Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Do Customers Really Want to Co-Create Your Product?

Innovation is a fundamental component of true market differentiation -- and consequently a key component of business growth. Organizations that find a way to marry this marketing function with what customers really want win. How do you go about figuring out what the real opportunity is? There are biological reasons that explain why we lie and examples of unprofitable lines of business based upon direct customer requests. Knowing how to recognize what will work takes a bit more than asking what people want. For this post, however, I'm exploring a different question: do customers really want to co-create your product?... Read more →

Messaging Trust and the Decline of Peers

This is not an easy topic, trust. Because our perception is colored by many factors that range from the personal, to the professional, and everywhere in between. Trust, like influence, is contextual. To answer the question: who do you trust? honestly, we'd probably need to say "it depends". How you tell a story is as important, if not more important, than the story you tell. It's also important to remember that you can tell the story you want with words, as well as data. Numbers and statistics can be used creatively, too. I was fortunate to work with a leading... Read more →

Ten Useful Hacks to Make Things Happen

Back by popular demand, a post I wrote back in March with a new twist. My business mentor and friend reminded me of the importance of setting the process for making your goals happen -- you get things in motion, and keep at it. Once you build momentum, the outcomes take care of themselves. We can hardly make someone else or something else do what we want, can we? What we can do is having the proper attitude and approach to open up opportunity. The more expansive our thinking, the easier to find help and support along the way. I... Read more →

Up Your Score

By now you probably figured out the title of this post has a double meaning. Good, you're ready to read what comes next. As we continue this conversation on influence, I'm fascinated by some of the reactions to the posts. My goal with these simple entries is to provide enough food for thought so that you can distinguish between hype and real influence, going from temporary popularity to sustainable approaches that benefit your business. It's very tempting to dive into tactical stuff -- here's what you do on Twitter, that's what works on Facebook. However, without an understanding of what... Read more →

The Hyper-Social Organization in a Book

"Because the purpose of a company is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two - and only two - basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business." [Peter Drucker] If this doesn't sound like any place where you worked, you are not alone. In The Hyper-Social Organization (Amazon affiliate link), Human 1.0 founder Francois Gossieaux and Ed Moran, Deloitte Director for Product Innovation, write about putting people back into business and getting to know and work with its communities or tribes. In... Read more →

Hype vs. Value and Why Everyone Wants Buzz

Your content can educate, inform, entertain, and even inspire. There are more than 50 ways to create genuine buzz -- connecting with people by making their lives easier or by evoking strong emotions in them, for example. Writing content that is valuable to the people you want to attract is a little bit easier when you're passionate about the topic. Another case when value comes through is expert knowledge. This is especially true for businesses that cater to other businesses. We're still talking about people needing to solve problems, and finding effective ways to do that through helpful resources will... Read more →

Is Your Service Agile?

You and your organization are struggling to keep up with how technology has affected the way people communicate and work. You are not alone. The last IBM Global CEO Study (‘The Enterprise Of The Future’) interviewed 1,130 CEO’s in 45 countries and 32 industries, and found that organizations not only felt bombarded by change, but that many are struggling to keep up. Last week, we debated why customer service in social is not fair. The inability of organizations to keep up with their customers is very much part of why -- if you're in a big company, your business is... Read more →

Reputation Management and Value

You understand this quite well as individuals -- your reputation builds your credibility. Your credibility is the ultimate value of why someone would choose you over someone else for a project. It creates trust. Trust in turn helps you establish mutually beneficial relationships with others to get things done. These actions, over time, increases your social capital and your conversational index online. You can manage your individual reputation, or that of your business by attending to and communicating a few things. There are things you can do: to improve your company reputation online -- by sharing what you're doing to... Read more →

Be Social to Drive Social Effectively

Although as business professionals we all understand that putting an implementation horse ahead of a plan and strategy cart is a recipe for disappointment, the reality is that in many organizations this is still what happens. If you're tasked with figuring out social media in your organization, you need to find out which are the main business pressure points to do something. They could be one or more of the following: your customers and prospects are ahead of your business in using the tools and social networks to find resources, get tips, evaluate products, and even buy things -- a... Read more →

Why Everything you Know about Influence is Wrong

Last week we talked about the five influence traps you must avoid. For this leg of the conversation on influence, we'll be reviewing the theory of the few. In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about connectors, mavens, and salespeople. He shared stories to demonstrate that in essence individual action and strong ties work together to confer different kinds of super hero powers to connectors, mavens, and salespeople. Paul Revere started a word-of-mouth epidemic for the message about the British invasion -- people believed him and sprung to action. From the book, connectors know more people and more of the... Read more →