Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

A Pragmatic Look at Marketing Trends

This post is part of a new series on industry conversations worthy of attention. Marketing trends, or how we would call fads if they were with us for the long haul. It's hard to shift through search results and be impressed these days. Or find something pragmatic to do after reading/listening to some of those lists. Rand Fishkin has collected a list of top search results# for trends that are hardly new, hardly actionable, and hardly surprising, I might add. AI, voice search, chatbots, beacons, virtual and/or augmented reality, blockchain, native ads, video, ephemeral content, micro-influencers, mobile-first indexing, and mobile... Read more →

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership, or, as we call it in Italy, “mangia.” It's last night's pasta, but with more Parmigiano Reggiano. Thanks to the Internet, it has never been easier to claim to be a thought leader. They're every marketer's favorite words. But is thought leadership not just another name for pushing an agenda? Is it thought control? And if everyone claims to be a thought leader, who’s following? Are thought leaders running out of thought? These are some interesting questions raised in a conversation sponsored by The Writer# with Cristina Ampil, Managing Director, U.S. Thought Leadership, PWC and Nick Portet, Creative... Read more →

There's no ROI in Likes. The ROI is in Connection.

Ponte Vecchio, Firenze, Italia. Photo by me. This article first ran on LinkedIn Pulse. You don't get connection from status. You get it by enlivening each other other, making people stronger through engagement. Status may give you self-esteem, but alone it does not create change. It's social energy that drives civilization. But we need to figure out how it works and how to use it to benefit from it. One month ago, I posted an open invitation to talk to 30 people in my LinkedIn network. My intent was to test some ideas about the science of networks. I wanted... Read more →

Welcome to Conversation Agent

The mission of my work is to reframe how we value things (and people) to transform business culture and society. I pursue it through narrative analysis and story design using conversation as a sense-making tool. My origin story. Subscribe here. Read more →