Personalization matters: three articles speak to the heart of "the era of you"

When I first started talking in 2011 about "the era of you" as one of the big ideas driving our tech and business future,   I wrote:

The era of you: a great idea revolutionized by 21st century technology
Image from the Palm Springs Automobilist Facebook site

"It’s partly about the way the internet and social networks are changing our sense of what a community means. It’s about the increasing ability of end users in enterprises to choose and deploy their own technology solutions. It’s about the flattening of power structures in business and the increasing power of consumers to interact with businesses. But none of these by itself expresses the big idea; each of these trends is a part of the bigger concept:

Technology is enabling individuals to know more, in more places and situations, and have increasingly powerful choices about the way they live and work. We are entering the era of you."

The era of you stakes are getting higher, reshaping business models and business strategy.  Here are recent articles that drive the point home:

--from Fast Company
Why Companies Now Have to Romance the Same Customers They Once Bought


--from cloud integrator Appirio, on Salesforce.com
Salesforce’s shift in message is a recognition that consumers have more power than ever before in a connected world. No longer are they at the mercy of companies that treat them poorly; they have a loud, far-reaching voice with real power in the marketplace.

--from CIO.com
Gartner finds that CIOs now identify Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as their top IT spending priority

Finally, here is my report on what Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" can teach us about the power of technology. It can personalize business relationships and reintroduce the small village metaphor on the stage of the whole world:

We can now use technology to re-introduce highly personalized services that feel like village life in its most idealized form. Who will dream big enough to bring it to us? As Belle said, “there must be more than this provincial life.”

Design firm Ziba: 12 trends for 2013. How many does your business know?

The 12 Trends That Will Rule Products In 2013 | Co.Design: business + innovation + design:

How does your company value customer-facing employees?
Image from vogue.it

Here is another set of predictions for 2013, this time from design/innovation company Ziba by way of Fast Company. Their insights are worthy of attention by technologists and business strategists, because they remind us of one really important idea: some of the most important news that impacts tech and business is not directly about either one.

These four stood out:

#2: Customer-facing employees are your brain and your backbone. "Technology in 2013 will focus on helping (frontline) employees do more, more intelligently, and the wisest organizations will invest in this wholeheartedly."

#4: Worth is determined by philosophy, not price. "If two competitors spend equal amounts on production, the one whose ideals resonate with the target market is the more valuable.  Your values are a competitive advantage."

#7: Technology moves too fast to care about.  I've written many times that corporate IT will achieve true value when it essentially disappears, when those who consume IT's work no longer have to know or care how it was achieved.  Ziba's take: "...it’s become too much, too fast. The Internet runs on an alphabet soup of languages and protocols, and only a slim population of early adopters counts pixels or processor speeds anymore. The rest of us just want to know what it’s like to use."

#9: Brand loyalty is how we escape decision fatigue.  "...our options have multiplied rapidly, and it's wearing us out."  It's like asking a really trusted friend, "which one should I buy?"  The difference is, loyalty to your brand could take the place of that friend's advice.

All of this is pure Era of You impact: business success driven by personalization of service, tech-enabled social business and relationships, and corporate concern for users and customers.

A Student's Smart Microsoft Rebranding Is Better Than The Real Thing | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

Image from fastcodesign.com

A Student's Smart Microsoft Rebranding Is Better Than The Real Thing | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

I think the Fastcodesign branch of Fast Company does some very nice work.  Design is an important part of the way the future will look and feel; it's important.

Lately, the idea that you use a screen to simulate the 3-D look of real objects has started to seem very old-fashioned.  Compare Apple's "bookcase" metaphor on iOS to the rebranding of Google's online look (no drop shadows, no "raised-looking" buttons.)  If you view the article's slides on this student's MS rebranding, there's some excellent discussion of this next generation of thinking about digital design.

This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business | Fast Company

This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business | Fast Company:


If you care about your business in the 21st century, please make time to read this article.  Here are two important ideas from Fast Company:

1. "The pace of change in our economy and our culture is accelerating--fueled by global adoption of social, mobile, and other new technologies--and our visibility about the future is declining."  


2. "The next decade or two will be defined more by fluidity than by any new, settled paradigm; if there is a pattern to all this, it is that there is no pattern. The most valuable insight is that we are, in a critical sense, in a time of chaos."

Chaos-surfers.  Image from Fast Company

Understanding the Infrics.com big ideas is one key to riding change successfully.  Although there is chaos, there is an underlying pattern of emerging technologies and societal trends.  I won't attempt to predict the exact shape of the future, but I do believe you can focus your attention on key ideas, and take actions that prepare you and your company to cope and thrive. 

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