automation

I originally wrote today’s post for NICE inContact. It appeared on their site on July 1, 2021.

Back in late 2015, I wrote an article titled Work Harder or Smarter? in which I offered up some ways to help employees work more efficiently – ultimately, to work smarter. The last item on the list was automation. Fast forward five plus years, and automation is likely at the top of the list now for a lot of companies! But for many, the term “automation” brings chills, with visions of job losses and customer frustration.

Here’s an uncomfortable – yet indisputable – truth: you are in business to create and to nurture customers. Without customers – and especially without employees to create your products and to serve your customers – you have no business. Regardless of company size, region, industry, etc., you are in business for the customer, because of the customer.

Ultimately, “create and nurture customers” must come down to helping customers solve their problems, complete the jobs they are trying to do, and achieve the outcomes they desire by using your products or services.

"The stock market today is a war zone, where algobots fight each other over pennies, millions of times a second...inevitably, at some point in the future, significant losses will end up being borne by investors with no direct connection to the HFT world, which is so complex that its potential systemic repercussions are literally unknowable." Felix Salmon

If you are a B2B marketer, you’ve probably heard the terms “game theory” or “gamification” in regards to advertising a few times. But what does gamification mean and what does game theory have anything to do with marketing?

I don't follow everyone back on Twitter. This is an intentional act. I don't follow everyone back because there are too many spammers to deal with and frankly, If I do follow you back, it's a very intentional act—I follow you for a reason. Tomorrow, somebody can send me an e-mail and say—"we've solved your problem by inventing a service which only follows back real people, no spammers".