all the changes you’ll make.  (Oomiji can do that for you too because we append every single sentence to their email address.)

5. Make some real changes that help solve all the problems you learned about. By asking open-ended questions, you’ll hear some things you didn’t expect.  We’ve found that’s true for every client we’ve ever worked for.

6. Write the respondents again and let them know the changes you’re making. Send each segment all the changes but put the ones most meaningful to them at the top.

7. In a couple of months, ask them if they’ve seen any changes and their responses. Thank them again.  You might even reward them because ultimately, it’s the answer to the last question above about their willingness to recommend United that counts.

8. Repeat this process regularly and make sure you dispense with corporate speak and open yourselves up to active listening, acknowledging and responding. That’s the Oomiji pattern and it works.

Will this get United’s $600 million back?  We believe it will and they’ll reap the bonus of creating a better airline at the same time.

You can learn more about Oomiji at oomiji.com or watch our intro video here.

Tags: Americans, Assumptions, brand equity, Corporate Myopia, Customers, dragging passenger, Leadership, Marketing, Mistakes, Oomiji, open-ended research, Oscar Munoz, Outcomes, Situation Analysis, Social Media, U.S. Marketplace, United Airlines, United CEO

It’s been some time since I’ve written on this blog.  That’s because I’ve started a new one at my new company, Oomiji.  Check it out at oomiji.com.  I’ll repost many of the blog posts from Oomiji here but some will also appear here that you won’t find on Oomiji, such as my upcoming holiday cartoon (a monumental challenge this year).

I’ve been thinking a lot about this Carl Sagan quote lately as I’ve watched several well-conceived businesses fall by the wayside, others make what may become terminal errors and, our recent election.  Thousands of small businesses decline or fail every year.  In just the past five years, AT&T, Alcoa, Bank of America, Hewlett Packard, and Kraft Foods have all fallen from the Dow 30.  And, of course, the can’t-lose, first-woman president who would ride to victory on a female, Hispanic, black, college-educated coalition didn’t.

Just the other day, Warren Buffet was quoted as saying about Wells Fargo, “Cultures shift.  You can turn it for the better or worse by your own actions.”  About the election, I’ve heard that Hillary Clinton lost because of racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism and as many other “-isms” that you could name.  To all of those, I say, “No, it’s more basic than that.  She simply didn’t listen.”  She didn’t listen to the shifting cultures all around her, not only to those who worked against her but to those who voted for her or supported her but weren’t motivated enough to come out and vote.

In an earlier iteration of Oomiji in 2004, we were asked by the Howard Dean presidential campaign to give them some insights on why his Internet fund raising was drying up.  His was the first campaign to raise massive amounts of money in small gifts over the Internet.  The answer was pretty simple then too.  Supporters told us that all Dean’s campaign did was ask for money, again and again.  They never asked for opinions from the people who gave.  Politics teaches some good lessons about business because much it is laid bare before the public.

There are a lot of ways to listen to your customers and constituencies.  We built Oomiji as both a listening and segmentation tool, so you can converse with people, divide them into segments and send targeted communications that are tailored to their needs, perceptions or frustrations.  It’s a way of monitoring and understanding how cultures are shifting and how to address people who are caught at any point in the shift.

You can participate in an example of how Oomiji works by taking our short survey on Customer Engagement, two words that get bandied about by people who may not fully recognize their implications.  If you take the survey, we’ll send you a summary of what people said and that way, we can all listen to see if we detect some helpful insights into our own businesses.

The oft quoted admonition, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” was told to Paul Newman in the mulit-Oscar nominated Cool Hand Luke back in 1967.  Yet, despite nearly 50 years that have passed, communication is still our greatest failure.

Tags: Carl Sagan, Communication, Corporate Myopia, Culture, Customer engagement, Customers, Democrats and business, Leadership, Mistakes, Outcomes, Politicians, Republicans, Warren Buffet, Winning

After starting a war that has become a plague, which will likely last decades, and leaving the economy in shambles, I never thought I would feel complimentary toward President George W. Bush. But watch this CNN interview with Jeb Bush and see if you agree.

In the interview with Jeb Bush, he says 5 or 6 times that “we need a strategy to deal with Islamic terrorism.”

When asked what the strategy should be, he lists a bunch of tactics including enforce a no-fly zone, give aid to the Assad opposition, etc. He never suggests a strategy.

The interviewer eventually shows a speech by former Governor George W. Bush in which he says, “The face of terrorism is not the true face of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”

Therein lies a strategy. If you can position terrorists as not being Islam and acknowledge Islam as one of the world’s great religions, you can (1) put terrorists on the defensive in their cultural and social campaign; (2) rally the Islam world in showing support for their religion; (3) stand more chance of gaining support from Islamic political and religious leaders that we all need to fight against terrorism.

President Bush’s problem was that he chose the wrong tactics to pursue the strategy and that brought disastrous consequences. You can’t say you’re one thing and then, go out and act like another.  When he got his MBA, he must have passed the strategy course and flunked the one on implementation.

The next question to Governor Jeb Bush after showing his brother’s statements was “Is Islam peace, Governor?”

To which he responds, “You know what? I know what Islamic terrorism is and that’s what we are fighting in ISIS, Al Qaeda and all the other groups and that’s what our focus should be on.”

In this response, he first equates Islam with terrorism, which, if a strategy, is self-defeating as there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. That’s almost one-quarter of the world’s population. If you’re going to go out of your way to offend a religion, pick the Wiccans. I don’t know what they believe but they’re only 134,000 of them. (That’s up from 8,000 in 1990 so maybe we should be looking into their affairs.)

I think the lesson here is that if you’re going to run for President, don’t assume everyone you’re talking to is an idiot. Some of us understand that tactics without strategy is like running in circles. You might make a lot of noise, but you’ll never reach your objective.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Assumptions, CNN, George W. Bush, ISIS, Islam, Jeb Bush, Leadership, MBA, Media, Muslims, no-fly zone, Outcomes, Politicians, Republicans, Situation Analysis, Strategy, Tactics, Terrorism, Winning

There are many reasons companies lose customers but, in the end, they all come down to a lack of customer engagement or advocacy. When engagement drops to a point where customers begin saying this company makes their lives difficult rather than easy, it’s only a matter of time until they go elsewhere. The difficult part for managers hoping to stop the flow is that customer loss is usually a trickle and rarely a cascade. It can be difficult to detect and harder to understand the problem or how to fix it. This is particularly true for consumer facing B2C businesses.  B2B companies usually have client managers whose job is to stay on top of things, but the same rules apply and results can take place.

It’s true that general inertia can keep dissatisfied customers patronizing companies they dislike for a long time. It can often seem too difficult or time-consuming to change your service supplier. The hurdles presented in front of change require time to find a new supplier and leave your old one. But inertia only forestalls the loss. It never prevents it because neglect feeds upon itself to a point where customers can feel forced to look elsewhere.

Here are a couple of personal examples: one large one preceded our supplier change and one small that validated it. In this case, the industry is banking and companies, such as banks, that are pressured by both small margins and ample regulation are particularly vulnerable.

For many years, my wife and I banked at HSBC. When we made the decision to go to HSBC, we were somewhat concerned about whether we would get lost in such a large company. It’s the 25^th largest bank in the world. But they had a branch only a few blocks away from our home and offices around the world, which could accommodate much of my work, which is outside the U.S.

The bank immediately provided financing for our home in New York and a vacation home in Maine. The branch personnel were always accommodating and all was good for a period of several years. Then, HSBC began to make changes and from an outside view, it seemed they were outsourcing many of their in-house services to cut costs. Service bureaus began to answer phone calls or deal with problems, many of which were not connected to each other. There was no single view of the customer. Decisions moved further away from the branch to be centralized by policy makers who were guided by lawyers. The bank would probably blame government regulation but part of succeeding in business is maintaining excellent customer relations regardless of what is thrown at you from the outside. The old saying, “Don’t make your problems into your customer’s problems” always holds true.

One day about five years ago, the local mortgage officer, always accommodating, called to say that we could refinance our mortgages at lower rates and reduce our monthly payments – a good example of trying to make things easier for the customer. There was some documentation, he said, but that it would be easy because he would shepherd it through. So we filled out the application, paid the documentation fees, authorized appraisals, credit reports and income checks. Then, came the bad news. We had been declined. It made no sense to our local mortgage officer. We had never missed a payment, had near perfect credit scores and growing businesses. Additionally, the bank had all our personal and business accounts, personal and business loans and investments. They owned us.

But then he said, “Let me see if I can get my managers to overrule the underwriter.” That sounded odd to me and it turned out that the bank had farmed out its underwriting to a third-party firm that specializes in credit analysis, or more correctly, they had computers that specialized in credit analysis. He called his boss and I called his bosses boss, all to no avail. I spoke to the underwriter who told me that we didn’t fit their formulas because we owned small businesses that couldn’t be counted on to continue to grow. I reminded her that the bank already had our loans so it wasn’t as if turning us down was going to do anything. She said, “I wouldn’t have approved you last time either.”

To make a long story short, we finally got the refinanced loans approved but only because we refused to let it die and kept pushing the decision up to the highest levels we could find in New York. It was painful and not only took much of our time to make our case but also that of our local loan officer, so in the end the bank’s cost to make the loan was higher and it also took time away from us to devote to other areas, maybe like making more money to satisfy the underwriter.

(Now, I should add that we’re not financial slouches and I’m not looking for sympathy. Remember, customer alienation is the point and there are millions of small business people just like us all across the country.)

For us, the experience was the coup de grace in our relationship with HSBC. We decided that we would leave them at the first opportune time. Several years later, we did after rearranging some of our finances. The irony was that as soon as we did, HSBC desperately wanted us to stay. But all of the equity that their local branch personnel had built by being so accommodating had melted away and we had crossed the line from engagement to alienation.

That’s the big example that caused them to lose us as customers and while I’m using my own examples, I’ve heard similar stories among many of our friends who also are small business people. (Years earlier when I had that conversation with the underwriter, I asked her if she would have been happier if I was a manager at Chrysler corporation making several hundred thousand dollars a year. “Of course,” she replied. And I then said, “But Chrysler went bankrupt and I might have lost my job.” The conversation simply went downhill from there.)

So, we’re now at a point where we’ve changed banks but still are unwinding things with HSBC. They still have the mortgage on our home in Maine and a checking account from which they are automatically receiving the monthly payment. However, we noticed that they’re continuing to send the monthly bill to our old address, so we called to have them change the address. Simple enough.

They wouldn’t do it unless I wrote them a letter to inform them. “But you’ve verified that I am who I say I am with six questions I answered correctly. Why won’t you take the information over the phone, or online? Why are you forcing me to sit down and write you a letter?”

The reply came from a supervisor as the first customer service person agreed with me and gave up in frustration. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We can only do what HSBC management tells us to do.”

I thought about his wording for a moment. (It pays to have had a mother who was an English teacher.) “Excuse me, you said “HSBC management”. Aren’t you HSBC management?”

“Technically, no. I’m with a third-party service bureau that has to follow the procedures given to us by HSBC. I agree with you but there is nothing I can do. You have to write a letter,” he said with an air of resignation and defeat.

So, I thanked him and ended the call and thought again about the axiom, “Don’t make your problems into your customer’s problems.” It was validation for our decision to leave and find a new bank.

How bad can things get when you alienate customers? I’m not advocating that any bank’s customers leave. That was the right decision for us. It may not be for others. However, I am advocating that companies use every opportunity to determine whether their customers are engaged or alienated and why, and if so, what can they do about it. In our CRM (customer relationship management) system world, customers have become a series of transactions that we evaluate with formulas and predict with algorithms. I would argue that the transactions are consequences of their relationships with the companies and brands they use. This makes it essential for companies to devote more resources to both monitoring and measuring those relationships, and doing what they can to improve them.

The same is true internally. Employees are the brand personified. Months into our banking change, I called to speak to an executive at our old bank who had been helpful. I got her assistant who was working on the problem and said what we wanted to do could be done, but wasn’t easy. “Why isn’t anything at that bank easy?” I asked.

“Tell me about it, “ she replied.  As the lobsterman, who lives down the road from me in Maine likes to comment, “Nuff said.”

I’d love to hear your comments or stories  about successful customer engagement or, conversely,  alienation.

Tags: banks, Corporate Myopia, CRM, Customer alienation, Customer engagement, Customer relations, Customers, HSBC, Outcomes

With each passing day, it seems as if the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and while our economy expands, the divide between rich and poor gets wider and wider. Sound like an exaggeration? Perhaps not. Read Neil Irwin’s article in this past weekend’s NY Times, “The Benefits of Economic Expansions Are Increasingly Going to the Richest Americans”. Irwin cites data compiled by Pavlina R. Tcherneva, an economist at Bard College to prove this disturbing trend, although none of this should be a surprise.

Two charts in the article tell the story well. The first (below) shows the share of income growth received by the top 10 percent and bottom 90 percent of earners during periods of economic expansion.

I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, began my work career in the 1970’s and reached a modicum of business success in the 1980’s and 1990’s. My father was a doctor. We went on family vacations when I was little. I went to good schools and ultimately raised a family and owned my own business. I wanted for nothing. Life was and still is good. As a child and teen growing up in inner city Detroit, it always seemed like the auto factories were humming, the shops were full and growth in prosperity, while not perfect, was being shared.

According to I.R.S. data, I’ve been among the 10% who’ve benefited from expansions for many years. Yet, it doesn’t take much other than a look at the daily papers or a walk around any American city to see that something doesn’t seem quite right. Shoppers seem well-heeled, coiffed and comfortable among my top tier peers. But why, I wonder, when I walk into Home Depot, Walmart or the local supermarket, I rarely see exuberant shoppers from lower and middle classes? You may think it’s the stores I shop in only cater to my types but I travel and like to walk around and check in on the retail scene to get a flavor of the local zeitgeist.

The second chart from the article (below) shows the share of income gains during expansionary periods that went to the top 1 percent versus bottom 99 percent. The trend in wealth gains becomes even more striking.

 Before I saw these charts. I always thought things seemed to change for the worse in the 1980’s. That was when the idea of “trickle down economics” came into vogue and was put into practice. The idea was that if we cut taxes for the well-off, the additional amount they gain will “trickle down” to the middle and lower classes. But I always wondered how that could be. After all, I could only buy one car every few years, one boat, one house, etc., nothing like what hundreds, thousands or millions of people making less than me could do if they had the money. So how could the benefits that I and my fellow 10 percenters (alas, I’ve never made it into the top 1%) really make a difference in the prosperity of all. The answer as we can see from the data is that they couldn’t and haven’t.

Political forces on the right are quick to criticize programs that provide targeted job training, assistance to inner city residents and businesses, raising the minimum wage or any program that puts more money toward raising the lower class and taking away from the wealthy. Their answer is always to just lower taxes as the benefits will trick down for all. It’s been nearly 35 years since we’ve been practicing “trickle down” and we haven’t seen it trickle anywhere yet except to the top. In case you’ve forgotten Einstein’s oft quoted definition of insanity, it seems to fit here: “Insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.”

 Our Congress can’t seem to do anything constructive to pass sensible solutions and our President can’t persuade them to because one party thinks it’s its job is to undermine his term. And we go to the polls and re-elect the same clowns who can’t interpret the data, read the charts or come up with any compromise that might try something different to help. In 1811, a smart guy named Joseph de Maistre, wrote “Every country has the government it deserves.” We often think that quote was intended for our “exceptional” America. It was actually directed toward Russia, a country, then and now, of rich oligarchs separated from the lower classes by their profligate wealth. Sound familiar?

Tags: Americans, Assumptions, Bard College, Change, Congress, Corporate Myopia, Democrats, Demographics, divide between rich and poor, Governments, Income gains, Insanity, Joseph de Maistre, Leadership, Neil Irwin, New York Times, Outcomes, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, President Obama, Republicans, Situation Analysis, taxes, top 1 percent, top 10 percent, trickle down economics

In my previous blog post, I invited readers to take a survey about customer engagement.  More than 200 people have taken the survey and you still can.  Simply click the link:  http://surveydirectlink.com/survey/?name=engagement.

We’ve received some very thoughtful comments from people defining what customer engagement is, how companies do it wrong and best practices for doing it right.  In a few weeks, we’ll close the survey and then publish a summary so that you can read what people wrote.  If you take the survey, you’ll automatically receive the executive report.  But even if you don’t take it and you watched Karen Trudell’s Abundance of Gratitude interview series, you can receive the report.

If you’d like to register for Karen’s interview series, go to http://www.sweetperfection.org/abundance-of-gratitude

Again, if you’d like to take the customer engagement survey while it’s still open, go to this link:  http://surveydirectlink.com/survey/?name=engagement.

(BTW, if you’re using an older version of MS Explorer, you may have some issues with the survey working properly but if you simply take it on Chrome, Firefox or Safari, you’ll breeze through it.  It’s very short.)

To receive an executive summary of the survey results, just enter your email address here:

Tags: Brand Building, brand loyalty, Customer engagement, Customers, Engagement, gratitude, market research, Outcomes, Survey

“Engagement” has become a buzzword in business these days.  Everyone is asking whether they are “engaged” with their customers.  But what does “engagement” mean both to people who are in business and to their customers? Do you think you are “engaged” with the companies you buy from?  (e.g. Anybody out there in love with their bank?)  How do they think they are engaging you to build brand loyalty?

We’ve posted a short survey online and if you’d like to take it, you can simply click on the image to the left or click this link:  http://surveydirectlink.com/survey/?name=engagement.  There are only five substantive questions and you can write as much or as little as you’d like.  So far, we’ve received more than 100 responses and the subject seems to have touched a hot button with many.  If you like the survey, please send it on to others that you think have something to say about this topic.  When we close the survey, we’ll post a summary of what people have said and the best practices they recommend.  I hope it will become a good tool to use in developing customer engagement, however you define it, and  brand loyalty for your business

P.S.  If you’ve worked with different programs or programmers, you know that MS Explorer often presents some challenges from the other three major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari).  Explorer uses a different programming protocol and we’ve found that some survey respondents are having no problem with it and others are.  If the survey doesn’t work for you on Explorer, please give it a try on one of the other browsers.

Tags: Brand Building, brand loyalty, Customer engagement, Customers, Engagement, Outcomes, Survey

Everybody knows Christmas can be a challenging time.  Gifts, parties, family, travel, decorations, cards all can present vexing problems to solve every year.  For me, an appropriate card is probably the toughest thing I face.  Every year, my friend George and I develop a cartoon to use as our card and it’s not easy.

You see on the side, we’re cartoonists or I should say a cartoon team.  George draws and I write except when he draws and write or I change his drawings with photoshop and write or he draws and his wife writes or my wife and kids make suggestions.  But however it’s done, we come up with a collaborative effort every year that goes on our website GigundoIndustries.com

No doubt you’ve heard of Gigundo Industries, the largest, non-existent, virtual company in the world.  If not, you better visit the website as soon as possible for there are hundreds of cartoons there for you to peruse and even buy.

In a way, creating cartoons is similar to writing strategy.  You take a complex set of facts and distill them down into something simple that cuts through the clutter.  Only with cartoons, you place that simple statement in an unusual setting such as a psychiatrist’s office, caveman times, a prison, the North Pole or Santa’s workshop.

There was so much news this year that was fodder for our a year-end card.  Off course, most prominent and recent in our minds was the malfunctioning of healthcare.gov and that led to an idea that really didn’t require any drawing at all.

But we quickly nixed that idea because who could possibly make jokes about their government failing at something, let alone Santa?  I mean nobody wants the government to fail. Right? Yeah, right.

So then we moved on to the saga and embarrassment of Edward Snowden and the NSA snooping and came up with this:

But not exactly an uplifting story and we were looking for something more upbeat.  So we moved on to a couple of positive stories.  First, the extraordinary first-ever resignation of a Pope got us wondering if that could ever happen to Santa.

Then came the idea that the battle for gay marriage might even have reached the North Pole.  (No, this is not for you people at Fox News who think gay marriage may as well allow us to marry a goat.  Who’d marry a goat anyway?)

We just weren’t satisfied yet and then read the news that “Selfie” was the word of the year and would enter the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary.  Santa can get in on that too.

Finally, we hit upon it, an idea that would really take us into the future but have that bit of mixed message that might cause us to wonder whether things are as they should be.  2013 also became the year of the drone, for both reasons that frighten us and, thanks to Amazon.com, frighten us.  Just think if Santa employed some new technology.

That’s our holiday collection for 2013.  They’ll all go up on our site at GigundoIndustries.com soon.  Let me know which you like best.  Now, it’s back to my day job.  Everyone at Futureshift and GigundoIndustries.com wishes you the best of Christmas holidays and a great 2014.

Tags: 2014, Amazon, Assumptions, Christmas, Corporate Myopia, Creativity, Democrats, Drone, Edward Snowden, first Selfie, Fox News, futureshift, gay marriage, GigundoIndustries.com, government failure, Governments, Healthcare.gov, Media, new Pope, New Year, NSA, old Pope, Outcomes, Pope, Santa, Selfie, Situation Analysis, snooping, Strategy, The Guardian, Virtual Company

I went to a wine event today in New York for the Bordeaux wine region.  While there, I asked the representative of one of the wineries, “What’s your strategy for the U.S.?”  She responded, “Strategy?  Why do we need that?”  I gave her some reasons but the conversation didn’t go very far.

When I returned to my office, I got an email from the Pew Research Center titled “Experts rank the top 10 global trends.”  When I clicked on the link, I found a report from the World Economic Forum on the 10 most important global trends based on a poll of 1,592 leaders from academia, business, government and non-profits.  Here’s the list:

1. Rising societal tensions in the Middle East and North Africa
2. Widening income disparities
3. Persistent structural unemployment
4. Intensifying cyber threats
5. Inaction on climate change
6. Diminishing confidence in economic policies
7. A lack of values in leadership
8. The expanding middle class in Asia
9. The growing importance of megacities
10. The rapid spread of misinformation

So what do these trends have to do with something as everyday as buying a bottle of wine?  Plenty.

It’s great that a provider of any product or service believes theirs is the best but neither consumers nor b2b markets think in linear terms.  Every decision is made in relation to another.  If I’m nervous about the state of the world, that will effect how I make decisions, and what and when I buy.  If I’m an importer or distributor and concerned about unemployment and the impact of economic policies, I may want to hedge my bets with tighter inventory control.  As people focus on the macro trends that affect us all, how companies approach the environment, social responsibility and their own governance (ESG) effects our perceptions of their brands.  It goes on and on whether you’re a consumer or corporation (remember, somebody once said, “Corporations are people, my friend.”)

If you don’t have a strategy that helps you wind your way through this maze or a brand with values that reassure consumers and customers, you’re dead in the water and it won’t matter how many fancy events, e-newsletters or facebook followers you have.

Something else was interesting to me at today’s Bordeaux event.  As I went around and asked people about their wines and what makes their winery better than the rest (to which there were a lot of blank stares), nobody asked any questions about me, about my tastes, concerns, or needs.  They may as well have been Enomatic wine dispensers with an information rack underneath.  Most handed me a sheet of paper about their wines in answer to my questions anyway.

There was neither strategy present nor any attempt at customer engagement.  I imagine the woman who asked me why her company needs strategy poured a lot of wine today.  At the same time, it wouldn’t surprise me if at the end of the day, she moaned about some of the trends on the list and how they were making life more complicated.  That’s too bad.  Strategy is the direction that helps us wind our way through and around those trends and we all give our loyalty to those that help us do that.

FutureShift asks a lot of questions and listens carefully so that brands and strategy resonate with customers to increase their engagement and loyalty.  It works.

Tags: Asia, Assumptions, Bordeaux, Bordeaux wine tasting, brand loyalty, climate change, Corporate Myopia, Corporations are people, Customer engagement, Customers, cyber threats, economic policies, Enomatic, ESG, facebook, futureshift, Global Trends, income disparities, Individualists, Leadership, linear thinking, Marketing, megacities, middle class, Middle East, misinformation, Mitt Romney, my friend., North Africa, Outcomes, Positioning, relational thinking, Rising social tensions, Situation Analysis, Strategy, structural unemployment, Trade Associations, U.S. Marketplace, Values, Winning, World Economic Forum