Technology Revolution: The Future of Now

The buzz: "Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil" (David McCandless). Big data has officially crashed into the business world, taking competition to new levels. Can your organization benefit if you don't have qualified data-science resources like a data science lab or pedigreed experts to navigate and take advantage of AI, Machine Learning and other powerful technologies? Good news. Packag...

The buzz: "Videos are more frequently shared on social media as compared to written content." (Koka Sexton) Whether you are in sales or marketing, it's time to think outside of the box to reach and encourage prospects to buy from you. How? Create videos in-house using your own people. Then use the video content in sales and social selling strategies. We have tips and tricks to optimize engagement...

The buzz: "Using Instagram in B2B marketing actually isn't a bad idea" (komarketing.com). If your business is unsure about which social channels to focus on, here's the scoop. "When most B2B marketers think of Instagram, they may think of teenagers or millennials who are using it to post photos about their lives...a 2017 Marketing Profs infographic reports that Instagram is the fastest growing pla...

The buzz: "Our emerging workforce is not interested in command-and-control leadership. They don't want to do things because I said so; they want to do things because they want to do them" (Irene Rosenfeld). Businesses are drawing on full-time and external employees – contingent workers, SOW-based consultants, freelancers, contractors, gig workers – to get work done in new ways. The new employment...

The buzz: "Technology is reinventing the store and reimagining the customer experience….experts encourage retailers to…shift mindsets to customer behavior" (medium.com). From social showrooming to crowdsourcing, smart curation to sustainable fashion, the fashion industry is evolving and technology plays a key role in how we dress. IoT sensors and beacons recognize shoppers and personalize offers....

The buzz: "In the old days, sellers would bring their Rolodex from company to company – now they bring their LinkedIn network" (@RobBois). Top salespeople have mastered social networks to grow revenue potential, exceed quota, prospect efficiently, and maintain a robust pipeline. How? They play by each network's etiquette and what, how and when customers want to see information. Our panel shares pr...

The buzz: "Modern Corporate Real Estate Management can surely contribute to the transformation of real estate from being a mere 'cost of doing business' to a true value generator" (servicefutures.com). Of the $25T in U.S. real estate assets, $10T+ is owned by non-real-estate companies, municipalities, and institutions. For most of them, it is the second largest balance sheet item and operating cos...

The buzz: "If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places" (Fred Kent). By 2030, 2/3 of humanity will live in urban areas and megacities with 10+ million populations will increase by 65%. Good news: cities bring innovation and economic progress. Not-so-good-news: cities are bogged down by traffic congestion, aging inf...

The buzz: "56 cents of every dollar spent in a store is influenced by a consumer's digital interaction with the product over multiple connected devices." (deloitte.wsj.com/cmo/2017/01/26/2017-consumer-products-outlook). Consumer Product (CP) companies are being forced to rethink channel partner relationships, product mix and pricing strategies. Why? Because of business-as-usual disruption by eComm...

The buzz: "…we are in the middle of this Platform Revolution. The platform facilitates an accessible, scalable and efficient network of users, services, devices and intermediaries … value is created, distributed, discovered and consumed." (ING, 2016). In this digital age, successful platform businesses are using scalable cloud system architecture and sophisticated technology, and implementing smar...

The buzz: "No one in the world needs a Rhino horn but a Rhino" (Paul Oxton). Africa's wildlife threat levels are growing at alarming rates – particularly from the poaching of elephants and rhinos. Traditional conservation methods fall short due to lack funding and people-power. Enter a creative solution: technology with purpose involving drones and GPS, sparking a new definition of ERP: Elephants,...

The buzz: "There are loads of studies which show that marketers struggle with measuring ROI from social media" (David Moth). If you're the designated social selling results "bean counter" for your company, the standardization of digital performance metrics will give you relief. How? You'll be able to measure the business impact of all digital selling performance across the organization and provide...

The buzz: "Chief sustainability executives the new environmental chiefs…wield extraordinary power" (www.sustainabilitydegrees.com). More employees, consumers and stockholders expect the companies they work for, buy from and invest in to be purpose-driven. How to get on board? Hire a Sustainable Innovation Technologist to develop teams, solutions and procedures to grow efficiency, employee retentio...

The buzz: "We will design products differently if we knew that those products were going to come back to us as manufacturers and we could extract value from them and create new products from them" (Teresa Domenech). The last 150 years of industrial evolution have been dominated by a one-way Linear Economy model of production and consumption. Goods are manufactured from raw materials, sold, used, t...

The buzz: "The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what makes it so powerful" (Jonathan Zittrain). If your business is reviewing social media channels to determine where to focus your people and time, you may be dismissing Twitter as not a serious tool. Facebook has the most users. LinkedIn is for serious professionals. Twitter is in-between. Per the American Press Institute,...

The buzz: "…women are starting to gain ground as consumers and workers in a traditionally male-dominated industry, and brands should be taking note (Jose Costa, Huffington Post). Women driving the automotive industry? In 2014, Mary Barra broke the automotive industry's boys club gender barrier when she became GM's first-ever female CEO and Chairman. Women are also driving car purchase decision tra...

The buzz: "…there are some job perks that will make millennials consider working for less, by as much as 12 percent" (cnbc.com). Few things impact employee productivity, engagement and well-being as much as compensation. But as definitions of work and workforce change, top talent may not be interested in traditional pay-for-performance formulas. The experts speak. Dr. Gabby Burlacu, SAP SuccessFac...

Truth time: Do you stalk prospects to get into their Facebook newsfeed? Or are you a patient advisor in their buying journey? We continue our discussion about the do's and don'ts of Social Selling, and how you and your team "should" vs. "should not" behave in the digital world. Yes, the Golden Rule still applies. The experts speak. Barbara Giamanco, Social Centered Selling: "Words, once they are p...

The buzz: "The strategic and financial importance of Corporate Real Estate is growing" (www.pwc.de) $10+T of the $25T in U.S. real estate assets is owned by non-real estate companies, municipalities, and institutions. Corporate real estate is often their second largest balance sheet item and operating cost. But it is not getting the respect it deserves in the C-Suite as enterprises overlook the ea...

The buzz: "Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge." (Lao Tzu) Given the uncertainty, pace, and unexpected nature of today's world, there are too many unknowns for us to effectively predict the future. Reality check: A convergence across science, technology, politics, society, economics, the environment, and growing ethics discussion, has created a complex...

The buzz: "The era of diversity as a "check the box" initiative owned by HR is over. CEOs must take ownership and drive accountability among leaders at all levels to close the gap between what is said and actual impact" (Deloitte). Diversity is an X-factor that overcomes the trappings of bias, but there needs to be a second ingredient that overcomes the tenacity of bias. Enter data. Diversity plus...

The buzz: "We'll never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it" (Travis Rice). Career stretch opportunities – temporary work assignments for expertise outside regular job duties – are embraced by companies and by their workers eager to showcase new skills and passions. Is this the right thing for you? Hear more insights on how each gender can accept and negotiate stretch assign...

The buzz: "It's easy to forget that for centuries – for millennia – the 'workforce' was all of us" (Peter Diamandis). Businesses today are drawing on multiple talent sources – full-time employees, contingent workers, SOW-based consultants, freelancers, contractors, gig workers – to get work done. This new employment model reality, influenced by new technologies and changing consumer preferences, r...

The buzz: "Robots have already taken over Wall Street, as hundreds of financial analysts are being replaced with software or robo-advisors" (theconversation.com). Machines are beginning to do the work of Finance professionals, using AI and ML technologies. Beyond automating transactional processes, they are beginning to augment value-based activities like analytics, forecasting and performance man...

The buzz: "While upgrading all 160,000 streetlights in Los Angeles with remote monitoring and smart controls will cost about $14 million, the city is saving $8 million per year by switching to more energy-efficient LED bulbs (CNN Money). Digital communications and energy-efficient LED lighting are revolutionizing and transforming urban lighting infrastructures into information pathways with the ca...