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  • Thought Rocket: The Conversation is the Collaboration

    Workplace chat is something I am heavily focused on at the moment, i.e. my customers use of Microsoft Teams. Either through lack of knowledge or legacy thinking, I’m faced with initial confusion. This quick video aims to tackle that. I’m trying to emphasise that it’s not about the many things I get asked to address…

  • Thought Rocket: Persona’s and knowing your users

    I put this simple video together the other day. I shared it on LinkedIn and it got some good feedback – check the comments. The post and comments go in to more detail in terms what I was thinking and how responses helped me flesh it out a little. So herewith, the video:

  • What good data looks like

    This last week I attended a meetup and workshop in London organised by Customer Success Network, a European based not-for-profit community for customer success managers. It had the same title as this post. An excellent session which started off with a few minutes of talking by Dan Steinman, GM Gainsight EMEA. I then facilitated one of the…

  • What business are you in?

    The question in the title derives from the classic marketing thought piece by Theodore Levitt entitled Marketing Myopia. At the time it rocked not just the marketing world but the business world in general and has shaped business thinking ever since. Published in the Harvard Business Review in July/August 1960, it is no less relevant…

  • State of Customer Success 2018

    I attended Pulse Europe (the 4th) on the 8-9th November, an event run by Gainsight, a Customer Success (CS) technology vendor. They run the larger, main event in the US and I had the pleasure of attending last year where I captured the State of Customer Success 2017. So this is a timely update with…

  • Enabling Usage Insights for Office 365 Customers

    This post provides first some simple context for whom and why it is important to understand usage of enterprise technology platforms and then how we enable it at Microsoft for the Office 365 suite of products. You can skip the context and head straight to the enabling part if you like. It’s important for Customer Success…

  • An explorers guide to the new era of work

    The explorer There’s a long list of traits prevalent in the explorer, people that are naturally inclined to overcoming challenges and seeking new discoveries in any field, place or time. Those traits that stand out for me are the joy of mastering new skills or knowledge, an insatiable desire for uncovering truth and new things…

  • SaaS beyond Software – Automakers

    The auto industry needs Customer Success managers. Geoffrey Moore, famed author of Crossing the Chasm and father of Moore’s law is writing a new book on Customer Success. This slide above comes from a talk where he is quoted applying the concept of customer success to manufacturing. I applied the same thinking in this blog…

  • Agile in nature not just by name

    Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft where I work) recently shared his thoughts on how organisations need to embrace “tech intensity” to innovate and grow in today’s high-intensity digital economy. He didn’t specifically call out speed but its implicit in everything he said. I’m surrounded in the work I do at Microsoft, by IT teams that…

  • Role of Self Service in Customer Success

    Customer success teams were put in place in technology SaaS and subscription companies to ensure that customers are successful in their use of the technology they invested in. They have become a core part of ensuring the customer derives long-term value and ultimately stays with the vendor (in other words renews the subscription). But has…

  • Role of Sales in Customer Success and 6 rules to guide you

    How many times in your role as a customer success manager working with customers, have you struggled with the solution you are trying to implement where it has not been sold right? By solution I mean what is constituted in the solution selling process (products and services, solving problems or needs and/or delivering specific business…

  • Of hopes and dreams in organisational transformation

    I work indirectly in the organisational transformation business. I help with the adoption of new technologies. This often drives a need for change. Ideally I see it being done because a group of forward thinking individuals have realised the need for change. Perhaps they see there are better ways of achieving outcomes than in the…

  • New directions in content creation

    I’ve just enabled the new Gutenberg editor in WordPress, what I use for my site and blog.  The goal of this new editor is to make adding rich content to WordPress simple and enjoyable. This post is a test and a review all in one. It’s not an entirely new concept since platforms like Medium…

  • How the specialist engages with work

    Choose it, don’t let it choose you. Engage in the process of engaging. Don’t just say yes to what is thrown at you from team mates, bosses, customers, random approaches from the web and social media. Be discriminating or become a generalist. Be focused or fail, as in Warren Buffet’s 5/25 Rule Arrogant you might…