Category Archives: Business strategy

Faces of Pervasive Communications

January 12, 2012 9:58 am10 Comments

So what exactly IS pervasive communications?

I get that question a lot these days. I am starting a new series here dedicated to fleshing out what it means to me and, more important, what it could mean for you.

One aspect of pervasive communications is considering the types of communications that take place on the sprawl of communication options available to us. Marshall McLuhan famously said “the medium is the message” and never has that been more true. Today, communication decisions don’t only involve what you are going to say but on what medium you’ll say it.

I recently tweeted:

The implication: “Why are you leaving me a message?”

Voice communication has a value. It’s synchronous. Multiple “iterations”  of a dialogue can be completed in rapid succession. If you are leaving me a voice mail, it’s asynchronous. You are leaving the message at your convenience, and I am listening to it at my convenience. However, let’s consider the limitations of voice mail:

  1. Listening to the message requires accessing my voicemail and investing the same amount of time to listen to it as you spent to record it
  2. Most likely I will need to take action as a result of the message e.g. jot down the information you’re giving me or make a note to follow up with you.
  3. For most people the voice mail communications is a dead end. Saving, forwarding, replying are all difficult (in most circumstances).
  4. Voicemails contain data that is not easily indexed and search

In this case, perhaps another medium may be more appropriate?

This is not a new challenge. We’ve always had a wide variety of communication channel options. However, we are seeing the impact of this aspect of pervasive communication becoming more acute. What do you think?

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Looking Forward To 2012

December 29, 2011 8:18 pmLeave a Comment

Looking Forward To 2012

A heartfelt thank you to all of you with whom I’ve had the opportunity to connect over this past year: for your friendship, your collaboration and your patronage. Intelligist Group has some really strong momentum heading into 2012 and I owe a great deal of it to the support I received from friends and colleagues.

As I look back on this past year I am struck by how technology and innovation is driving new levels of interaction — a hyper-connected, pervasive communication — which is creating opportunities for business that never existed.

The impact of Pervasive Communication and it’s enabling technologies will be at the forefront of the Intelligist Group’s 2012 strategy agenda. I look forward to finding ways to work with you to leverage these strategies to help your business grow and prosper.

As an introduction, please read:

Let’s Call It What It Is: Pervasive Communication

If you want to understand the impact of pervasive communications on your business or just want to talk about some of your goals for 2012, let’s schedule some time to chat.

Happy and Healthy Holidays to you and your family.

Alan Berkson
Principal, Intelligist Group

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Let’s Call It What It Is: Pervasive Communication

October 12, 2011 8:14 pm14 Comments

I don’t want to talk about social media. I don’t want to talk about social business. I don’t want to talk about social enterprise. At least not in the context which many people seem to be using it these days. Businesses are not social. People are social. Supreme Court precedent aside, businesses are not people, at least when it comes to communication. But there is something going on that is disrupting traditional business communication.

Social, or Engagement?

When people talk about businesses needing to become more social, what do they really mean? I suggest they mean for them to be more attentive to the needs and actions of their ecosystem: customers, employees, partners, competitors, vendors…the list goes on. In the past this was done through surveys and focus groups, through phone calls and emails, and even the occasional note in the suggestion box. Was this social? I don’t know. Was this engagement? Absolutely. It was engagement using the tools — the media — available at the time. It boils down to communications. We’re living in an era where communication is ubiquitous. We have a generation of “hyper-connected” individuals with a new mind set; a paradigm shift.

To paraphrase my friend Phil Simon, “we have to raise the level of discourse.” Are we really looking to make businesses “social” or is it more about leveraging the latest communication tools? We are living in an era of pervasive communications. Social media — defined by many to include tools like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare and LinkedIn, to name a few — is just one aspect of the innovations in communication technology. We have websites, email and blogs. How about mobile? SMS? VOIP? Video conferencing? These are all communication tools that can be leveraged to increase the level of engagement a business can have within it’s ecosystem.

Pervasive Communication

The arrival of pervasive communication was disruptive. It threw a monkey wrench in traditional communication channels, and global concerns loomed larger than us or our businesses. We now have conversations occurring worldwide, no longer constrained by national or natural borders. We have adapted and learned to deal with it.

The challenge now is pervasive communication has become chaotic — the sprawl of communication mediums offer competing, yet similar functions. Conversations now leap among platforms and channels with an unprecedented fluidity — a Twitter update engenders an SMS text which leads to a phone conversation that informs a blog post that points to a web-site viewed on a mobile device which generates a sale in a brick-and-mortar venue  – yes, chaotic, hyper-connected, ubiquitous and non-linear.

With this change comes both risk and reward. This disruption presents opportunity: to leverage a new communication paradigm, or be crushed under the weight of it.

Velocity of Information

“Over the next 10 years, the amount of both real-time and historical information available to a single person will have increased exponentially, as will the ability of a single person to instantaneously touch –  and influence – a billion people in the time it takes to read this sentence.” – 2020F

Pervasive communication through the aforementioned abundance and diversity of channels puts enormous amounts of information and analytic power in the hands of the average person —  without even having to know how to research. It’s not a fire hose of information, it’s fire hoses. Just think what accomplished researchers can now do to enrich their thinking via conversations made possible through a fluid web of agile collaboration. Instant. Pervasive. Extensive.

Business Transformation

Pervasive communication is changing the way we do business. All business can now be local and global. Conversations among businesses and consumers are no longer bi-lateral. Consumers are talking to each other about brands.  This is not news for many of you, but it’s important to recognize how it has added words like “listening,” “monitoring,” and “community” to the business lexicon. Most recognize that the impact is felt throughout traditional external facing aspects of business. This could include:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Public Relations
  • Customer Service
  • Service Delivery

How many recognize the effect on internal facing aspects of business? Consider the impact on the following:

  • Human Resources
  • Product Development and R&D
  • Operations
  • Project Management
  • Supply Chain
  • Administration

Pervasive communication has redefined the nature of internal collaboration and broadened the value proposition of a distributed workforce. It allows collaboration at a high level, quickly.

New Rules For Risk and Reward

The very nature of pervasive communication enforces the requirement for businesses to present an unprecedented level of transparency – it’s tough to hide these days. If you want to see what not to do, Jeremiah Owyang has a great list: A Chronology of Brands the Got Punk’d by Social Media. This re-balances the risk/reward equation for business. Businesses face an intense level of scrutiny which requires new operating procedures and crisis management techniques, all this against the backdrop of an evolving legislative environment.

The Level of Discourse

For business, the conversation needs to be raised above the level of social media. It’s time to talk about more than Twitter monitoring and Facebook corporate pages. This is about strategic business objectives. We need to ask ourselves the big questions:

  • What is the impact of pervasive communications on my business?
  • How can I leverage these communication tools today?
  • How can I protect my businesses from the inherent risks?
  • How does this fit into my long range planning?

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Big Data Has Arrived

September 24, 2011 11:12 pm6 Comments

It’s a coming out party for data. We are recording data at historically unprecedented rates.  Have you noticed you keep getting bigger storage devices and somehow continue to fill them up? You’re not alone.

Not Your Grandparents Data

For a long time data was the exclusive domain of dedicated departments of large enterprises powered by complex IT infrastructure. The primary purpose was to capture and maintain transaction data for reporting purposes. Simple stuff like accounting general ledger, sales performance, P&L. The focus was on analysis of the past with terms like data warehouse and business intelligence being thrown into the mix.

Data Warehouse Overview

Image via Wikipedia

Where data was once collected and dispensed in a neat and orderly fashion, we now have unprecedented volumes from uncontrolled sources. We’ve not only increased volume — from faucet to fire hose – we’ve also increased in the number and variety of sources. Big data is not only twenty fire hoses, but it’s also the squirt-gun that is consistently firing in your left ear.

Finding A Needle In A Haystack

Big Data is as much about quality as it is about quantity, and it’s very much about analysis. We are accumulating data (or it’s being thrown at us) that is unstructured and disconnected. The challenge is to make sense of it all — to extract and/or synthesize the proverbial needle in the haystack. Yes, there’s a lot of data, but we have the computing power to make sense of it: on demand, in the cloud. There is tremendous potential to impact just about every facet of our lives.

The Final Encylopedia

When we have all the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, what do we do with it? We have seen some of the applications already, in sales, marketing, communications, customer service — the list goes on.

There is tremendous opportunity, but there is also risk. Pervasive use of digital media is making available an unprecedented amount data, much of which we don’t even realize we’re giving away. Ever uploaded a picture to Facebook? Twitter? Do you know What Your Digital Photos Reveal About You?

cloud computing

Image by Librarian by Day via Flickr

Here are some issues we as individuals and organizations will have to consider today and going forward:

Issue 1: Filter: There’s information overload, which creates a strong need to separate the useful data from the noise. Curation has become popular theme. How will we identify and retain the data that’s relevant to us? 

Issue 2: Retention: With my 25+ years of IT management and support experience my knee-jerk reaction is to consider how we can store, manage, protect, archive and retire it all. Information is a living entity and like all living things has a useful lifespan. At some point it must be retired and/or destroyed.  How will we continue to manage and maintain the data that is important to us?

Issue 3: Analysis: A key component of the value proposition of Big Data is analysis. Chris Heuer of Deloitte recently made this statement at at Social Media Masters in NY: “We are moving from systems of record to systems of engagement.” What can analysis of Big Data do to change your life ? Your business? 

Issue 4: Impact: Big Data represents opportunities and risks — social, business, security, privacy — there are many. These are issues we need to address as a society. How do we learn to live with the opportunities and risks inherent in Big Data?

Based on the 9/19/11 #usguyschat we felt it was worthwhile to expand on the topic of Big Data. As Ken Rosen put it, “we scratched part of the surface and have an opportunity to go deeper.” So I have attempted to place it in a broader perspective. 

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Turn On, Check In, Hang Out

August 1, 2011 4:48 pm4 Comments

What do social check-in’s have to do with “influence”? This was the basis for a recent conversation  I had with Fred McClimans of the McClimans Group. Check out Fred’s most recent post “Are We Ready to Add Cause to Social Check-Ins?” to get a sense of the evolution of social check-in. Have you checked in lately? Foursquare, Gowalla?  Facebook, Twitter, or Google+? Why do you do it? To earn reward points or get discounts/freebies? Or is it something more?

The Baby Boomers had their heyday in the 60’s with the famous Timothy Leary phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” They had civil rights, anti-war protests and sexual freedom. My generation, Generation X,  will be known for big hair, Madonna, Gordon Gekko and urban decay. Nice. And Generation Y a.k.a. the Millennials? Well, they are the forefront of a new age.  I seem to have missed all the cool generations.

Baby Boomers and Gen X are a bit suspicious of social check-in, but Gen Y/Millennials embrace it. What going one here?

Technological Descendant of Smoke Signals

Let’s go back a bit. I’ve carried some sort of electronic communication device on my person since 1987. Back then, it was doctors, drug dealers and IT professionals. I am not now, nor have I ever been a doctor, and the only thing I’ve had in common with drug dealers is we  (the IT pros) also called our clients “users.” A pager was a status symbol, of sorts. Wow, was I excited when I got a pager that gave me real-time stock quotes and sports scores! At it’s core, however, it was a communication tool, and would remain so until it’s obsolescence.

What’s worse, it was for the most part a one-way communication tool. The 20th century equivalent of sending up smoke signals. To respond, you had to turn to an alternate communication device. Remember pay phones?

Flash forward to today, where personal communication devices are ubiquitous. You have the ability to communicate with everyone you’ve ever known and a generation that’s not afraid to do just that. Prior generations made plans to meet somewhere to hang out. We would call each other, maybe send a page. Think about this: today’s generation hangs out together wherever they are!

Marketing Tool or Social Commentary

The history of innovation in communications is finding ways to leverage the power of each communication medium. Today’s marketers created the concept of a social checkin-in to leverage smartphones. They needed an alternative to increasingly ineffective “push” marketing techniques. Push marketing doesn’t work well anymore. Seeing that today’s connected, social consumers like to share with their peers,  brands cleverly attempted to leverage that behavior with social check-in services.

Now here’s an interesting twist. There is a generation alive today who is turning marketing efforts into their very own communication tools. They are turning a social marketing ploy into a social statement.

For many a check-in is far more than just participation in a brand’s gamfication strategy. It’s a densely crafted social statement. Consider what information we get from these checkin-ins and what they’re trying to say:

  • “At DMV. Can’t believe these lines…”
  • “Hanging at Starbucks talking influence with @fredmcclimans”
  • “At the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (with 1000 other people). Support me?”
We are only just scratching the surface of the impact of pervasive social connectivity and a new language to describe it. Add “check-in” to the list. Where do you see it going next?

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Influence Measurement Optimization™

June 4, 2011 3:16 am4 Comments

There’s lot’s of discussion – pro and con – about trying to measure influence, particularly in social media. The ability to accurately capture, analyze and rank influence is extraordinarily valuable. The key word is “accurately.” HiRes

There are many vendors (Klout, Peerindex, et al) trying to figure this out. Recently Klout came up with a +K button, an interesting invention. It’s like a more focused #ff (Follow Friday), for those familiar with it.  But it got me to thinking about the nature of influence in general and where this could be leading. I’ve discussed influence in marketing before (see Dark Matter and Invisible Thought Leaders) but I feel like we are moving towards a new era in “influence awareness.”

Heisenberg Social Media Uncertainty Principle

Sean McGinnis’ recent post The Problem With Klout discussed some of the challenges with one influence measurement vendor: Klout. He writes:

The minute you pay attention to your Klout score is the instant your Klout score stops being accurate.

I got flashbacks to physics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. But more relevant is the Observer Effect, wherein the mere act of observation makes changes to what it is we are observing. To look at this from a sociological perspective, in his 1976 paper “Assessing the Impact of Planned Social Change” social scientist Donald T. Campbell wrote:

The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

Arms Race

For years there has been an arms race on the Internet: Search Engines vs. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The search engines are trying hard to return accurately relevant search results. The SEO practitioners are trying hard to “game” the system, attempting to raise the rankings of particular content. This can be done because search engines have rules and algorithms that can be cracked or inferred.

So where does that leave influence measurement? Well move over SEO. It’s Time For IMO™! Influence Measurement Optimization™.  (Hey, Disney trademarked “Seal Team 6”!)

Maybe I should hang out my shingle?

Be sure to check out Part 2: Influence Measurement Optimization™ 2 – Rise of the Mathematicians

Posted in Business Strategy, Influence, Innovation, Intelligist Group, Social MediaTagged , , , , , , , ,

The Power of What If

May 9, 2011 6:22 pm3 Comments


What could you learn if you sat down with your toughest critics, your mind open and your mouth shut?



My favorite Invisible Thought Leader recently pointed out a great blog post about the Mulally Culture at Ford based on this Businessweek article from May 2007.

After getting over my bias that old content is less valuable content – tell me you didn’t think the same thing when you saw the 2007 date – some of Mulally’s actions really hit home. Case in point, sitting with his engineers as the Consumer Reports team criticized the (then) new Ford Edge. It got me thinking about customer service, corporate culture, and entrenched bureaucracies.

The term innovation is thrown around fairly liberally with questionable efficacy. True innovation comes when we set aside habits and preconceptions. So:

  • What if we were proactive and asked the tough questions? Of ourselves AND our customers?
  • What if we engaged and actually listened to and embraced the implications of the answers?
  • What if we broke down the barriers within our organization to create transparency – internally and externally?

If Mulally can walk into a staid corporate culture like Ford and shake things up, what can you do in your business?

Posted in Business Strategy, Customer Service, Innovation, Intelligist Group, Leadership, PETT, ProfServTagged , , , ,

Is It What You Have Done Or What You Can Do?

April 12, 2011 12:48 pmLeave a Comment

One of the biggest challenges in selling professional services is dealing with buyers’ preconceptions of who is best qualified to help them. It seems most buyers want to find something more than someone who has done it before. They want to know that you:

  1. Understand their business, and;
  2. have solved this problem for someone just like them.

They are looking for industry expertise. But sometimes there’s a gap between what the customer wants and what the customer needs. How important is industry experience in the buying decision?

I started in technology years ago on Wall Street. It was the beginning of a long career in Information Technology, but I didn’t realize the edge it would give me in the future providing technology services to the Financial Services industry. There were many jobs I was able to win because my answer to “do you have financial services experience?” was yes. Was I the best person for the job or was it simply a comfort level that I was more likely to be the best person for the job?

Consider these two anecdotes based on actual events:

Yes, But Do You Know MY Business?

I had a conversation with a friend in the M&A business – we’ll call him Marty. Marty typically represents people looking to sell a business. He related a recent interaction with a prospect which went something like this:

Marty: “So tell me about your business”

Prospect: “We manufacture crayons. Do have any experience in that industry?”

Marty: “Yes. We recently brokered the sale of a crayon manufacturer.”

Prospect: “Oh, well we manufacture green crayons. I really want to find someone who’s worked with a green crayon manufacturer.”

Marty: “This company was a blue crayon manufacturer”

Prospect: “Oh….”

…and then the awkward point where there is gap between the prospect’s expectations and your perceived expertise.

You’re Smart. You’ll Figure It Out.

I had another conversation, this one was with a friend who is a management consultant focusing on operations. We’ll call her Felicia.

Client: “We need some patent work done. Can you take care of it for us?”

Felicia: “I really don’t know too much about it. Shouldn’t we get a patent expert?”

Client: “I know you don’t really have the expertise. But I also know you’ll figure it out and get it done.”

Felicia: “Oh…”

And, of course, she got it done. I call this screwing up in reverse – your clients have so much faith in your abilities that they are willing to let it trump specific expertise.

So What Does The Customer Really Want?

If you’ve been in professional services long enough you’ve probably experienced both of these scenarios. They are extreme cases but they point out some of the challenges we face. Prospects and clients consider many factors in making a buying decision. But what is the most important? When prospects ask for “industry experience”, what are they really asking?

Simple answer? Trust.

It All Boils Down To Trust

What single factor do buying decisions really turn on? Trust. Trust is what a prospect shows when he decides you are the right person to solve his problem. Now we’re not necessarily talking “close your eyes, fall backwards, and I’ll catch you” trust. There are varying trust levels required for different types of engagements.

What trust level do you need in the person fixing your car versus the person handling your multi-million dollar M&A transaction? And it’s not just about the value of the transaction. You might easily sign a high-value building maintenance contract based on good references, but agonize over which nursery school to entrust with your children.

How Do You Develop Trust?

The three keys to developing trust? I call them PET: Proactivity, Engagement and Transparency.

  • Be Proactive. Take the time to learn about your prospects and clients businesses. Show them you’re genuinely interested and you can easily get up to speed on their industry.
  • Be Engaging. How you respond to questions, how you interact, is far more important than anything you had planned to say when you walked in the door.
  • Be Transparent. Make it easy for prospects and clients to vet your expertise.
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Social Media has leveled the playing field. What’s your game plan?

February 3, 2011 2:58 pm2 Comments

Courtesy of National Recreation and Park AssociationAs with any sales process, a large factor in an organization’s ability to promote and sell professional services is the ability to project their expertise and competence.  There’s a sense that the Internet and social media have “leveled the playing field,” giving smaller businesses the ability to compete and thrive. So what’s your game plan?

You Have a Web-site, Maybe a Newsletter. Now What?

What is the value proposition of social media? There, I said it. To me, social media is the “Internet Megaphone.” It’s not going to make your message any better, but it does give you an opportunity to reach a much wider audience. What are your tools? Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter – there are many. However, if you are merely translating your traditional media strategy to social media, you’re missing a whole lot.  Are you communicating in the language of social media? What is that language?

It’s All About Engagement

Social media presents some interesting and powerful opportunities to reach a wide audience.   But “swimming in the social stream” is not without it’s caveats. Consumers and businesses alike are jaded to sales pitches and being “marketed at.” There is a fine line between adding to the conversation and alienating your potential customers. In some ways social media is raising the bar, challenging marketers to not just sell but provide additional value within their message.

So we have a challenging dichotomy: there’s a fear in social media that we’re giving too much away, but content seems to be the currency. I wrote a blog a while back called The Age of Thought Leadership in which I discuss the concept of knowledge abundance vs, knowledge scarcity. Which side are you on? Does it matter?

They Said WHAT About Me?

Social media has also given power to your customers. That’s right. Your customers now have the ability to get information about your business from sources other than you! More than that, they can get information from each other about you. Are you listening to what your customers are saying about you? Are you participating in the conversation?

You’re going to tell me that’s customer service, not marketing. Is it? Is there really a difference anymore?

Marshall McLuhan famously said “the medium is the message.” While we’re not ready to throw the baby of traditional marketing and customer service out with the bath water, it’s clear that new skills and new techniques are required these days to be successful.

My Game Plan

My value proposition for social media is:

  • Sharing – Using blogs to take advantage of the Internet megaphone, to amplify conversations I have with prospects, customers and colleagues. (“Who’s Going To Read My  Blog?”);
  • News Feed – Participate in a global conversation.  All forms of microblogging (Twitter, LinkedIN, et al ). Yes, and commenting on other blogs (“4 Reasons I Like Twitter“);
  • Collaboration – Using tools to directly connect and exchange ideas, like instant-messaging (Email, Skype, Twitter DM, et al) (“Social Media is the New Water Cooler“);
  • Transparency – Making it easier for others to understand MY value proposition (“3 Reasons YOU Are Not a Thought Leader“);

So, what’s YOUR game plan?

Posted in Business Strategy, Customer Service, Marketing, ProfServ, Public Relations, Sales, Social MediaTagged , , , , , , ,

Beware Of Scope Creep

January 4, 2011 11:14 pm1 Comment

All entities have a purpose—a reason to exist. To better understand and manage “things” we define them and classify them. It could be a job description, a contract or even a country.

I remember as a kid working with my father on a home improvement project. As I was about to attempt to hit a nail in with the back of a screwdriver my Dad said “Stop! You don’t use a screwdriver for that. Use the hammer.”

It certainly looked to me like the screwdriver would have done a perfectly adequate job of hitting in that nail. My father explained that each tool had a purpose, something for which it was designed  and for which it was best.

So what was wrong with using the screwdriver? Simple. It may have worked that one time. Maybe even a few more. But in the long run it was not a good bet to effectively hit in nails and, what’s more,  would likely cause damage to the screwdriver.

What we had here was a case of scope creep. I was extending the definition and function of the screwdriver beyond it’s original intent, beyond what it was “contracted to do.”

Can You Just Do…
Let’s say you hire me to mow your lawn. “Oh, while you’re here can you just change the light bulb in the shed?” Sure, why not. It’s a little thing. “Oh, I forgot. Can you also tighten the doorknob on the garage?”

What’s happening here is classic scope creep. The original scope was mowing lawns. Changing the light bulb in the shed? Not the same skillset, but still a small thing. What about tightening the doorknob? Hmmm, I need a screwdriver for that, don’t I?

Do It Once And You Own It
I have two problems here. The first is I am doing more work than you originally contracted.  How far can I let that go before I need to charge you for it? “Can you also change the light bulb in the garage?” you may ask.  Sure. What about the whole house?

Second, and less obvious, is you are making me expand the type of work you will now come to expect from me. The next time I mow your lawn you may expect that I can also change light bulbs and fix door knobs. Even if you agree to pay me for the additional work, is that really what I do well? Can I do it cost effectively? Is all my staff prepared to deliver those additional services?

The Law of Unintended Consequences
Scope creep, unchecked, can lead to many unintended consequences, not the least of which include:

  • cost overruns and angry customers;
  • overworked and/or misused employees;
  • failure to achieve contracted goals;
  • jeopardizing the organization as a whole.

In professional services, scope creep is a fact of life. It is something we need to manage and, if at all possible, avoid. What’s your experience?

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