• Employee Experience Platform – the birth of a category

    This week, Microsoft announced the launch of a new product called Viva (disclosure). Actually it is far more than a new product in many ways. It is also an attempt at consolidating technologies in the employee experience category as well as creating the category. It is also a shrewd leverage of the Teams as a…


  • On Microsoft Teams and building digital ecosystems and platform businesses

    In a recent FT article (registration required) based on an interview with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, he makes the point that “Teams is on its way to becoming a digital platform as significant as the internet browser, or a computer operating system”. I work with customers on their use of Microsoft Teams (disclosure) day…


  • Customer success operations – some answers

    I was asked by Brook Perry from ’nuffsaid if I would be interested in contributing to an article she was working on with others to get feedback on a set of questions covering customer success operations. Being close to my heart I agreed. I’ll update this post with a link to the article once it…


  • On the value of innovation

    I’m part of an innovation community at work. A question was asked of the community, why innovation, what is its value and can we provide any examples. My answers:


  • Content Marketing 2020 – six things that work

    Six of the things that I think work in terms of content marketing in 2020, captured in a DanelDoodle. This list is not exhaustive and the brief points for each are also not set in stone. Below is a brief additional paragraph on each.


  • As a Service trend research – customer solutions

    This is a topic I will be covering as a chapter in my As a Service trend report. It’s not entirely dissimilar to one of the other chapter topics I will be covering and have written about here: As a Service trend research – products to services.


  • As a Service trend research – products to services

    One of the chapters I am covering in a trend report I am working on (As a Service Trend) will explain how even tangible products can be open to “servicification” and purchased or subscribed to. For example, razors for personal grooming, cars for transport, fork lifts for logistics, etc.


  • As a Service trend research – technology ecosystems

    One of the chapters I am covering in a trend report I am working on (As a Service Trend) will focus on technology ecosystems. Technology is fundamental to all of the solutions in the new As a Service sphere because of the connection it provides to data, between customer and provider, to physical things, etc.…


  • Workplace collaboration has an outcomes challenge – get intentional to overcome it

    With the coronavirus, workplace collaboration is getting a big boost. Just check Zoom’s stock price in the last two months. Workplace collaboration is hardly new but it does have a slew of new angles, technology vendors, experts, etc. The ingredient often missing in all the hubbub (literally and in the market) are effective outcomes.


  • Customer Success Influencers

    Not much elaboration needed but a few words just to be clear about what I am saying in this doodle:


  • The changing influence of culture and technology at work and the battle for the mind

    I work in a field that frequently deals with changing the culture of work through managed change engagements. They are most often aligned to new technology adoption or digital transformation efforts. In all this work, the typical influencers present themselves: people, technology and process. I’m exploring the first two in this post and assuming people…


  • The end of ownership and the rise of usership

    To own or to use is not a new concept. I started grappling with this at least 12 years ago when I worked for a technology division at Sony and we developed a mobile music streaming service with Vodafone. That was in the day before iPhone was launched, before Spotify, when the iPod was on…


  • Fighting beaurocracy in Customer Success

    Are you a Customer Success leader? Do everything you can to remove barriers in the way of your CSM’s so they have only one thing to focus on: Customer Success


  • Beyond Technology Adoption – Business Scenarios with Microsoft Teams

    Microsoft Teams is such an incredible work productivity tool. It doesn’t just bring work from other applications into the conversation but the whole tool itself. That plus the ability it offers to structure activities into logical workflows provides perfect context for bringing business scenarios to life. Business scenarios are an important mechanism in beyond adoption to…