Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

In a World Were Keeping Promises is an Afterthought

The business and brand that walks the talk consistently over the long haul wins. Zendesk helped reinvent customer service and the help desk#. As the company's story says, even when you are working on something with the potential to be very helpful, gaining momentum requires a bit of patience, especially when what you offer is different from "the way we do things here". Another aspect of the Zendesk story is worth noting -- the founders thought through what it would mean to be acquired by a large enterprise: “It’s really hard to say no to a lot of money, especially... Read more →

Making Sense of Change, Making do with Access, Making it Work

Making sense of Change Marketing isn't getting the market's message. Doc Searls -- Earth to Marketers: This is the market speaking to you. It’s saying the personalized advertising glass is more than 3/4ths empty. Calling it any % full is delusional. New FCC chairman tells wireless carriers to unlock cell phones. Ars Technica -- excerpted from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler letter to Steve Largent, CEO of the trade group that represents cellular carriers: The Commission has indicated that any such policy must contain five parts: (a) provide a clear, concise, and readily accessible policy on unlocking; (b) unlock... Read more →

The Difference Between Making It and Bad Luck

My resistance, make that Resistance with an uppercase "R" to math was so high through middle school that I picked Liberal Arts (Classical Lyceum) in High School to do as little as possible of it. I much preferred learning ancient Greek and Latin by the bucketload, carting around huge dictionaries with no backpack every single day to be ready for an impromptu translation in class. No lockers for us, plus we had homework every. single. day. about four hours of it after five to six full hours (yup, sixty minutes) in class. When Matt Waite talks about facing his fears... Read more →

12 Books that Changed My Life

The holidays are approaching and you might have a little time to curl up with a book. In the fine tradition of Ten Books that Stand the Test of Time, 3 Books on Leadership, a Vision of Life as Play, and Acting on What Matters, and with encouragement from Shane Parrish#, I thought it would be fun to exchange book tips. I tell you mine, you tell me your favorites. Writing a book is hard work. Writing a book that teaches something different and that has the potential to rewire how we think and behave... those are keepers. Some of... Read more →

No, Big Data Should not Replace Thinking

Especially the strategic kind. But I'm getting ahead of myself, putting the conclusion horse in front of the post cart. Who decided strategy was a fixed, once and for all, proposition? Well, whoever that was, I will plead being a woman and an Italian to boot for not reading it. We do live in the "both/and" age, where the massive number of ideas on this site are both overlooked and not referenced, despite the many links going the other way. Look, here goes another link to the evolution of strategy#, a fine post by Gord Hotchkiss [hat tip Scott Brinker]... Read more →

Brand Stories with a Pulse

A few days ago Dave Winer wrote a post on pulsing technology, about how Apple has a pulse and follows a pattern every year. The company builds expectations, then follows up with an established cadence. The Steve Jobs' defined process and event signature served the company well over the years by keeping its evangelists, developers, and customers in the loop. From Jobs' WWDC 1997 Q&A: [...] we need to keep our eye on the prize. And that is turning out some great products, communicating directly with our customers the best we can. Getting the community of people that are going... Read more →

When it Comes to Customer Support, Show, Not Tell

When a customer can grab a screen shot of something that is happening, you lose face by telling them it is not happening. Show them backup for what you are saying, or save your keyboard. It just becomes a means to a pissing contest. With content strategy being so popular a topic, storytelling stock is up again. Behind each tactical application that works is a sound strategy whereby people verify not just what works, which may be temporary especially when the sample size is small and the novelty is big, but why it does. Good due diligence helps you stand... Read more →

Making Sense of Data, Making Do with Opportunity, and Making a Difference

Making sense of data Ignore today's - indeed most - NFP reports. Barry Ritholtz on why the Employment Situation report is the single most over-hyped, over-analyzed, over-emphasized, least-understood economic releases known to mankind. Price Cost Twitter Cash, but Gave it Credibility. DealB%k: Twitter’s stock is now a public barometer of sentiment toward the company. By taking a more conservative approach to pricing, Twitter possibly deprived itself of some capital. But it won the good graces of the market, which will help determine its fate. Big Data's Diminishing Returns. Wim Rampen: This is where you do not eavesdrop but listen carefully... Read more →

Feedback Helps us Make Better (Data-Driven) Decisions

“Game mechanics are rule based systems / simulations that facilitate and encourage a user to explore and learn the properties of their possibility space through the use of feedback mechanisms.” [Raph Koster] +++ As Koster says, narrative in a game is not a mechanic, it's a form of feedback. Why is feedback important? Within the context of a game, for example, feedback lets you know how you are doing in solving the problem built into the narrative. Finding the path involves connecting a series of steps, some of which quite complex. Because the presentation of tasks is arranged to provide... Read more →

A.Maze

What one filled with astonishment feels like. Quite a curious association to the term amazing, don't you find? English is a wonderfully plastic language, it grows by use, and over the centuries it was evolved by simplification. How many words are there in the English language? The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries.# Although there is no single sensible answer to how many words exist the English language, surely we have enough verbs... Read more →