Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

How Confidence Builds Credibility, and Lack of Action Erodes Trust

It is no secret that people are getting increasingly skeptical around marketing messages, that they report hating the interruptive nature of advertising, and the sneaky ways companies manage to get around the boundaries they set. We have been reading the headlines in articles and posts for years. If you start counting from the first publication of The Cluetrain Manifesto#, at least 12 long years. The conversation was possible because of the increase in use of the world wide web#, the system that sits on top of the Internet: A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering... Read more →

Minibar for the Mind

In brief: two years ago, Morgans Hotels Group collaborated with The School of Life to insert Conversation Starter kits and other food-for-thought artifacts and experiences on its premises. Making room for a time out is an excellent idea often waiting to happen. Wherever I travel, I make it a point to meet with and connect people who are doing interesting work. Conversations are an amazing discovery and engagement tool. Last week, during one of my frequent trips to New York City, I had the opportunity to discuss the importance of taking time off. For students, it is useful to have... Read more →

Gigaom: Experience-Based Brand Evolution

My work centers on helping organizations tap into the power of digital transformation, including sorting out the social space in the middle, how it affects the people and process part. I am now working on the more nuanced application of evolved social systems to produce advantage in multicultural applications. Gigaom has been one of the top go-to resources from the very start. I still remember how Om Malik stood out in the reporting of the first large Skype outage. Time and time over, his grounded perspective on emerging technology has provided relevant nuggets for the formulation of actionable strategies. I... Read more →

Top Conversation Agent Posts for September and October

The Data Overlord The second theme for our discussion on the future of social is dealing with data. With the ability to track everything -- both due to the growth of social networks online and users rapid technology adoption on and offline -- understanding what customers want is within reach. For this reason alone, big data has become the new shiny object in marketing. Whether that is a gold mine or a royal headache depends on the level of tech integration and analysis capabilities available to the organization. [read more] +++ Find the R Spot and Make Marketing Sexy Again... Read more →

Three Primary Domains to Master for Organizations: Identity, Information, and Relationships

“These days, a different ideal for organizations is surfacing. We want organizations to be adaptive, flexible, self-renewing, resilient, learning, intelligent-attributes found only in living systems. The tension of our times is that we want our organizations to behave as living systems, but we only know how to treat them as machines.” [Margaret Wheatley, 1996] +++ They are the three conditions of self-organizing organizations: (1.) Identity is the sense-making capacity It starts with intent, the belief that something more is possible as a group, followed by a sense of self to rally around. We never simply “know” the world; we create... Read more →

Deep Work Requires

Both -- the ability to start, and that to continue, ignoring self-doubt and persisting until completion. Whatever it takes. It often takes more than you thought. More energy, more homework, more discipline and focus, more time, and when it comes to conversation more context. We live in a both/and world. Technology may have accelerated its speed, yet humans are still grappling with what to start and why, and then how to keep going when the initial enthusiasm is over all the way to execution completion, and then to start over again. The challenge is particularly acute after a number of... Read more →

Design Experiences that Put the User at the Center

Attention may be the currency of the Web. However, it alone does not translate into action. People spend more time online, visit more Web pages, and click on more links than ever before, yet all this isn’t necessarily leading to more transactions. Today, a Web or in store visit from a mobile user is almost certainly less likely to convert into a purchase just from a click. Brand tweets are seen by ten times as many people, yet they are only half as likely to get clicked on as they used to be. While attention online seems to go up... Read more →

The Very First Thing You Do

Say someone in your neighborhood is building a very nice addition. Or maybe the family next door has redone their landscaping and it looks fabulous. You finally get to replace that last vinyl casement window in the house. What is the very first thing you do? I would be willing to go way out on a limb and say you probably power up your PC/tablet/phone, depending on where you are, and search for the name of that home builder (which took you three rounds to see from the tiny sign filled with words and a memorization game to recall), landscaping... Read more →

Q&A on the Nature of Influence

I was going through my files last night and found this interview I did a while back on influence. My focus at the time was on content strategy to help brands switch mindset from broadcasting to publishing and interacting. While influence continues to be a big topic in some social circles, my work concentration has shifted more strongly to the strategy and design of digital, social, and physical service and product experiences to help businesses rediscover the value of promises and its effect on relationships and culture. Anyway, I thought you would enjoy revisiting some of the ideas I started... Read more →

Lack of Cohesive Social Strategy Plan Prevents Firms from Fully Realizing the Benefits of Digital

A new research study by IBM on the customer-activated enterprise# outlines three major themes that underscore the importance of social for firms to fully realize the benefits of digital. In reading the report, and from hundreds of interviews I conducted over the years with C-level stakeholders and their teams, the themes are not about technology itself, in fact many firms have more software and tools that gather dust in the underutilized pile. They are about market approach. Digital at the core transforms a business fundamentally to support a different way to operate with partners upstream and downstream, and provides the... Read more →