Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

People Don't Converse, They Comment. Big Difference

We have a conversation problem. Social networks have exacerbated it, and the wrong habits keep getting reinforced. People think they are conversing. Instead, they are commenting — big difference. Here's why conversation and comments are not the same thing. By definition By definition, a comment is a note that explains, illustrates, or criticizes the meaning of a writing. It's an observation or remark that expresses an opinion or attitude and/or a judgment we express indirectly. We enter a comment in a thread, a discussion group, or a stream any time reacting to what is being said, but mostly putting forward... Read more →

The Seven Deadly Diseases of Management

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” [Antoine de Saint-Exupéry] Commerce is the result of a number of interconnected and interdependent actions. In order to act in the best interest of the business and organization, in addition to a product and service that solves a need, we need to make good decisions. In turn, decisions rely on various bodies of knowledge. This is an over simplification of the process, of course. But... Read more →

The Three Kinds of Feedback and our Triggers

Every time we engage in a transaction or renew a membership, we're asked for feedback. We receive feedback after events and meetings we organize with clients and colleagues. The problem with feedback is that we rarely know how to give it well, and seldom learn how to take it. Maybe we fail to recognize that feedback is a conversation. Carl Jung said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Michel de Montaigne said, “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” We live in the tension between... Read more →

Five Sure Ways To Ruin a Conversation

“The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.” [Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton] Martin Luther King, Jr. did not start his speech with a PowerPoint filled with bullet points and statistics. He started with, “I have a dream,” then painted a picture with his story, a story of what could be, not what should not. By doing that he connected with all the people who were listening to his address as they went about engaging in their internal conversation about a similar dream. Using a word instead of another can make a tremendous difference —... Read more →

What Happened Ten Years Ago.... is Still Happening Today

“We like lists because we don't want to die.” [Umberto Eco] It all started quite innocently in August 2007 with the idea of publishing a list of top women in PR we knew about in our circles to help spread the word. This site was barely a year old, and it was a place to put ideas out there, think out loud with others when people started reading, and build on the resulting ideas. The list gained velocity as people started spreading it. Then all hell broke loose. There's a very good reason why the phrase “you can't please everyone”... Read more →

A Midsummer Reading List

[image library Delfini, Modena*] We can find more reading lists than time to read. And many of those lists include the same books. Unlike my experience growing up — among the 5,000 books in my house were so many books I hardly ever hear talked about, timeless classics across domains from theater to politics, science and art. My father's library was my antilibrary. Often, when we talk about reading a classic book in some cases we are doing it for the first time, but we say we're re-reading. Italo Calvino wrote some thoughts as to why read the classics rather... Read more →

Building a Case so Strong that it's Self-Evident

“You've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.” [Steve Jobs] What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer? Why us? These are the three key questions we should ask ourselves when we're working on a new product. It's not a question of positioning, that comes later. At this stage we're looking for a set of benefits that is so strong that they're almost self-evident, so we can take customers on a journey with us. Which is what answers the third question: why us? When something like this... Read more →