Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Is Culture a Choice?

In 1999, four entrepreneurs, technologists, and thinkers assembled 95 theses around a central theme: The Internet has changed how we communicate. Christopher Locke, David Weinberger, Rick Levine and Doc Searls explained that markets are made up of people. Ten years on, many companies still struggle with The Cluetrain Manifesto's original message. Doc Searls is still writing about providing tools for individuals to manage relationships with organizations. Customers free to select the experiences they want are more valuable, says Searls. But, while “the flywheels in the selling machine are huge,” the buying tools are still inadequate or lacking. The automation people... Read more →

Things that Only Books can Teach

There are things that only books can teach. Their format is most suitable to sharing knowledge, wisdom, and arguing a point. A good book opens new worlds, it gives us words to say the things we feel. Sometimes, it also opens our mind. For many, the love of books starts early. Mine comes from the experience of going to the bookstore with dad. He was a voracious and curious reader and would buy a half dozen books at a time. Of course, back then bookstores were more like churches or temples than supermarkets, to put it in the words Carlo... 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 →

Books as Personal Media, Most Interesting Titles for Reading

Every season has its books. Winter seems to have come early in the Northeast this year, which means curling up with a good book. I love learning through reading. Reading is the most intimate conversation we have with an author. So in this sense, books are the highest form of personal media. This reading list is based on personal interest, not pitches from publicists. It includes a variety of works with upcoming release dates, and also some older and worthy titles. The books we haven't read yet represent untapped potential. All progress begins with an idea someone expressed, others discussed,... Read more →

Brand Building Toolkit, Personal is the Best Form of Personalization

Personal is the best form of personalization and is stronger than a faceless company brand today. Connection is a result of interactions that over time leads to trust and often love of the kind you cannot bribe. We respond to knowing whose hands or thinking have made something. Influencer marketing is hot because it's about human impressions. Friends and people we trust are our closest influencers. Facebook's organic reach continues to decline. While many mainstream brands distributed through retailers are declining, many direct to consumer products are connecting with people. Publishing on your own domain is still the best way... Read more →

Our Attention Filter has Ten Instinct-Shaped Holes in it. Learning What They Are Helps us Deal with Risk.

We manage to ignore all the noise, including much potentially useful information and data on the facts, yet we pay attention to stories and snippets that trigger our dramatic instincts. That's because we get an emotional high from them. Our filter has ten holes in it. Hans Rosling named them in Factfulness. Fear is the most used among them — the others are gap, negativity, straight line, size, generalization, destiny, single perspective, blame, and urgency. Fear is hard-wired into our brain, we fear missing out (FOMO) and we have a strong fear of failure, making a mistake. We should learn... Read more →

The Ever Moving Line Between Marketing and Media

In the last two years I've been sending out a weekly update with articles from Conversation Agent and things that made me think from elsewhere. Some readers love it and provide feedback. But that might not be enough to sustain it over the long run. When your publication doesn't reach a critical mass on feedback, if you see no sharing from the active group, then it might be time to retire it gracefully. As is often the case, when not enough people activate the silent majority decides. The truth is that I haven't put enough effort into awareness and distribution.... Read more →

The Best Story with the Most Impact

Brand is an interesting concept for many organizations, especially in the digital era. It's helpful to define what you do and to understand how clients and customers experience your product and service. In some cases, it can help a company reconnect with purpose, or define a new one. Having a brand strategy helps move beyond existing as a product — many Software as a Service (SaaS) companies, but also professional service organizations start there — and building an actual business. The practice of positioning the value you offer helps define purpose for the team, your clients, and potential investors. It's... Read more →

All Communication is Persuasion

“As practitioners, we have a responsibility to know what we are doing,” says Faris Yakob in a recent conversation# about strategy. There's a time for every purpose. But there isn't an infinite amount of time (or customers) we can burn through. With digital media, building brands has become more approachable by many (see social media)... and more difficult. Because when we make the mistake of conflating short term, direct marketing-like ROI with what we should do to build for the mind- and long-er sustainability, we maximize for confusion. Says Yacob: Brands doing it well are the ones doing holistic comms... Read more →

Love Lessons in Customer Experience from Mr. Rogers

“Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.” This was part of Fred Rogers' commencement address at Dartmouth College in 2002. His message was simple — deep down we know that what matters in life is helping others win. That was his lifelong message. Later in the short talk, he repeats what he said during his lifetime achievement... Read more →