Usability (or user) testing is one of the most frequently used methods in the UX toolbox. While many valid variations exist, avoiding these 5 mistakes will ensure that information that’s gathered can be confidently used to inform design decisions. Testing with the wrong users Some say that testing with any users is better than… Read more
Introduction It is simply incredible the pace of business and technology change in the last twenty, ten, and even the last five years. New business models and novel approaches for delivering value to customers are disrupting entire industries overnight. As the need for acceleration drives organizations beyond what anyone thought possible, tried and true methodologies… Read more
As the sales landscape has changed and evolved, many new techniques and strategies for lead generation have been created with the single goal of making sales easier by filling your pipeline with potential customers who are ready to buy. Simultaneously, new challenges like the introduction of GDPR force marketers to constantly adapt to the changing… Read more
Did you know the US was recently named the world’s largest advertising market? With each country spending billions of dollars each year aimed at influencing consumers, America leads the way with about $298 billion in annual ad expenditures. But, what’s the most effective form of advertising? In years past, advertising focused on making convincing arguments… Read more
Data models define how data is connected, processed, and stored inside a system. Getting the model correct can enable a very powerful expression of the company’s metrics and enable meeting diverse business requirements. An effective data model also provides more flexibility and extensibility in the future. Effective data models provide high speed retrieval, ease of… Read more
In a traditional CMS, the architecture tightly couples page design and layout to the content database. Pages are designed in an editor – and then saved to the back end. Modern demands for speed, personalization, and viewing device diversity have led to the creation of the headless CMS. A headless CMS breaks the traditionally tight… Read more
Customer preferences are rapidly shifting in most industries. For example, Michael Kors Holdings, Ltd. recently blamed lower quarterly revenues on missing an upswing in demand for logo’d handbags. The company had expected demand for those types of handbags to continue downward. To get a better handle of customer preferences, companies need lots a data and… Read more
As all marketers know, data is king. When the time comes for you to incorporate event activations into your overall marketing strategy, it is important that you consider the various ways that you will collect data. Doing so will help you determine whether the ROI of your program is positive and will also enable you… Read more
As technologists and strategists, our team is regularly tasked with helping clients improve visibility of their business metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). A common starting point we find is business leaders manually looking at data using classic desktop applications such as Excel or out-of-the box reports from their record keeping systems. To reduce workload… Read more
Have you ever heard of Schema.org? Seven years ago, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Yandex set out to standardize the vocabulary that content managers can use to help search engines understand their content. While the name may be unfamiliar, chances are you’ve unwittingly seen search results energized by the Schema.org standard. Ever done a search for… Read more
It is appropriate to start with my favorite quote on the subject from Michael Jordan: “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” The Challenge Adopting a successful Offshore Development Model (ODM) is an ‘Everest’ many companies are afraid to climb. If you are budget-conscious enterprise, keeping the delicate balance between the quality of… Read more
I’ve been at digital communications agencies in one form or another for many, MANY years. In that time frame, I have been shown, and exposed to, countless philosophies relating to how organizations should pursue new business and manage its existing client relationships. Constantly learning new monikers, mantras and acronyms has certainly proved tedious over the… Read more
Delivering data dashboards to business users requires several steps across application layers. Multiple systems of record are typical – and the first task is to extract all needed data from those places. Aggregation and transformation must then be performed to result in a consolidated data warehouse. The final stage is to produce valuable visualizations of… Read more
Sitecore has always adhered to Privacy by Design. This philosophy is particularly valuable in the emerging era of GDPR regulation. If you use the Sitecore Experience Manager for analytics, you can use some available tools to manage Personally Identifiable Information (PII) for your site visitor contacts. One best practice is to capture and store your… Read more
The European Union is calling the new General Data Protection Regulation “the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years”. Under GDPR, organizations will need to ensure that personal data is gathered legally. If you collect customer data from European citizens, you will be obliged to protect it from misuse and exploitation or… Read more
Back in 1926, the great Nicola Tesla was prescient in his thinking when he said: “When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole…and the instruments through which we shall be able to do… Read more
Medical Device firms have tremendous opportunities to harness the power of IoT especially given the typical product mix of capital equipment, consumables, software, and services. Capital equipment devices usually are installed and operated within the context of a hospital or clinical environment. Device manufacturers that mechanize and develop smart, connected device infrastructure could bring about… Read more
Looking back to our last post, we learned all of the Things in an IoT system must be able to communicate within a common framework. There needs to be a clear communication protocol in place that defines what the format of the payload looks like when Things communicate. When this framework is defined the full value of… Read more
