Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

The Five Cs of Online Experiences

Imagine a world where you launch a service for 3% of people who are online only one hour per week. That was the world Steve Case built Quantum Link for, a predecessor to what would someday become AOL. They had to build their own software. That was 1985, after a failed company built for Atari games in 1983. When the company went public in 1992 (first Internet company to go public), it only had 200,000 customers, and 30 million in revenue. Has that number sunk in? Case and team were building for three-to-four years before they got some traction. It... Read more →

Medium for the Message

As a very visual individual, I am constantly helping colleagues and clients simplify communication. It should be a category on this blog, I focus so much of my work on this kind of service -- by design. The reason: when you make it harder for people to access your thinking at a time when so many feel pulled in too many directions, they will not abosorb information, just pass it along (if you are lucky), without a second thought. And that makes for poor connection all around, and a waste of resources. Spreading ideas by getting attention is one component... Read more →

Learning by Example

We often hear the expression "teaching by example" -- providing a role model for others is especially valuable when in highly visible positions. If that is true, imagine how much truer is seeing a leader learning by example. A few years ago, during a Wharton Leadership Forum, I had the opportunity to meet Marshall Goldsmith and I was impressed in more than one way. In the midst of giving us a self-focused vs. self-centered pep talk, encouraging us to pursue greatness he touched a connection node. He demonstrated an ability to learn by example when he reached out to the... Read more →

Empathy and Real Time Marketing at the Olympic Games

With the Winter Games over, we can draw plenty of leadership lessons from the role preparation, persistence, and consistency have in creating luck. Athletes make incredible sacrifices to compete at this level, and even after they gain a place in the competition, they are called to make hard decisions on participating. When prompted by safety concerns, like in the case of Shaun White, walking away from years of hard work cannot be an easy choice because it means losing the chance to win, and potentially a once-in-a-lifetime ticket to competing while the world is watching in the here and now.... Read more →

Systems, Choices, Intent

Making Sense: Systems “If the news is that important, it’ll find me.” But what determines if it’s important? Nieman Journalism Lab: If the important news will find me, how can we maximize what counts as important when it comes to this ambient transmission of information? The home automation paradox. O'Reilly Radar: We must create systems that expect us to be human, not punish us for when we are. Making Do: Choices In Pricey Facebook Deal for WhatsApp, Two Strong-Willed CEOs. WSJ: The deal illustrates how Facebook is morphing from a social network into something resembling a holding company for multiple... Read more →

How to Calculate your Brand's Worth to a Fan

Yesterday I argued that brand is an asset and it's far from done. Today, I'd like to improve our thinking about customer centered service design by asking a counter intuitive question: how much is your brand worth to a fan? This is not so much in terms of what you can make people do. It is a legitimate question to prompt businesses to focus on why you? How do you design an experience and a service layer that makes your customers lives easier, better. What are people inspired and attracted to be as a result of their association with a... Read more →

Brand is an Asset, and it is Far From Done

Every so often something dies in headlines on the Internet. Once again, it is brands' turn to take the romantic stroll. So is glowing James Surowiecki at The New Yorker#. Attention pleas aside, the economic value of brands is still driven by perception, some elements of which are transactional and appeal to reason, and some are part of the engagement layer and appeal to emotion. It is a process of active construction based on content (the product) and presentation form (the service/experience), plus other forms of context. Like under what circumstances we experience something, who, where, when, and why this... Read more →

Publishing, Machine Learning, Data-Based

Making Sense: Publishing It's a Fascinating Time to be a Publisher Today. Taylor Davidson: Depending on the data, social referral sites drive approximately 23% of publisher traffic. While still significantly less than search (organic search drives approximately 40% of referral traffic), the share of social referral traffic is growing, and as a far more immature channel than search, there’s a lot more upheaval in how to maximize social referral traffic. The Year I Didn't Retweet Men. Anil Dash: For me, for my experience, it’s better. I feel happier about the time I spend on Twitter, and it’s made me try... Read more →

There's a Way to Sell you Things to Make the Exchange More of a Human One

The other evening I came across an hour-long interview by Charlie Rose with Bill Murray# where the two discussed his role in the latest movie by George Clooney, The Monuments Men, the actor's career, and a number of acting-related topics. Incidentally, Murray did a Reddit AMA where he talked about the most surprising thing he learned about the movie. His answer (movie spoiler alert): Well probably the most horrifying thing was that there was something called Nero Edict that was distributed by the Fuhrer, Hitler, which said that if the Reich should fall, or if Hitler was killed or taken,... Read more →

Content Curation a Big Trend at This Year's Winter Olympics

I've been thinking about curation and culture for my debut post at PM Digital blog this week. The first of a three-part series on the multiple applications of content within cultural context, in support of a bigger conversation, the Games, and meaningful alignment with brands sponsorship. The topic: How Brands are Competing for Olympic Gold. The goal: Outlining examples of integrated strategic planning and marketing execution when it comes to content related to sponsorship of the Winter Games. It also starts to answer the question I raised a few years back: Do social networks see organizations as customers? And it's... Read more →