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  • State of Customer Success – Learnings from Pulse 2017

    I attended Pulse 2017 in San Francisco a few weeks back, a three day event run by Gainsight, a vendor selling customer success software. A massive event for this nascent industry with over 4000 attendees. Gainsight is gaining traction and on the first day of the event they announced a new round of investment at $52M.…

  • Role of the customer success manager

    This is pretty much an abridged description. I’m adding a few words to some of the headers in the diagram although I think they are pretty self explanatory. If you think I got anything wrong or missed anything let me know in a comment. I’m doing this because I think it will be useful in…

  • Building user success managers

    One of a customer success managers (CSM) main tasks with customers he or she works with is to build user success managers (USM). It’s not unlike the famous Intel Inside campaign that targeted end users of a technology component (microprocessors) through promotion of the PC in which it was used. The hero was the PC. Sales of personal…

  • Technology alone is not enough

    As we approach a fourth transformation (according to Robert Scoble and Shel Israel it’s How Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence Will Change Everything), we face some challenges and questions. Will machines master humans, especially in the work place? How will we coexist with machines that begin to outstrip our intelligence capabilities? What are humans uniquely positioned…

  • Notes for system design

    I was thinking, since I’ve done some work on a few systems, that I should capture some notes. Guidelines really since I plan to create a few more :) Here is an example of one system I recently created: Lean startup methodology applied to successful enterprise technology adoption So here are the notes in summary, in…

  • Creativity jumps in top ten skills 2020

    At least according to this World Economic Forum report: The 10 skills you need to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Something to add to my new trend report – intro to that here: The post robotic AI age and the role of creativity and innovation #creativity #trends

  • The battle for the self and the essence of being

    The other day in a meditation session I arrived at an insight – roughly represented in the doodle. In my best sessions when I can get to that calm place, insights arise. Finding that place of calm, focus and insight is difficult and not always achieved in a meditation session. Sometimes just getting to calm is…

  • Kraft Heinz makes £112bn approach to Unilever

    See excerpt – interesting point: Full article on FT here: Kraft Heinz makes £112bn approach to Unilever

  • The post robotic AI age and the role of creativity and innovation

    You’ve all heard the news. Jobs will come under fire if not already so. Machines, robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI), are going to take over. The Matrix, Terminator, could all those movie scenarios have had it right? What happens if it’s all true but the ending is not a tragic one. Can we find a…

  • Round up of latest #innerventures trends

    I’m tracking these updates with the #innerventuresupdate tag – you can find all of them by following the link. They all tie in with and add to the findings from my trend report which covers startup driven innovation in large corporates, corporate venturing efforts and the role of the intrapreneur. You can buy the report…

  • Connecting customer advocates to drive product strategy and customer success

    I’ve written a lot about ways to scale success efforts but the best is always face to face. Events like customer meetups are a perfect way to bring customers together. I’m running these in EMEA for the company I work for currently. The context is enterprise technology. This is what I’ve learned so far and…

  • Customer Success from the customer and vendor’s point of view

    Just a quick doodle to capture this thought I had and a note to accompany it. Customer Success is the business I’m in. That is, the task of ensuring the customer of my technology platform (mostly this is what it concerns) is successful in the use of the platform. We both have an interest in…

  • The feature / function trap of enterprise technology adoption

    Features and functions are easy to obsess over. They are tangible. You can click a button and it does something. Or not, at least not what you expect. And you can obsess about why not and what it should be doing. I’ve been included in countless enterprise technology adoption programs and find this the most…

  • Lean startup methodology applied to successful enterprise technology adoption

    The Lean Startup isn’t just about how to create a more successful entrepreneurial business. It’s about what we can learn from those businesses to improve virtually everything we do. I imagine Lean Startup principles applied to government programs, to healthcare, and to solving the world’s great problems. It’s ultimately an answer to the question ‘How…