It was our turn to host the New Year’s Eve gathering and welcome in 2013. Friends arrived greeted by the sounds of Sinatra, a warm, crackling fire, and the aroma of garlic and basil focaccia from the oven. Conversation flowed through our modest home as groups huddled to share stories on everything from the latest college basketball
It’s not uncommon for even the strongest leaders to occasionally lose their nerve, triggered by any variety of events — a company merger, the introduction of a new team member, a change in reporting structure, a project that’s gone awry, or even simply a lack of feedback. Ironically, similar to the doctor who chooses not to
The biggest user experience change in 2012 was certainly responsive web design. As promised, I reached out to Jason Mark in order to better understand what conditions have prompted the interest in responsive design. Mark is co-founder of Gravity Switch, a design firm whose focus on usability in web design has earned them accolades in multiple industries. With pioneering work in
In 2012 ‘the customer experience’ escalated from being an often-ignored element in the design process to receiving much deserved respect as one of the most important factors driving customer purchase decisions and recommendations. As a result, and as Joe Pine discussed in an interview with Francois Gossieaux, the acknowledgement that people don’t buy products, they buy
One of my favorite places to shop during the holidays is at our local toy store, Toy City. Owner, Steve Levy has been in the toy industry for decades. He’s on the pulse of what’s new and seems to know exactly how to tailor gift selections for people on my list. This year’s challenge was finding the
Acknowledgement of the critical value of the customer experience in a business model is possibly the most notable transformation I saw in 2012. Nearly every presentation at the numerous conferences I attended had significant focus on the role and business value of the customer experience. From topics on how responsive marketing is raising the customer
Listen to everything. Learn from everyone. Act in real time. That’s the mantra of the social and brand monitoring tool, Netvibes which I use at the college where it’s my job to foster social conversations. I’ve been using it for about six months and it’s provided unexpected market insights that have lead to customer engagement
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Perhaps one of my most perspective-reversing insights while attending EduWeb 12 occurred during a conversation with Chris Penn from What Counts, an email marketing company. The reason is that Chris views email as a social collaboration tool. What!? As I tried to digest that notion I couldn’t help but imagine my overflowing Yahoo Mailbox with thousands
The realities of needing to collaborate while still protecting intellectual properties takes more balancing today then ever. This has been especially true for two MIT alumni who teamed up to co-found a Boston based biomedical company that would identify potentially breakthrough medical solutions offering the promise of saving thousands of lives and millions of health
For decades it was common practice for designers to create product ideas and take them to a manager or design team for review. Designers would gulp down critics’ feedback, revise, then send the specs on to the engineering team for development. Today, however, that process has dramatically changed. It’s no longer enough to embrace the ideas of the design team